Good movies are hard to come by, even on Netflix, which supposedly has hundreds of them.
But how can you tell a movie you’ve never seen is worth watching?
One way is to check the film’s IMDb rating – if it has 6 or above, it’s usually pretty good.
Another way is to read Watch With Us, which culls through all the Oscar winners and superhero slop to select the best movies for you to stream.
This June, we recommend these new Netflix movies: the rom-com classic Four Weddings and a Funeral with Hugh Grant, Kurt Russell’s inspirational 2004 sports drama Miracle and the adult animated film Loving Vincent.
3. ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ (1994)
IMDb rating: 7.1
One of the songs in Four Weddings and a Funeral starts with this lyric: “They’re writing songs of love … but not for me.” That pretty much sums up the film’s very British hero, Charles (Hugh Grant), and his gloomy outlook on love and relationships; he’s an eternal bachelor cursed to attend the weddings of people he barely even knows. Things perk up a bit when he meets Carrie (Andie MacDowell), but she’s an American who is more interested in casual sex than a lifelong commitment. Yet when he sees her again, something changes between them, and they both think their fling can turn into the real thing.
A surprise nominee for Best Picture in 1995, Four Weddings and a Funeral was a huge success upon release and has since become a romantic comedy staple. Seen today, it still holds up – the naughty British jokes still land, and the chemistry between Grant and McDowell seems genuine. The film perfectly captures that strange afterglow you experience after a party has ended, but you’re still hanging around with your friends, not wanting the night to end. You’ll feel the same about this movie.
2. ‘Miracle’ (2004)
IMDb rating: 7.5
It’s 1980, and the U.S. men’s ice hockey team hasn’t won a gold medal in decades. Their chief rival, the Soviet Union, had won it the last four times, and the odds of them taking another gold looked pretty good. But newly installed Herb Brooks (Kurt Russell) doesn’t want that to happen, and he’ll do anything to win – even if it means pissing off the team that’s supposed to look up to him. After months of endless practice sessions, the Americans arrive at the Winter Olympics ready to win. Can they pull off a miracle and take the gold?
Well, there’s a reason why this movie is called Miracle. Dubbed the “Miracle on Ice” by sports commentators, the historic upset is well known by hockey fans and the general public, especially after this year’s Winter Olympics had a similar record-breaking run by both the men’s and women’s hockey teams. The reason Miracle works so well isn’t the outcome; it’s watching the arduous training these men went through to pull off the impossible. What holds the film together is Russell’s solid performance as the tough-as-nails coach. Brooks knows what missing out on Olympic glory feels like, and he doesn’t want that to happen to his team.
1. ‘Loving Vincent’ (2017)
IMDb rating: 7.8
Armand Romlin (Douglas Booth) is given a most unusual chore by his mailman father: deliver the last letter from a painter, Vincent (Robert Gulaczyk), who committed suicide a year earlier, to his beloved brother, Theo (Cezary Łukaszewicz). It seems like a simple task, but Armand soon finds out that Vincent was far more complicated and interesting than he thought. As he interviews the people who knew the starving artist, Armand begins to suspect his suicide might have been a murder committed by someone close to him.
If you haven’t guessed it by now, the Vincent in this movie is Vincent van Gogh, whose life story and paintings dominate Loving Vincent. The film uses rotoscoping animation to replicate many of van Gogh’s famous works, so you’ll see Armand wandering through “Starry Night Over the Rhône” and “Wheatfield with Crows.” The result is a truly one-of-a-kind experience, one that deeply immerses you into the works of one of the most famous painters of all time while also weaving an intriguing story about how he died and lived. The voice cast includes Saoirse Ronan, Aidan Turner and Game of Thrones’ Jerome Flynn.
