Netflix has seriously upped its game in the original movie department these last few years.
Last year brought us the excellent rom-com Hit Man starring Glen Powell and the thrilling action flick Rebel Ridge, but those movies pale in comparison to what the streamer has in store for the rest of 2025.
As a part of the Watch With Us team, I’ve compiled my top 5 Netflix movies I’m looking forward to watching this fall.
Some of my selections include a lavish new retelling of an old story, a scary political thriller and a sequel to one of the best franchises currently active today.
5. ‘Nouvelle Vague’ (November 14)
French film fans are in for a treat this season as the very American director, Richard Linklater, chronicles the making of one of the seminal French movies ever, Breathless, in his new film, Nouvelle Vague. Newcomer Guillaume Marbeck stars as Jean-Luc Godard, then a notable film critic struggling to make his first film.
Eager to disrupt the bourgeois 1950s French film industry, Godard wants to break taboos and make a film that will revolutionize the medium. To do that, he’ll have to overcome numerous difficulties, including nervous investors, an unreliable production crew and an enigmatic American actress, Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch).
Shot in gorgeous, period-appropriate black and white, Nouvelle Vague is unabashedly French — yet also a Linklater movie that’s playful, humorous and always interesting to look at. The more you know about Godard and Breathless, the better you’ll appreciate what this movie has to offer — a fun yet informative look at one of the most important films ever made.
4. ‘The Woman in Cabin 10’ (October 10)
Every year, there’s a new adaptation of a best-selling mystery novel that everyone looks forward to watching. In 2025, that’s The Woman in Cabin 10, a popular book by Ruth Ware that’s now a high-profile Netflix original. Keira Knightley stars as Laura Blacklock, a journalist travelling on a luxury ocean liner for her next assignment. Late one night, she witnesses a fellow passenger being thrown overboard. Convinced she just witnessed a murder, Laura informs the boat’s captain and crew, who promptly tell her no one has been reported missing.
Did Laura imagine it? Or is this some sort of conspiracy designed to cover up a crime no one wants to solve? Laura has to use all of her journalistic instincts to investigate, but she may not like the answers she’s so desperate to find.
Fans of the Jodie Foster thriller Flightplan and the Emily Blunt mystery The Girl on the Train will surely love The Woman in Cabin 10, which promises more twists than a pretzel from Auntie Annie’s. Knightley’s on a win streak with 2023’s excellent spy series Black Doves, and she looks at home trying to solve yet another mystery that will have you on the edge of your seat.
3. ‘A House of Dynamite’ (October 24)
When a nuclear missile is launched by an unknown enemy at Chicago, the U.S. government has only minutes to react. Who launched the missile and why? Was it a mistake or intentional? And if America is under attack, how should the government respond? Negotiate for peace or participate in a nuclear war that the whole world has been dreading since the invention of the atomic bomb in the 1940s?
Those are the questions asked by A House of Dynamite, a new political thriller from Kathryn Bigelow, who won an Oscar for her brilliant work in the war film, The Hurt Locker. She might just win another one, given the film’s rapturous reception at the Venice Film Festival last month, where those who saw it believed it’s a contender for multiple Oscar nominations.
The film boasts an impressive cast that includes Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Kaitlyn Dever, Jonah Hauer-King, Anthony Ramos, The Night Agent’s Gabriel Basso and more. But make no mistake — the star here is Bigelow, who seems to have crafted another topical movie that will have everyone talking.
2. ‘Frankenstein’ (November 7)
Everyone knows the story of the mad doctor Victor Frankenstein and his doomed attempt to play God and create life out of nothing, but it’s never been told quite like Netflix’s upcoming version. That’s due to director Guillermo del Toro, the horror aficionado who finally fulfilled a lifelong desire to bring Mary Shelley’s story to the big screen.
In del Toro’s take, Oscar Isaac stars as the obsessed doctor, who wants to prove humans can create life with some spare dead body parts, a carefully timed lightning bolt and a little bit of luck. It’s no spoiler to reveal Victor succeeds, but is the Creature (Jacob Elordi) he gives birth to a man, a monster or both? Also starring Mia Goth as Victor’s justifiably worried fiancée, Elizabeth, del Toro’s Frankenstein promises to embrace the story’s Gothic horror roots and showcase the director’s signature visual flourishes and love for melodrama. I can’t wait to watch it.
1. ‘Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man’ (December 12)
Netflix subscribers are scheduled to get an early Christmas gift when the third Knives Out movie, Wake Up Dead Man, drops on Netflix on December 12. In Rian Johnson’s latest sequel, master detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) returns to solve yet another baffling mystery. In a small church in upstate New York, a controversial priest, Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), is murdered, and the whole town is under suspicion.
Was it fellow preacher Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’ Connor), who has the most to gain with Jefferson’s death? Or is it loyal parishioner Matha Delacroix (Glenn Close), who seems to have a secret she doesn’t want anyone to find out? Other actors on the long list of suspects include Jeremy Renner, Mila Kunis, Kerry Washington, Cailee Spaeny, Andrew Scott and more.
The first two Knives Out films were big hits with audiences, and the third one promises to deliver more of the same cozy mystery thrills. When it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, many critics praised it as the best Knives Out movie yet, so here’s hoping third time’s the charm for Benoit and company.
