July 2017: Best Stuff Streaming on Netflix

20. Titanic

Director: James Cameron

Screenplay: James Cameron

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet

If you somehow missed Titanic in the twenty or so years since it’s been out, you’ve been deprived of a bevy of satirical cultural landmarks. What did you think was going on when, on an almost daily basis (and still to this day), folks were standing on things and declaring that they were the “king of the world?”

19. Free Willy

Director: Simon Wincer

Screenplay: Keith A. Walker, Corey Blechmann

Starring: Jason James Richter, Loir Petty

Unfortunately, after the release of Black Fish, movies starring orcas haven’t aged very well. And whatever you do, don’t Google “what happened to the whale from Free Willy?” unless you’re in the mood to be totally bummed out.

18. Disney’s The Mighty Ducks

Director: Stephen Herek

Screenplay: Steven Brill

Starring: Emilio Estevez

A guy arrested for drunk driving has to coach a ragtag team of misfits on the finer points of hockey.

17. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Director: Steven Spielberg

Screenplay: Melissa Mathison

Starring: Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore

This movie was good until they digitally replaced all of the FBI agents’ guns with cell phones. It was weirdly anachronistic and what were they going to do? Stop the flying bike by putting a call in?

16. Delicatessen

Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro

Screenplay: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro, Gilles Adrien

Starring: Jean-Claude Dreyfus, Dominique Pinon

Perhaps one of the best variations on the “Soylent Green” theme is from this French director who’s best known for is twee masterpiece Amélie. Believe it or not, he went on to direct Alien: Resurrection and still couldn’t save that dumpster fire of a movie.

15. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Director: Mark Herman

Screenplay: Mark Herman

Starring: Asa Butterfield, Jack Scanlon

Here’s the inherent problem with this film, and we’re going to throw a spoiler warning on this: by the end of the film, the director wants you to feel bad for the Nazis. After the two kids are gassed, the audience is treated to this really annoying close up of two sniveling fascists mourning their dead son. No thank you.

14. Jackass: Number Two

Director: Jeff Tremaine

Screenplay: Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, et. al.

Starring: Steve-O, Johnny Knoxville

Those of us who grew up with Jackass are probably less than willing to remember the sophomoric series too fondly but, damn, did they crush some of those pranks. We recommend watching this movie after a couple of cocktails and basking in the glow of idiot bliss.

13. Punch-Drunk Love

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring: Adam Sandler, Emily Watson

Punk-Drunk Love was the film that shut the Sandler-haters up for good. The guy gives a tour de force performance as a man with severe anger issues going up against Philip Seymour Hoffman in one of his best roles as a small-time pimp-cum-mattress baron.

12. Spawn: The Movie

Director: Mark A.Z. Dippe

Screenplay: Alan B. McElroy

Starring: Michael Jai White, John Leguizamo

People hated on this movie because it wasn’t very good. But for one brief shining moment, John Leguizamo held the record for most live bugs eaten on camera when he scarfed a pizza covered in maggots. The record had previously been held by, you guessed it, Nic Cage when he ate a cockroach (two, actually, as it took two takes) in the all but forgotten film Vampire’s Kiss.

11. The Astronaut Farmer

Director: Michael Polish

Screenplay: Michael Polish, Mark Polish

Starring: Billy Bob Thornton

Stay with us here, because in this one Billy Bob plays a disgraced NASA scientist who never got to go to space. So what does he do? Builds his very own spaceship in a barn. Based on a true story (not really).

10. Best in Show

Director: Christopher Guest

Screenplay: Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy

Starring: Eugene Levy, Parker Posey

Christopher Guest is best known for his hysterical mockumentaries and this one is no different, which takes on the weird world of professional dog shows.

9. Matchstick Men

Director: Ridley Scott

Screenplay: Ted Griffin, Nicholas Griffin

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Sam Rockwell

Two of America’s greatest actors team up as conmen. Everything changes when a woman from the past shows up and then the con is on.

8. Police Academy

Director: Hugh Wilson

Screenplay: Neal Israel, Pat Proft, Hugh Wilson

Starring: Steve Guttenberg, Bubba Smith

Nothing, literally nothing, is funnier to dads the world over than the guy who only talks in funny sounds. Holy moly that stuff is gold.

7. Castlevania: Season 1–NETFLIX ORIGINAL

Director: Sam Deals

Screenplay: Warren Ellis

Producer: Adi Shankar

This animated take on the beloved vampiric video game series is being described as “like Game of Thrones,” but, since Game of Thrones comes back July 16^th, who needs “like Game of Thrones” when you can have Game of Thrones?

6. Lion

Director: Garth Davis

Screenplay: Luke Davies

Starring: Dev Patel, Rooney Mara

Dev Patel crisscrosses the world looking for his estranged birth parents using only Google Earth in one of the longest commercials for Google ever.

5. Friends From College: Season 1–NETFLIX ORIGINAL

Director: Nicholas Stoller

Screenplay: Nicholas Stoller, Francesca Delbanco

Starring: Keegan-Michael Key, Cobie Smulders, Fred Savage

Twenty years after graduation, it turns out things are still tough in the real world and love never comes easy for this group of formerly tight-knit friends. Judging by the description, this looks like a Gen-X version of The Big Chill.

4. To the Bone–NETFLIX ORIGINAL

Director: Marti Noxon

Screenplay: Marti Noxon

Starring: Lilly Collins, Keanu Reeves

An anorexic girl moves into a group home with a quirky doctor in a film that is sure to be described as “raw,” “honest,” “heartbreaking,” and “heartwarming.”

3. Chasing Coral–NETFLIX ORIGINAL

Director: Jeff Orlowski

Screenplay: Jeff Orlowski

Starring: Jeff Orlowski

If you’re tired of escapism or just can’t get enough horrible news, this documentary is about coral bleaching and how we as humans just love to ruin everything.

2. Buddy Thunderstruck: The Maybe Pile–NETFLIX ORIGINAL

Creator: Rian Wiesbrok

Screenplay: Tom Krajewski

Starring: Brian Atkinson, Ted Raimi

A truck-driving dog and a ferret that’s a mechanic go around and do stuff. You know the drill. It’s for kids. But what’s kind of cool is that it’s one of the first “choose-your-own-adventure” interactive television shows opening the door for other applications.

1. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Director: Gareth Edwards

Screenplay: Chris Weitz, Tony Gilroy

Starring: Felicity Jones, Diego Luna

This was a very okay Star Wars film but, when put up against some of its predecessors, it remains, like, the fifth (fourth?) best Star Wars film of all time. It’s kind of hard to follow the plot but things blow up and there are some pretty cool dogfights… but no lightsabers.