Netflix Quarantine Movie Picks
By Katie Ward
If you’ve spent the last few weeks at home scrolling through the “Popular on Netflix” and “Recommended for You” categories looking for something to watch, check out some of these movies – not the typical coming-of-age teen romances that trend on Netflix, but worth the watch.
Stardust – fantasy romance
To make this movie Matthew Vaughn probably copy-and-pasted the top 200 fantasy tropes and put it into a screenplay – and, somehow, made it work. The abundance of characters (including show-stealing Captain Shakespeare) and interwoven storylines preempts all predictability.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfYBKDyF-Dk
The Hundred Foot Journey – feel-good, family
A tight-knit family loses their family restaurant in Mumbai, and moves to the French countryside to start over – where they clash with the powerful owner of a Michelin-star restaurant just one hundred feet away. Every scene is sweet and intentional. Do not watch this movie on an empty stomach or you will end up trying to recreate an Indian-French culinary masterpiece in your kitchen at 1 a.m.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWo67uhzoQg
A Little Chaos – quaint period piece drama, great cast
This star-studded cast, led by Kate Winslet and Matthias Schoenaerts, carries the simple plot line of a woman trying to execute her landscape gardening vision in the Gardens of Versailles. Drink a cup of coffee so you can last to the best scene in the movie, Sabine’s defense of the women in the court of King Louis XIV.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENSjt4naxlE
Candy Jar – small cast, fast-paced, feel-good, fluff
Two high school debate club seniors’ slowburn, enemy-to-lovers transition is the only aspect of this surprisingly sweet film that’s not fast paced. If you’re looking for something fluffy to watch to pass an afternoon, “vote aff” for the option of this movie.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lXLGwe_DUU
Zoom – found-family, throwback
There’s no better time for this nostalgic found-family flick filled with 2000s bops than now as you stay in your parents house missing your college friends – and it’s aptly titled Zoom.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkmYrChoTf0
Melvin Goes to Dinner – seriocomic indie, character-driven
This movie is an adaptation of a stage play by the actor who plays titular character Melvin. The less-than-ninety-minutes film is basically one continuous conversation between four sort-of-friends in their mid-to-late thirties. Spend the first fifteen minutes of this movie, which looks like it was made for a public access cable show, wondering if it’s a joke, and spend the next seventy five wondering how the four will end up (one of whom is played by Progressive’s Flo). Frequent flashbacks narrated by one of the four friends break up the main setting of the four at a booth at Bistro Lyonnais. Cameos by an eclectic group of actors and directors include Jenna Fischer, Fred Armisen, Bob Odenkirk, Kristen Wiig, Jack Black, and Marc Evan Jackson.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFDZm3nXHAM&t=36s
Paddleton – sad & sweet, drama
After a man (Mark Duplass) gets a terminal cancer diagnosis, he and his best friend (Ray Romano) go on a six-hour road trip to get life-ending medications so he doesn’t prolong his suffering. Watching Romano’s character coming to terms with the inevitable loss of his only friend is poignant and heartbreaking. This movie is like spending an hour and a half having a beer with your mid-fifties dad and his college best friend.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs9YpUktrWw
Band of Robbers – crime-comedy, watch with friends
A modern adaptation of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn follows two lifelong friends as they commit various crimes while trying to find Murrel’s treasure and become local heroes. If you’re looking for the first movie to watch with your friends with the Netflix Party chrome extension, this is it.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ilt0SwJ4374
Plus, check our other Netflix must-watch movies: Marriage Story, The Irishman, All The Bright Places, Miss Americana, To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You
