Although it’s facing a wave of competition from other streamers now, Netflix remains the most popular streaming service in the country. As titles come onto and leave Netflix, it can be easy to lose track of what the best movies on the service are, or which ones are worth checking out before they leave for good.
Thankfully, we’ve done the hard work for you and come up with a list of movies you should definitely check out on Netflix before they leave the service on August 1.
Skyfall (2012)
Daniel Craig’s era playing James Bond was filled with major ups and downs, but Skyfall was maybe the highest high of them all. The film follows Bond as he fails, forcing MI6 to go underground and Bond to confront a new enemy with ties to the agency’s past.
The movie has exactly the right amount of expository backstory about Bond’s childhood, and it’s coupled with some of the most breathtaking action in the entire series. The legendary Roger Deakins is the cinematographer on this project, and it shows in basically every sequence in the film. Skyfall is the Bond machine working on all cylinders; it’s emotional, it’s action-packed, and it’s one of best Bonds ever made.
Skyfall streams on Netflix until August 1.
Flight (2012)
Denzel Washington is never bad, but he’s particularly good in Flight, the story of a highly talented pilot who also happens to be an alcoholic. When he has to perform an emergency landing while drunk, Washington’s pilot comes under the kind of scrutiny he’s never experienced before.
Above all else, though, this is a story about one man’s struggle with alcoholism, and the ways that struggle hurts the people around him. In a lesser actor’s hands, Flight might have felt generic, but Washington has firm control of the wheel from the very beginning.
Flight streams on Netflix until August 1.
Julie & Julia (2009)
Telling the parallel stories of Julia Child and a blogger who is working her way through the famous chef’s cookbook, Julie & Julia winds up being a moving story about the role that food can play in a person’s life.
Because it was directed by Nora Ephron, Julie & Julia is also deft about the way that women, in particular, are often assigned certain domestic roles that they may have enjoyed had they been given the chance to choose them. With great performances from Meryl Streep and Amy Adams in the lead roles, Julie & Julia is way more than just some average rom-com. It’s also an incisive look at the ways women navigate their careers in professions dominated by men.
Julie & Julia streams on Netflix until August 1.
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