New Year, New Netflix Streaming Guide!

An updated list of the best movies and shows on Netflix you need to check out in 2025

Here’s a fun little trivia question that came to light in the deep, dark corners of the internet where people care about these things —

What do you think is the oldest (English language, narrative) movie currently in Netflix’s library? What year do you think it came out?

Take a moment…make a guess.

I’d be shocked if any of you reasonably guessed any year after the actual answer — which is 1973. 1973! It’s The Sting, for those who are wondering, and yes, you should absolutely go watch this movie immediately if you haven’t before. Paul Newman, Robert Redford…it’s amazing. Anyway, it turns out that is one of only FIVE movies on the service that came out before 1980.

Forget black and white, Netflix’s mountain of customer data is telling them that people don’t care about any movies that came out before the dawn of computer graphics (CGI).

That’s depressing, for someone like me, who is trying to keep the flame of cinephilia lit for the next generation.

So while I can’t recommend any old movies on Netflix for you — they don’t exist — I’m hoping you can use today’s streaming guide to educate yourself a little bit on some real deal Cinema.

Of course, if you’d rather, Netflix has just pillaged the Warner Bros. library from the past year to help you catch up on all the studio’s movies that you almost certainly didn’t go out to theaters to see — stuff like Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 and Watchers to more popular titles like Dune: Part Two, Barbie, Interstellar and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. I won’t be hitting on any of those below, but you’re welcome for the bonus freebees.

Utilizing all of the 1000+ movie suggestions I’ve made over the past six years in my Friday edition of the newsletter, I’ve hand-picked the best of the best on each platform (updated on a rolling basis…here is the last one from December).

Much like my Cinephile Bucket List, I’ve broken these down into categories that should help you to browse depending on the vibe you’re looking for on a given night, with blurbs both new and old like a sales pitch to convince you to try out movies you’ve hopefully never seen before. Let’s get into it!

Hidden Gems