There is fresh movement around 3 excellent Netflix movies to get you through the week (June 22-28), and the story is worth a closer look.
We pulled together what is known so far and what it could mean for the people following it.
My wife and I have been binging our way through the great new Netflix series I Will Find You that everyone’s been talking about, but like with any intense binge, sometimes you need to take a break and watch something different. We like to do that by throwing on a movie to change things up—they’re one-and-done, and nicely wrapped up (usually).
Well, as I’m sure you know, Netflix isn’t short on movies either, so here are a couple that have been climbing the Top 10 charts in the U.S. recently (a Spanish thriller and a charming rom-com), and one incredible Oscar-nominated crime caper that you should watch before it leaves Netflix soon.
You gotta love a good opening sequence in a movie that just sets a chilling tone for what’s to come. The Spanish thriller, The Marked Woman, which landed on Netflix earlier this month, has one such opener. An unknown woman is found bound, gagged, and tortured inside a shipping container at the port of Barcelona. She doesn’t know who she is, how she got there, or who it was who tried, and is still trying, to kill her.
The case brings in brooding detective Anna Ripoll (Candela Peña), a human trafficking investigator just back from a personal leave after suffering a tragedy, and draws the attention of an out-of-jurisdiction officer, the hard-nosed Quique Zárate (Pol López), to figure it all out before someone tries to kill the woman again. The woman (played by the excellent Ana Rujas) holds all the answers, and as she starts to remember things as well, her life is increasingly put in danger.
Originally titled La desconocida, The Marked Woman adapts the bestselling 2023 crime novel by Rosa Montero and Olivier Truc, and Money Heist fans will recognize Luka Peros in the cast. It’s a slow-burning, ticking-clock puzzle built for one tense sitting.
Admit it—you lourrrve a good romcom. The meet-cutes, the misunderstandings, the secrets, the hidden affection, the running down the street in the pouring rain, or the racing to the airport before they’re gone forever! Voicemails for Isabelle has all of that, which is probably why it’s got an 85% critics and 92% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. It also has a tear-jerking, gut-punch at its core that adds weight that a lot of romcoms don’t have.
American actress Zoey Deutch (Invincible, Nouvelle Vague) stars as Jill, a young and aspiring pastry chef in San Francisco who is having a hard time coping with the death of her younger sister, Isabelle (Ciara Bravo), who she lost to Cystic Fibrosis. Even though Isabelle is gone, Jill finds comfort in speaking to Isabelle through voicemails she leaves on her old number. But what Jill doesn’t know is that (here comes the secret) the number has been reassigned to Wes (Nick Robinson), who starts falling for the stranger pouring her heart out on the other end.
These lines could belong to almost any show — but only one is right.
Which show contains the line: “The darkness doesn’t scare me. It never did. It’s the light that lies.”
Which show contains the line: “We didn’t travel through time to save the world. We traveled through time because someone had to remember it.”
Which show contains the line: “I didn’t come this far to be someone else’s story. I came to write my own.”
Which show contains the line: “They don’t come from another world. They come from the part of this one we buried.”
Which show contains the line: “The rules were never meant to protect us. They were meant to protect the people who made them.”
Which show contains the line: “I’ve seen things in that lab that would make you stop believing in coincidence forever.”
Which show contains the line: “Smiling is the costume everyone wears before they show you who they really are.”
Which show contains the line: “Every stage you survive just means they’ve found a better way to kill you next time.”
Yes, it is just like the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan romcom You’ve Got Mail (Wes’s friends even point it out), but with a more modern and refreshed take. One of Netflix’s most-watched titles, currently, it ticks all those romcom tropes and more, and is a fun date-night watch. Nick Offerman also has a small but hilarious role in the film as Jill’s tyrannical chef boss.
When a movie is nominated for 10 Oscars, but doesn’t win one, does anybody hear? You bet your federal sting operation it does. OK, that was a bad metaphor, but what isn’t bad is American Hustle, David O. Russell’s masterpiece of a Mafia crime caper that reunites many of the stellar players from his Oscar-winning movie Silver Linings Playbook.
Set in the late ’70s (with all the gloriously bad hair and flashy outfits you can handle) during the real-life FBI ABSCAM operations targeting government corruption and organized crime, American Hustle follows con-artist couple Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) and Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), who are forced to cooperate with the FBI, led by agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), to infiltrate and help bring down corrupt New Jersey Mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner) who’s been pulled in to a mob-backed casino deal. But the wild card threatening to derail the whole plot is Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence), Irving’s jealous, firecracker of a wife, whose infidelity and loose lips with a mobster turn things deadly as ruthless mob boss Victor Tellegio (Robert De Niro) is alerted.
American Hustle is one of Russell’s best, with incredible performances all around that garnered nominations in all four acting categories. It leaves Netflix on July 1st, so watch it soon!
One of these movies is on a countdown for departure from Netflix, so don’t sit on it too long. The others will keep. And once you’ve run through all three, How-To Geek’s streaming section keeps a steady supply of fresh recommendations coming.
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