991 replies to this topic

[Marlowe]

I gather that many of us are now using Netflix, and are using the DNS work-around to access the full US selection. Given this, and the fact that the interface (on the console apps, at least) prevents you from queuing content or properly browsing the full catalogue, I figured it'd be useful if we created a list of recommendations.

Just recommend any film or TV show that you've found on Netflix that you consider to merit four or five stars, and I'll add it to the list. For a TV show, if not every series of it is available then it would also be useful if you could specifically detail which ones are available (e.g. Breaking Bad (Series 1-4)).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------




* = UK only


Film


Action

13 Assassins (2010)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
The Chinese Connection (1972)
Elite Squad: The Enemy Within (2010)
From Dusk till Dawn (1996)
Kick Ass (2010)
Lethal Weapon (1987)
Merantau (2009)
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011)
Ong-Bak (2003)
The Hunger Games (2012)
The Raid (2011)
The Rock (1996) *
Starship Troopers (1997)
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
The Warriors (1979)
Zulu (1964)


Comedy

Being John Malkovich (1999)
Big (1988)
The Big Bus (1973)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Charade (1963)
Clerks (1994)
Four Lions (2010)
God Bless America (2011)
Groundhog Day (1993)
Harvey (1950)
Hollywood Shuffle (1987)
Paper Moon (1973)
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
The Producers (1968)
Swingers (1996)
This is Spinal Tap (1984)
To Be or Not to Be (1983)
Trainspotting (1996)


Drama

8½ (1963)
Arabian Nights [Il fiore delle mille e una notte] (1974)
A Canterbury Tale (1949)
The Arbor (2010)
The Bicycle Thief (1948)
Black Narcissus (1947)
Blue Valentine (2010)
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
The Canterbury Tales [I racconti di Canterbury] (1972)
The Constant Gardener (2005)
The Decameron [Il Decameron] (1971)
Departures [Okuribito] (2008)
Downfall (2004)
Enter the Void (2009)
The Fighter (2010)
Fish Tank (2009)
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)
The Grifters (1990)
Hunger (2008)
In the Mood for Love (2001)
Irreversible (2002)
Jackie Brown (1997)
Kes (1969)
Kramer vs Kramer (1979)
The Long Good Friday (1980)
Lust, Caution (2007)
Miller's Crossing (1990)
Mona Lisa (1986)
Mother (2009)
My Left Foot (1989)
Naked (1993)
Persona (1967)
Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
The Station Agent (2003) *


Horror

Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)
Black Sabbath (1963)
Evil Dead (1981)
The Fog (1980)
The Frighteners (1996)
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
House (1986)
House II: The Second Story (1987)
I Saw the Devil (2010)
Lake Mungo (2008)
Prince of Darkness (1987)
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Santa Sangre (1989)
The Thing (1982)
Troll 2 (1990)
Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010)
Vampire Circus (1972)
Witchfinder General (1968)


Sci-Fi/Fantasy

A Boy and His Dog (1975)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Monsters (2010)
Robocop (1987)
Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
Time Bandits (1981)
Timecrimes (2007)
Wargames (1983)



Thriller

Across 110th Street (1972)
Bad Lieutenant (1992)
The Chaser (2008)
Chinatown (1974)
Cul-de-sac (1966)
Drive (2011)
Escape from Alcatraz (1979)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)
Headhunters [Hodejegerne] (2011)
Hobo with a Shotgun (2011)
Limitless (2011)
The Machinist (2004)
The Man from Nowhere (2010)
Memento (2000)
Mulholland Drive (2001)
The Naked City (1948)
Oldboy (2003)
The Perfect Host (2010)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Swimming Pool (2003)
The Untouchables (1987)
The Usual Suspects (1995)



Western

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
True Grit (2010)



Animation

The Iron Giant (1999)
Mary and Max (2009)



Documentary

American: The Bill Hicks Story (2010)
Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey (2011)
Bill Cunningham New York (2010)
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)
Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade (2007)
Cocaine Cowboys (2006)
Collapse (2009)
DMT: The Spirit Molecule (2010)
Eames: The Architect & The Painter (2011)
Helvetica (2007)
Indie Game: The Movie (2012)
Jens Pulver: Driven (2011)
The King of Kong (2007) *
Marwencol (2010)
Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos (2006)
Restrepo (2010)
Revolution OS (2001)
The Rise and Fall of WCW (2009)
Road Warriors (2005)
Senna (2010)
Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap (2012)
Special When Lit: A Pinball Documentary (2009)
The Thin Blue Line (1988)
To Live & Ride in L.A. (2010)
Vernon, Florida (1981)


TV


Comedy

30 Rock
Arrested Development
Californication (Series 1-4) *
Chappelle's Show
Cheers
Frasier
Freaks and Geeks
Jim Henson's The Storyteller
The Larry Sanders Show
Louie (Series 1-2)
Malcolm in the Middle
Married with Children
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Party Down
Psych
Jim Henson's The Storyteller
The Kids in the Hall
Parks and Recreation (Series 1-3)
Sports Night
The Thick of It *
The Tick
Weeds
Wilfred


Drama

Alias
Borgia: Faith and Fear
Breaking Bad (Series 1-4, 5*)
Eerie, Indiana
Friday Night Lights
Luther (Series 1)
Mad Men (Series 1-4)
My So-Called Life
Quantum Leap
Sons of Anarchy (Series 1-3)
Star Trek
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Enterprise
The Twilight Zone
The X-Files
Twin Peaks
West Wing
Wuthering Heights (2009)
Xena: Warrior Princess


Animation

Beavis and Butt-Head
Futurama
King of the Hill (Series 1-13)
South Park


Documentary/Reality

7 Up (1964)
21 Up (1977)
28 Up (1985)
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1980)
Dhani Tackles the Globe
Gangland
How the Universe Works
Ken Burns: The Civil War (1990)
Ken Burns: Jazz (2001)
Occupation: Fighter
Sons of Guns
Style Wars (1983)
WWII in HD (2009)
Yellowstone (2009)


Stand-up Comedy

Joe Rogan Live
Katt Williams (various)
Paul Mooney: Know Your History
Richard Pryor Live at the Sunset Strip


Last updated: 08/01/13

[Mortis]

Foreign

Merantau (2009) - Indonesian martial arts movie by the same folk bringing you The Raid later this year. Has some of the best fight scenes I've seen in ages and a decent story too.

[deerokus]

Great idea!

Documentary: Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

Beautiful, gripping film about a cave in France which contains the oldest drawings yet discovered. The film is partly about the process of its own making, which actually makes it all the more immersive, since for the first part of the film the viewer is guided around the cave along with Werner Herzog and his (tiny) crew, who are effectively on location scouting. It occasionally breaks out of the cave for interviews with local experts, most of whom are, in typical Herzog fashion, amusingly eccentric. As is often the case with his documentaries, there's a constructed, artifical element of the film, and a frankly bizarre post-script*, though it is not quite to the extent of some of them. A perfect film to put on with a glass of whisky and get absorbed into.

*

Spoiler

What is it with Herzog and non-sequiturs involving reptiles?

[lordcookie]

Is there a list online to browse the selection available (going on Netflix they only list about twenty or so per genre)?

There is no point me signing up for the service as it won't work with my crap connection but I'm happy to offer film recommendations.

[Mortis]

Instantwatcher.com but the site navigation is awful

[dfq23]

Spinal tap has to be on the comedy list. I would recommend once in a lifetime for the documentaries. It's all about the history of the new york cosmos

[LittleJoe]

TV

Comedy

Louie [Season 1]

Closer to Seinfeld than Curb in the fictionalised versions of themselves stakes - it leans to the absurd and isn't really shot in the mockumentary style of Curb or Gervais' stuff - but definitely worth catching if you vaguely like either.

Like Seinfeld, there's no real overreaching theme and there's no big, intrusive celebrity cameos. Instead, it's just a collection of 'extended vignettes' about life in New York, sex, divorce, Catholicism. Very funny, quite affecting at times, and always brilliant.

Arrested Development

Don't really have to say much about this. There's no excuse not to watch it now.

Parks and Recreation [Seasons 1-3]

Another The Office-style mockumentary.The first season isn't great but is worth sitting through to get a sense of the characters (like Seinfeld *again*, I guess).

The Larry Sanders Show

Classic 90s show-within-a-show comedy.


Film

Comedy

Manhattan Murder Mystery

One of three Allen films on Netflix. Not brilliant by any means, but a better than a lot of his later stuff. Pastichey,witty - you know what you're getting.

[deerokus]

Oh yes, for TV Comedy: 30 Rock. Another of those 'show within a show' shows. This time it's behind the scenes on an SNL-style show that absolutely isn't SNL, even though it is set in the place where SNL is filmed, and it is wrriten by and stars Tina Fey. It's a shame that it's relatively obscure in the UK. It is fairly mainstream, broad humour, but it is much funnier than something like Scrubs or Friends ever were, it's really quite silly and surreal, and there are occasional subtler moments, such as at least two wonderful LemonParty jokes that only real nerds who remember such disgusting early '00s memes would get.

[lordcookie]

Instantwatcher.com but the site navigation is awful

Cheers.

Well based on that site I'd recommend the following (apologies there are no IMDb links or reviews but it is quite a lengthy list):

Action

13 Assassins
Apocalypse Now
Jackie Brown
Speed
Cliffhanger
Die Hard
Lethal Weapon
Robocop
Escape from New York
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
The Chinese Connection

Animation
Mary and Max
FLCL
Castle of Cagliostro
Tangled

Classics
Edward Scissorhands
Slacker
Paper Moon
Hired Hand
Harold and Maude
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Kes
The Producers
Witchfinder General
Cul de Sac
The War Game
Zulu
Charade
Hud
The Hustler
Peeping Tom
All about Eve
Harvey
The Third Man
The Naked City

Comedy
Four Lions
Being John Malkovich
Train spotting
This is Spinal Tap

Drama
Fish Tank
Hunger
Brokeback Mountain
Romeo + Juliet
Naked
Light Sleeper
Naked Lunch
The Grifters
My Left Foot
Mona Lisa
The Long Good Friday
Kramer vs Kramer
Punch drunk Love

Horror
Theatre of Blood
Vampire Circus
Tucker and Dale vs Evil
Santa Sangre
Prince of Darkness
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
Videodrome
Dead and Buried
Evil Dead
The Funhouse
The Howling
The Fury
Deep Red
The Perfume of the Lady in Black
Black Sabbath

Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Big
They Live
The Fly
A Boy and His Dog
Silent Running

Thriller
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Lake Mungo
The Constant Gardener
Swimming Pool
Intacto
Reservoir Dogs
Dead Calm
Across 110th Street

[lordcookie]

And the two biggest categories...

Documentary
American: The Bill Hicks Story
The Arbor
The Rolling Stones: Stones in Exile
Collapse
The Cove
Yellowstone
Cocaine Cowboys
Helvetica
The Thin Blue Line
28 Up
21 Up
7 Up
The Atomic Cafe

Television
Mad Men
FLCL
The Larry Sanders Show
My So-Called Life
Kids in the Hall
Quantum Leap
Eerie Indiana
Jim Henson's The Storyteller
Twin Peaks
The Twilight Zone

[Paulando]

Jackie Brown is in 'action'?

Get The Iron Giant listed in animation

And Beavis and Butt-Head in TV.

[lordcookie]

Don't blame me for the film placements I just went off the genre groupings on the instantwatcher site. I'm sure I've missed loads, I went through about ten thousand films so they were becoming a bit of a blur.

[AK Bell]

You can't have Frasier up there and no Cheers. They're all I really watch on it at the moment.

Special mention for all of Star Trek on TV. And the new movie. HD The Originsl Series and TNG should be too as soon as they're released.

Don't put it up on the list, but it has Gerry Anderson's Space Precinct series on it. It's very cheap and cheesy but has its moments.

I'm wasting my netflix, aren't I?

Limitless was much better than I was expecting. Stick that on.

Doesn't it have the second & third Die Hard on too?

[scottcr]

Space Precinct!!! Fucking yas!!!

I've even got the flying police car toy in my loft.

[Silent Runner]

The Sweedish Millenium trilogy is on there. The first one is definitely worth watching to compare to the David Fincher version. The other 2 are pretty bad, though.

[Dinobot]

It only clicked with me last night that The A-Team is on there too. It's cheesy and that but I love a bit of A-Team!

[larrydavidsanger]

TV

King of the Hill series 1-13
Party Down

[Ben]

It has the brilliant Troll 2 on it, a favourite of the midnight cult screening circuit; it's up there with The Room for it's "so bad it's good"-ness. Your reaction to this clip from it will probably be a good indication if you'll enjoy the movie or not. The script is diabolical and completely baffling, the acting is wooden and the effects are terrible - I love it to pieces

Netfilx did have the very sweet and warm documentary about the film, Best Worst Movie, last week but I can't seem to find it now. Made by one of the original actors, it's a "where are they now" of the cast and the makers of the film focusing on it's new cult status - much to the chagrin of Troll 2's Italian director who genuinely thought he was making a good movie. Worth keeping an eye on if it returns.

The Oscar-shortlisted documentary Bill Cunningham New York is good too, very light (as you'd expect with it's focus on the fashion world) but you can't help but fall in love with the eponymous Cunningham - the 80 year old photographer for the New York Times who cycles around Manhattan taking photos of what people are wearing on the streets. It could do with a few more questions into his personal life and his upbringing, which is only touched upon briefly near the end, but it put a smile on my face almost throughout - a good man doing what he loves.

[AK Bell]

Yep, it looks like stuff is taken down all the time. Slackers needs to be taken off that list at the top now.

[Harsin]

Any chance we could expand this thread to encompass other streaming services. I know Netflix has much better streaming service than Lovefilm, but I imagine that many here are on their packages for film/game discs and get unlimited streaming as a bonus.

Tonight I watched Dr. Strangelove and a week ago I watched The Dark Knight, both films easily worthy of the 4-5 stars mandated in the OP I feel.

[AK Bell]

You could just make a new thread so it's not confusing

[Ben]

Having a unified streaming thread would make more sense I think, would just need people to specify where the films are from when listing recommendations.

[polygon_monkey]

Sports Night - The show Aaron Sorkin did before The West Wing. Good stuff (apart from the terribly inappropriate network mandated laugh track)
Chappelle's show
Senna

[Marlowe]

I don't want to compile and update two lists, especially when one would be for a service I don't even use. Nothing to stop Lovefilm users making their own thread.

[Oh Danny Boy]

great idea for a topic! certainly what was needed. This is what i've been watching recently on netflix which i recommend;

films:

The perfect host (worth watching just to see David Hyde Pierce playing a proper loony tune)
Robin Hoood; men in tights
Centurion

TV

Spartacus; blood and sand
Xena warrior princess
Hercules
South Park
Super Mario Bros

[Darragh]

Sports Night - The show Aaron Sorkin did before The West Wing. Good stuff (apart from the terribly inappropriate network mandated laugh track)

I watched the first episode of this today, it being the only Sorkin-scripted show/movie I've never seen. I'm looking forward to watching more of it, but Jesus tap-dancing Christ that laugh track really is awful. Literally every time audience laughter kicked in, it took me right out of the show. Woefully misused and poorly-implemented.

Never mind, though. As soon as I heard Isaac, the head honcho on the eponymous show-within-a-show, speak, I knew I recognised his voice. Then it hit me:

[polygon_monkey]

Apparently it gets phased out as the show progresses.

Also forgot to mention that Friday Night Lights is on there - in glorious HD!

[ravon]

I watched Jens Pulver:Driven (USA) last night and it was a stunning documentary about his life and preparation before his last fight in the WEC, If you love MMA its well worth a look.

[Paulando]

Noticed this 2009 animation on US Netflix last night:



Never heard of it before, but it sounds intriguing. Gets 8.2 on IMDb too.

A tale of friendship between two unlikely pen pals: Mary, a lonely, eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max, a forty-four-year old, severely obese man living in New York.

Anyone seen it?

[lordcookie]

Yep, it was a film I had on my original recommendation list and here is my review for the film from a couple of years ago:

Mary & Max - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978762/

A young Austrailian girl with no friends starts an unlikely friendship with a 40 something New Yorker with Aspergers syndrome.

This is a lovely stop frame animated film that manages to effortlessly skirt humour, pathos and touching sentimentality often in the same scene. Just like the director's short films Mary & Max is told via heavy narration. Normally this is something I dislike but the scripts are so good it works brilliantly. The fact the story spans 20 odd years and is rather visually static (letter writing is hard to be dynamic) the voice over gives it vibrancy. The film is pretty depressing given the subject matter and what befalls both of the lead characters but the whole thing is shot through with a wonderful sense of humour and genuine warmth for the characters that it never becomes maudlin. The animation may seem crude by some standards but there are some wonderful little details and the characters are surprisingly expressive. The vocal cast are great. Sometimes when animated films cast star names they don't always fit with what is on screen but here you forget who is voicing them within the opening few minutes.

A lovely film.