What to Watch: 10 Good Movies on Netflix 🔒

Some Watch List housekeeping: My online CineJourneys course, “Movie Stars, Stardom & Modern Fame,” begins next Tuesday evening, February 24, at 7 p.m. Subscriptions for the full 10-class course itself have now been capped, but you can still “attend” individual classes for a lower price after they’ve taken place (minus the live class discussions) or sign up for the recorded version of the entire course (again, for a discounted fee) any time after it’s completed in early May. You'll find more information here.

I appeared on National Public Radio’s “On Point” this past Monday to join in a highly enjoyable conversation about the National Film Registry and why the 25 annual additions to its roster are an important reflection of America’s ever-changing culture and self-image. You can listen to it at the show’s website or on Spotify:

I’ve also been gathering my thoughts for an appreciation of Fred Wiseman, the great American documentarian who passed away this week at 96. There’s plenty to talk about and not a little emotion on my part, since I met the man a number of times at festivals and panels over the years, counted him a friend and treasured not only his enormous – and enormously important – body of work but also his singular mixture of wit and wariness. I should have something by next post; for now, here's my fellow critic Sam Adams for Slate:

America Just Lost Another of Its Great Institutions. This One Was a Filmmaker.

Frederick Wiseman leaves behind a body of work as massive as all the institutions he chronicled.

SlateSam Adams

So I periodically check out the movie offerings on Netflix, mindful that A) more people subscribe to that service than any other and B) the people who subscribe to this newsletter expect a little bang for their buck aside from eulogies and screeds against The (Orange) Man. As usual, the roughly 8,000 films available on Netflix represent a slumgullion of international B, C, D and Z movies, most of which you’ve never heard of before and never will again. And yet, there is more to the service than endless seasons of “Love is Blind.” Here are ten under-the-radar possibilities for a slow evening’s watch. You want art, go to the Criterion Channel.