Netflix has so many good movies that it’s often hard to decide what to watch.
That’s especially true in July, when the streamer is showing Oscar-winning movies like The Deer Hunter with Meryl Streep and modern classics like the Mission: Impossible movies with Tom Cruise and The Notebook with Ryan Gosling.
To help determine what’s worth your time, Watch With Us checked with Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer and then curated a list of the best Netflix movies to watch in July.
From dramas like Past Lives to horror flicks like Barbarian, there’s something for everyone to stream this month.
1. ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ (1988)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100 percent
Grave of the Fireflies has been called one of the saddest movies ever made, and we’d have to agree. It’s also one of the best animated movies ever, one that is worth watching even if it will make you cry.
Orphans Seita (Tsutomu Tatsumi) and his little sister Setsuko (Ayano Shiraishi) are sent to live with their aunt (Akemi Yamaguchi) when their mother dies during World War II. With their food rations dwindling and their aunt cold and distant, the two siblings run away in the hopes of finding a better life. But life in Japan during wartime is rough, and Seita and Setsuko realize all they have is each other — and the warm glow of the fireflies when night falls.
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Yeah, you’re going to need tissues after watching this one. The movie is unsparing and brutal, but it’s also beautiful and full of poetic imagery you won’t soon forget. It’s one of the few films to own a 100 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, and it’s justified. It’s that good.
Grave of the Fireflies is streaming on Netflix.
2. ‘Past Lives’ (2023)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 95 percent
Nora Moon (Greta Lee) is a successful writer living in New York City with her husband, Arthur (John Magaro), when she’s visited by a man from her past, Hae Sung (Teo Yoo). They were childhood sweethearts, and they share a unique bond that Nora discovers is still strong even in the present. As she weighs her past feelings and uncertain future, will Nora make a choice that could jeopardize her marriage?
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Past Lives is a romantic drama about the choices you make in life and wondering how you would be different if you went down a different path. Nominated for two Oscars, including Best Picture, it’s one of the best movies of the 2020s and has an ending that’s both perfect and devastating.
Past Lives is streaming on Netflix.
3. ‘Barbarian’ (2022)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 92 percent
Is there anything scarier than renting an Airbnb nowadays? That’s the scenario Tess (Georgina Campbell) finds herself in when she rents a house in an abandoned Detroit neighborhood one night and discovers Keith (Bill Skarsgård) has already booked it. Tess doesn’t quite trust Keith, but she quickly discovers he’s not the one she should fear. Someone — or something — is lurking in the basement, and Tess soon realizes she and Keith may not make it out of the house alive.
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Barbarian is a slow-burn horror movie that delivers the goods — eventually. The buildup is wonderfully agonizing, with director Zach Cregger endlessly teasing what’s lurking in the shadows. Once it’s revealed, the movie embraces its creature feature roots with full abandon. It’s a wild and scary ride worth taking, even if it’s still summer.
Barbarian is streaming on Netflix.
4. ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ (2024)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 90 percent
How do you follow up a critical and commercial hit like Mad Max: Fury Road? For director George Miller, you take two steps back and make an origin movie that’s just as good as the original. The 2024 prequel follows young Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) as she witnesses her mother’s brutal death at the hands of Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). As she grows older, she vows revenge, but she’ll need the help of Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke) to take down him and Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) and escape to the mythical Green Place.
A box office bomb last summer, Furiosa is already gaining a reputation as a misunderstood cult classic. The critics loved it, singling out Hemsworth’s performance as the charming yet vicious Dementus. The action film features some jaw-dropping action set pieces that rival anything seen in Fury Road — or anywhere else, for that matter.
Don’t wait too long to watch Furiosa, though — it leaves Netflix on July 15.
5. ‘Family Plot’ (1976)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 90 percent
A bunch of Alfred Hitchcock movies are scheduled to leave Netflix at the end of July, and while we could recommend the obvious classics like Rear Window or Vertigo, we’re shining the spotlight on the great director’s last movie, Family Plot.
Blanche Tyler (Barbara Harris) is a phony psychic who is conning an old woman looking for a long-lost relative, Eddie Shoebridge (William Devane). The woman wants him to inherit all her money when she dies and will give Blanche $10,000 if she finds him. What both women don’t know is that Eddie is actually a petty criminal who has just kidnapped a cardinal for a large ransom. Eddie doesn’t want anyone to find out who he is, so when Blanche comes snooping around, he may have to deal with her the only way he knows how — with violence.
Family Plot is a low-stakes thriller that’s more funny than thrilling, but it’s so comforting to watch, you don’t mind that at all. Hitchcock was past his prime at this point, but he still knew how to stage a great chase sequence, and there are a couple in this movie that show just how talented he was as the Master of Suspense.
Family Plot is streaming on Netflix.
