Ranking the 5 Best Netflix Movies of 2025 (Mid‑Year Review)

What a curious year for Netflix Original Movies! In 2024, a year marked by labor strikes in the entertainment industry, which led to many movies being pushed back to the following year, Netflix appeared to remain unfazed, with its release output remaining as strong as ever. At this point last year, the streamer’s film division put out 26 English-language original movies and dozens of international releases as well. One would think that 2025 would be the same story or possibly stronger if some movies were pushed, but so far, that seems not to be the case. This year, only 13 English language original movies have been released, with international films taking a step back in output as well.

So, I guess it should be easier to make a Top 5 list, right? Well, maybe not, or at least not at this time of the year. The most popular titles with the biggest names should have been slam dunks, but many of them were not critically well-received. The platform should get a boost from some blockbuster sequels soon, with Happy Gilmore 2 and several others, but sadly, they aren’t available for this list. But that is not to say that this year has been without quality and star power, especially if you factor in titles from around the globe. Netflix consistently releases more titles into the world than any other studio and collaborates with some of the best directors and movie stars year after year.

While you can check out all my weekly reviews here, let’s look at my list of the Top 5 Netflix Original Movies of the Year So Far: 

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5

Nonnas

Perfectly timed on Mother’s Day weekend, Nonnas tells the “inspired by true events” tale of the real-life Staten Island restaurant “Enoteca Maria” that opened in 2007. The film follows blue-collar New York City resident Joe Scaravella (played by Wedding Crashers star Vince Vaughn), who was raised in a loving Italian home filled with delicious food from his mother and Nonna. After many years of taking care of his mother, Joe is devastated by her passing and searching for meaning in his grief.

In honor of his late mother and his family legacy of cooking, Joe risks it all by opening an Italian restaurant in Staten Island. Attempting to recreate the atmosphere & authentic Italian cooking from Sunday family dinners at his home, he enlists a crew of Italian grandmothers (Susan Sarandon, Talia Shire, Lorraine Bracco, Brenda Vaccaro), a couple tied to his family of course, to head up the cooking at his establishment.

With no business or restaurant experience, Joe must rely on his vision, the amazing culinary skills of the Nonnas, & his supportive friends and family to help him succeed. But when the locals reject an outsider taking over a famous neighborhood spot and the money starts to dry up, Joe and his Nonnas have to get creative to survive to cook another day.
The film is a sweet, simple, & sentimental family dramedy that doesn’t lean too heavily into the laughs or the love as much as just the basics of living with loss and finding joy in the present.

Each character seems to be reeling from a major life change; whether it’s Joe and the loss of his mother, Olivia still wearing the wedding ring of her deceased husband, or Talia Shire’s Teresa mourning the life she could have had if she felt accepted as her true self before joining the convent, Nonnas seemingly throws together a found family for people who truly need it.

The film shines the more they lean into the Nonnas themselves as they, more than anyone in the film, need to overcome one of the hardest things late in life: stagnation. Four Italian women, each with a reason to try this new adventure and possibly many reasons to keep the status quo until the end of days. Loss of a partner, aching bodies, lack of enthusiasm for new things in life – these are the obstacles we all put in the way of potentially meaningful moments in our lives and the Nonnas are no different. Scenes like the kitchen scene when they first meet Sarandon’s Gia (and her more flamboyant body) or when the ladies prepare for opening night with makeovers at Gia’s salon are some of the most introspective moments in the film. Sarandon & Shire give the film life & humor beyond the occasional shouting matches between Bracco & Vaccaro.

Nonnas tugs on just enough heartstrings and fills our senses with just enough food porn & maternal romanticism to give us the warm-blanket familial feelings we crave in our lives. The film gives a family-friendly, sentimental homage to the power of mothers and the legacies they leave behind.

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4

Revelations

From executive producer Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity, Roma) & the creative team behind Netflix’s breakout series Hellbound, Revelations is the new mysterious crime thriller from Train to Busan writer/director Yeon Sang-ho and writing partner Kyu-Seok Choi.

Adapted from Yeon & Choi’s 2022 comic of the same name, the story centers on a missing persons case pursued by Detective Lee Yeon-hui (Shin Hyun-been) and Pastor Sung Min-chan (Ryu Jun-yeol), each with their own set of motives and beliefs.

After encountering a registered sex offender at his small local church, Pastor Sung follows him, believing that someone close to him may be in grave danger. Detective Lee knows firsthand what this man is capable of as he was previously arrested for kidnapping & torturing her sister before being let off on an insanity defense. Driven to the brink by the public’s support for his release, her sister took her own life.

When a young woman from Pastor Sung’s church is believed to have been taken by this man and the offender himself has also disappeared, Sung & Lee’s story intertwine – Lee fighting her guilt and the urge to take her revenge & Sung gripped by divine revelations embarking on a dark journey to bring down the abductor.

With echoes of his intense genre-heavy past and his past musings on morality & trauma, director Yeon largely succeeds with this film as an engrossing yet flawed tapestry of grief, belief, and the justifications we tell ourselves to move forward in our chosen paths. Guilt, signs from God, “one-eyed monsters” all acting as coping mechanisms for the unexplained horrors of our universe and the guiding hand leading us to a conclusion that satiates our needs.

Revelations weaves these storylines into a tense procedural that shines a light on how we deal with the pain of our sometimes tragic realities. With some strong confrontations – both emotional & physical, the film has a way of drawing you in and holding you until the next twist occurs.

Despite some bouts with over-the-top comic book villainy and soapy dramatic flair, Revelations is very watchable with moments of true intensity and emotional introspection.

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3

La Dolce Villa

From Front Row Films & DAE Light Media (Afterlife of the Party, Choose Love), La Dolce Villa is the latest installment of Netflix’s unwavering pursuit of American love abroad created by the writing team of Elizabeth Hackett & Hilary Galanoy. This dynamic duo has written such overseas love stories as Falling Inn Love & A Perfect Pairing while also lending a hand to the Rachael Leigh Cook film, A Tourist’s Guide To Love.

After setting their previous films down under in Australia & New Zealand, Hackett & Galanoy move their latest romantic entanglement to Italy as they center the story around former chef turned restaurant consultant Eric Field (Scott Foley) as he travels to the small town of Montezara to stop his daughter (Maia Reficco) from buying a “one euro villa” in which she would renovate and restore.

But, of course, Italy and the charm of Montezara have other plans. The restoration extends to Eric’s life as a whole; a life that has vastly changed since he lost his wife to cancer years ago. His passion for things he held so dear, like cooking & romance, have been lost for some time. But once Eric makes a choice to remain in Montezuma to help with his daughter’s renovation, a new life filled with new possibilities starts to unfold.

Directed by Mark Waters (Mean Girls, Mother of the Bride), La Dolce Villa definitely checks the boxes of a straight-to-streaming romance, but in a more charming, smarter, & emotionally deeper way than most of Netflix’s prior efforts in the genre.

While someone who has seen quite a few of these films before can see the seams and feel the almost algorithmic manipulation, the beauty of the creation is that you really don’t care. If you’re going to click on La Dolce Villa, you also probably enjoy certain types of reality TV escapism; maybe a look at a destination you’ve never traveled to before or a house flip bringing someone’s dream home to life. What if a movie brought pieces of things to life while giving you a rooting interest and a through line worth exploring? That is largely what this is. It’s a warm bath. It’s a tall glass of wine. It’s a good meal you didn’t have to make.

The patchwork of La Dolce Villa – widows feeling love again, a father & daughter coming together after the loss of a matriarch, the beauty of small-town Italy, the appeal of house flipping, the charming locals (a couple that always breaks up and makes up, 3 older women with the same name who hang out together in the same spot every day, a striking young chef, & a sneaky yet boisterous goat), the food (!) – make for a Valentine’s Day snuggle on the couch worthy of the holiday.

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2

Last Bullet

The Lost Bullet franchise is one of the most impressive feats in the Netflix Filmography. The original film was released at the height of the Covid shutdowns in June 2020 to very little fanfare, at least here in the United States. A French production without a global crossover success as its lead actor (all due respect to the awesome discovery that is former stuntman Alban Lenoir; AKA rocks too!). Helmed by a first-time director, Guillaume Pierret, with a very modest budget and a shooting schedule that concluded after only a reported 38 days. With all that stacked against them, the film still became a quick sensation on the platform, with more than 37 million views in its first month. Flash forward 5 years with 2 more films released under the leadership of Pierret & Lenoir and a solid reputation for bold action stunts and wild car rigs that would make the Mad Max creators envious.

Maybe the most shocking aspect of this unexpected trilogy is the mileage they’ve received from the original film’s main story. Lost Bullet centers around the character of Lino (Lenoir), a small-time delinquent with an incredible ability to create automotive masterpieces out of ordinary cars, who is enlisted by the French gendarmerie as a work release from prison. In exchange for his freedom, Lino must help a special “Go Fast” task force supe up their vehicles in order to stop drugrunners from crossing the border. While working for this crew, his mentor and leader Charas and his brother Quentin are gunned down by dirty cops Areski & Marco. Lino is suspected & framed for the murder of Charas and must take down these cops to clear his name. The sequel to the original, Lost Bullet 2: Back For More, focuses on the hunt & capture of one of the cops who got away, Marco. Seeking revenge for the death of Quentin, Lino spends most of the film on the run trying to take him down (or keeping him hostage in a trunk). For the final installment of the series, Last Bullet, it’s Areski’s turn to pay as Lino comes back into the fold to take him and his former superiors down to close the book on his payback for the death of Charas. The 3 movies all stem from two major deaths in the first movie. John Wick and his dog would be proud.

While Lino and his partner Julia’s revenge plot is what keeps these films on the tracks, its the amazing stunt work that keeps audiences (and myself) coming back for more. For Last Bullet, Pierret & Lenoir create some of their best action set pieces to date. After the story slowly moves the players into position, the film kicks into high gear once Lino, Areski, & his former boss’ henchmen collide in several high-speed chases and knockdown, drag-out fights. From a car/motorcycle chase through a public park where Lino jumps a wall with his Alpine sports car to a 3-way brawl in a city tram, the movie barely lets you catch your breath before it comes up with the next amazing stunt. While many of my favorite stunt pieces probably occur in the 2nd Lost Bullet movie, Last Bullet might be having the most fun with its standout set piece featuring Lino in a tricked out tow truck blasting fireworks at a low-flying helicopter before lowering his barrels and shooting them directly at pursuing vehicles causing them to flip in the air (car flips being the calling card of the entire franchise).

While I may prefer the tighter cut, to-the-point revenge plots of the first two films more, Last Bullet definitely stuck the landing for this little franchise that could with all the action you could want and a satisfying conclusion to the Lilo & Julia story. Between this trilogy and his lead role in AKA, I definitely look forward to what Alban Lenoir has in store for us next.

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1

Havoc

If you’re going to take the top spot, you better be elite at something and Havoc has the action sensibilities of one Gareth Evans.

One of the most influential action filmmakers of the modern era, Evans’ close-quarters, zoomed-in style of gun-fu he popularized on The Raid films has gone on to serve as a template for stunt coordinators & directors to come for the following decade. John Wick, Extraction, The Night Comes For Us, and even the original Netflix Daredevil TV series all nod to the style that Evans and his team put forth in the modern action landscape.

Releasing 4 years after initial filming wrapped in 2021, Evans finally brings us Havoc, his first feature film since his previous Netflix film Apostle that hit the platform in 2018. The film follows the brash, grizzled, and largely compromised detective Walker (Venom’s Tom Hardy) as he is summoned to an ultra-violent crime scene from an apparent drug deal gone wrong. Upon discovering that the estranged son of local politician Lawrence Beaumont fled the scene after the death of a Triad leader, Walker makes a deal with the mayoral candidate (Godfather of Harlem star Forest Whitaker) to retrieve his son safely and get him out of the city before the Triads execute him in exchange for his freedom from Beaumont as he’s blackmailed Walker for years from information he obtained about the death of an undercover cop when Walker worked narcotics.

With help from his newly assigned partner Ellie (Shadow and Bone lead Jessie Mei Li), this haunted and bruised detective must fight his way through the criminal underworld, unraveling a deep web of corruption and conspiracy that has ensnared the entire city.

With this film, Evans switches stances slightly to give a nod of his own to the Hong Kong gun-fu style of John Woo & Ringo Lam in the late 80s & early 90s – sans the insane amount of slow-motion and doves I guess. Hard-boiled detectives, taking down the drug trade, saving valued targets with a one-man army, & shootouts galore feature prominently in many of the best Chow Yun-Fat films of the era and Havoc is no different.

Evans blends the old with the new with more gun than fu, leaning heavily on inventive ultraviolence cut to precision by Evans himself (he’s listed as “Action Editor” in the credits of the film). The set pieces at the nightclub and the final showdown at the fishing cabin will be, once again, rewatchable YouTube clip masterclasses, highlighting Evans’ quick-cut, tight frame construction that ditches the wide shot for the intimacy of a spear gun to the face.

While the violence will take center stage, Evans’s writing and tight-as-a-drum editing have to be noted as well. Many films have tried and failed to keep a one-man army story on the tracks with a plot that matters even in some regard (I’m looking at you, David Ayer’s last 2 Statham films), but Havoc does just enough to be a cut above. A detective haunted & punished for his past misdeeds does one last job to get his life back in some way, but in order to do so, he has to trust a partner again and face down his past with the best action sequences being the collision of those ideas – all in 100 minutes.

While the film may have issues with poor CGI landscapes and pieces of Hardy’s performance, Havoc will be a crowd-pleaser for the audience that Evans has built and the modern action fan in general. His skills as a director & action editor are still as sharp as ever and cannot be denied, especially when he channels the influence of Hong Kong crime film legends. Bolstered by stars in key supporting roles (Olyphant, Whitaker) and the blunt instrument of Hardy in the 2nd half, Havoc will add to the mythology of Evans’ work and give us the jolt we were looking for. Evans’ “love letter to the heroic bloodshed genre” will have us replaying its finest – and bloodiest – moments for years to come.

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