Narges Rashidi stars in the 2016 Persian psychological horror film ‘Under the Shadow.’
Netflix
Whenever I highlight the most critically acclaimed movies on Netflix, I’m blown away by the randomness of the selection. Because while there are several well-known big-budget movies that have earned near-universal critical approval, like Mad Max: Fury Road and The Lego Movie, most of the candidates tend to be movies the larger public has never heard of—and that’s certainly the case for this addition of the list as well. From Persian psychological thrillers that unpack geopolitical tensions to good-natured martial arts films about the realities of aging to investigative documentaries that shine a light on society’s darkest secrets, there are always great movies to be found on Netflix that never found much of an audience outside critics.
Well, let’s change that today. Below, I’ve listed out ten different movies that neared or achieved the 100% marker on Rotten Tomatoes (the lowest-rated movie on this list scored 97% on the site). And don’t worry, none of these movies have been repeated from my three previous lists: this one, or this one, or this one. Each movie entry on this list will provide a trailer, as well as a plot summary and why the movie won over critics. Ultimately, the list is comprised of movies that will appeal to a number of different tastes, that offer a chance to discover the less-visible pockets of film that critics have all agreed rank among the best of the best on Netflix.
The Most Critically Acclaimed Movies On Netflix
Under the Shadow (2016)
92 reviews — 99% approval rating
I thought I’d start with what I perceive to be the least-well-known movie with a near-perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes: Under the Shadow. It was written and directed by Babak Anvari, an Iranian-born filmmaker who combined his love of horror with memories of growing up during the Iran-Iraq War to produce one of the more unique genre mash-ups on Netflix. Inspired by Persian mythology, particularly folklore told to children about spirits that travel on the wind, Anvari wrote a screenplay that follows Shideh (Narges Rashidi), a former medical student in 1980s Tehran who’s been banned from school after her involvement with leftist political factions. When the war escalates, her husband, Iraj (Bobby Naderi), is sent to the front lines, leaving Shideh alone at home with their daughter, Dorsa (Avin Manshadi). As the war rages on, Dorsa begins to sense that a “djinn,” aka a malevolent spirit, is haunting their apartment. In a narrative that recalls The Babadook, strange occurrences escalate as Shiden is forced to differentiate between the supernatural and the psychological as she protects her daughter from harm. Critics from Rotten Tomatoes appreciate how Anvari keeps supernatural appearances to a minimum, leaving much to the imagination. As a result, Anvari produces a film that holds a mirror to the Iranian society he grew up in, using Shideh’s isolation to explores the restrictions placed on women in post-revolutionary Iran, where ambition and self-expression were often curtailed.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Foul (2024)
137 reviews — 100% approval rating
Nick Park, the mastermind behind the Wallace & Gromit claymation series, continued his streak of critically lauded work in 2024 with his first feature-length film in nearly 20 years: Vengeance Most Fowl. His four Wallace & Gromit short films—A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave and A Matter of Loaf and Death—all boast 100% scores on Rotten Tomatoes, while his one other feature-length movie, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, sits pretty at 95%. While initially envisioned as a 30-minute short, Vengeance Most Fowl grew bigger and bigger as Park and his directing partner, Merlin Crossingham, developed the story, leading to Wallace & Gromit’s first 100% score for feature-length stories. The screenplay boasts a narrative reminiscent of the inventor Wallace and his canine companion Gromit’s typical adventures: Wallace (Ben Whitehead) invents a smart robotic gnome intended to help with garden chores called Norbot. But it isn’t long until the infamous penguin criminal Feathers McGraw (making his return from The Wrong Trousers) hacks Norbot and reprograms it to build an army of revenge-fueled garden gnomes ready to carry out his dirty deeds. Together with Chief Inspector Mackintosh (Peter Kay) and his young protégée PC Mukherjee (Lauren Patel), Wallace and Gromit set out to upend Feathers’ plans. Aardman Animations, which faced clay shortage concerns when their supplier shut down in 2023, nonetheless carried out its signature tactile stop-motion craftsmanship. Critics universally praised the fully realized lovable and hilarious characters, as well as the environments which are rife with visual jokes, props and puns.
Athlete A (2020)
60 reviews — 100% approval rating
Netflix documentaries don’t always get the best wrap, especially considering that the streaming platform tends to focus more on scandals and murder mysteries than actual human interest stories. But the streamer struck a beautiful medium with a piercing piece of investigative journalism known as Athlete A, which details how the Indianapolis Star uncovered sexual abuse scandal long concealed within USA Gymnastics. The documentary unpacks the deeply researched reporting that revealed the dangerous behavior of this country’s team doctor Larry Nassar, who, for years under the guise of treatment, sexually abused young female gymnasts. This incredible document, which sports a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, highlights how gymnasts—including the titular “Athlete A,” Maggie Nichols—came forward, and reveals how abuse continued for years because of institutional efforts to suppress these stories. Athlete A ultimately follows the criminal prosecution of Nassar and the downfall of authority figures in USA Gymastics—but more than anything, the documentary details how the survivors remained strong during their journey of resilience and healing. Aided by their deeply engaging approach to the art of investigative journalism, through interviews, depositions and persistence, critics applauded directors Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk (co-founders of Actual Films) for offering an immersive, procedural lens into how the stories of those abused, from Rachael Denhollander to Jamie Dantzscher to Maggie Nichols. Their stories were communicated by reporters who were willing to dig deeper and expose the darkest corners of society.
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024)
50 reviews — 98% approval rating
Not many movie lovers know the director Pat Boonnitipat’s name—but they might soon. While many Asian countries, such as Japan (with movies like Shoplifters and Drive My Car) and South Korea (Burning and Parasite), have enjoyed great success among critics and award shows, Thailand has yet to break those grounds on a wider scale. It doesn’t help that the Academy Awards has never nominated a Thai project for Best International Feature Film (all those aforementioned foreign films were). But, believe it or not, Thailand made the 15-film shortlist for the Academy’s biggest international film award for the first time ever with a new release you’ve likely never heard of: How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies. The story follows M (Putthipong Assaratanakul, an actor/singer known as “Billkin”), a rebellious-university-dropout-turned-video-game-streamer who cares for his terminally ill grandmother, Mengju (Usha Seamkhum), with a single sinister ulterior motive in his back pocket: to inherit her house after she dies from colorectal cancer. Initially detached and opportunistic, M gradually matures as he forges a genuine bond with his grandmother, all while navigating the tangled web of selfish family agendas that treat caregiving like a business. Critics loved how this interplay with extended family members highlights themes of generational tension, gender expectations and tradition in Thai-Chinese households. Ultimately, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, which was made on a modest $1 million budget, went on to unprecedented success, grossing a staggering $73.8 million worldwide to become the highest-grossing Thai film ever.
Will & Harper (2024)
122 reviews — 99% approval rating
Anytime you see Will Ferrell’s name attached to a film, you immediately think of comedy in the vein of Step Brothers, or Blades of Glory, or Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. What definitely doesn’t come to mind, however, is empathetic centering and perspective, nor emotional vulnerability and authenticity. Nonetheless, Will & Harper stands as what might be Ferrell’s best “comedy”—one that blends candid hilarity and emotional sincerity in a way that feels refreshing and honest and revealing. The story isn’t just about Ferrell, but also about former SNL writer Harper Steele, a trans woman who, on the cusp on starting the next chapter of her life, reached out to Ferrell, someone she deeply trusted. Together, they take a long road trip that finds them stopping all over the country and talking to all kinds of people, from family members to former SNL alumni, like Tina Fey, Seth Meyers and Molly Shannon. Director Josh Greenbaum, known for The Short Game and Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, hoped his documentary detailing such a powerful friendship would make a cultural impact—not by being overtly political, but instead by being incredibly personal. “That’s where our politics should lie,” he told Variety, “in the personal.” And 99% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes (the movie currently only has one negative review out of 122) agree that this document achieves something special as it captures open-road moments and stops, ranging from dive bars to hospitals to childhood haunts, as a canvas for how true friendship and deep conversation can guide us through the most trying of moments.
The First Slam Dunk (2023)
46 reviews — 100% approval rating
Often, the narratives of anime stories are larger than life—from futuristic sci-fi tales of bounty hunters to mechanized dystopian worlds to time-traveling romances, this beloved style of animation has allowed many Japanese filmmakers to dissect our world in strange and inventive ways. But more than anything, anime offers an anarchic aesthetic, one that allows for a sort of unprecedented intensity and tempestuousness, thus offering a unique level of insight. And The First Slam Dunk proves that sort of intensity can be milked from any setting or story—even one as normal as high school basketball. The story is simple enough: the Shohoku High School basketball team hopes to win the Inter–High School National Championship by facing off against their powerhouse rivals at Sannoh Kogyo High. This film from director Takehiko Inoue details their ups and downs as the team—fronted by lightning‑fast point guard Ryota Miyagi (voiced by Shugo Nakamura) and filled out by Hanamichi Sakuragi (Subaru Kimura), Takenori Akagi (Kenta Miyake), Hisashi Mitsui (Jun Kasama) and Kaede Rukawa (Shinichiro Kamio)—trains for the big game. Through back-and-forth-through-time storytelling, the film centers on Ryota’s emotional journey of honoring his late brother Sota’s legacy and overcoming his own pain to help elevate the team. Critics complimented how Inoue blends 3D computer graphics with 2D hand-drawn animation to achieve an effect that both allows the sport of basketball to feel electrifying and makes the characters feel alive and emotionally grounded.
Cell 211 (2009)
47 reviews — 98% approval rating
Cell 211 is the kind of movie that is praised by those who understand its scathing critique of the European prison system’s inability to reform inmates and broader societal attitudes toward incarceration, especially in the context of Spain’s fraught history with the ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna), a Basque separatist group whose members are taken hostage by inmates as political leverage—alas, this overseas struggle isn’t very well-known by American audiences, and a film such as Cell 211 needs immense critical approval to find a wider audience. Luckily, this tensely paced piece of social commentary praised to high heaven by 47 critics on Rotten Tomatoes is available to any Netflix subscriber wiling to learn more about such a struggle. The film follows rookie prison guard Juan Oliver (Alberto Ammann), who is knocked unconscious in the midst of an erupting prison riot. Trapped inside with violent inmates, he pretends to be a prisoner convicted of homicide to survive, eventually gaining the trust of the dangerous riot leader Malamadre (Luis Tosar). The deeper Juan gets into his new persona? The more he’s drawn into the inmates’ escalating hostage crisis. Directed by Daniel Monzón, and based on the 2003 novel-of-the-same-name by Francisco Pérez Gandul, critics cheered for how this little-seen gem unfolds like a pressure cooker, launching both Juan and us into a chaotic struggle that defamiliarizes a very real-world problem that has persisted for years—and doesn’t feel like it’ll be solved anytime soon.
The Paper Tigers (2021)
62 reviews — 98% approval rating
There aren’t many action films that find themselves near 100% on Rotten Tomatoes’ rating system. Genre films have a much harder time bridging this gap, as opposed to the independent dramas and documentaries that typically cross the universal-praise barrier. That’s what makes the martial arts film The Paper Tigers such an anomaly: it successfully blends warm, inviting comedy with hard-hitting fight choreography, all through authentic characters that feel like the everyday people watching said film. The result is something that’s both familiar and extraordinary, both comfortable and alluring. This good-humored flick from Vietnamese filmmaker Quoc Bao Tran (The Paper Tigers is the director’s only feature movie to date) follows three out-of-shape men who were once childhood kung fu prodigies—Danny (Alain Uy), Hing (Ron Yuan) and Jim (Mykel Shannon Jenkins)—as they juggle dead-end jobs and tense family situations. After their former master, Sifu Cheung (Roger Yuan), suddenly and suspiciously dies, they reunite to investigate and avenge his death, all while rekindling their friendship and rediscovering the discipline and camaraderie they once shared. Tran developed the concept back in 2011 in an effort to create a story around Asian-American characters without studio-imposed whitewashing. Critics, who rewarded The Paper Tigers with a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, consistently praised the dynamic between Uy, Yuan and Jenkins as a highlight, as well as action director Ken Quitugua’s grounded martial arts sequences. This cult favorite stands out for being a martial arts story rooted in the Asian diaspora experience, embracing both genre nostalgia and cultural sentiments.
Dick Johnson is Dead (2020)
101 reviews — 99% approval rating
There are a couple tearjerkers on this list (most notably How to Makes Millions Before Grandma dies, which went viral on TikTok for making audiences cry), but I’m not sure any of them match the personal, therapeutic touch of the documentary hybrid Dick Johnson is Dead. Conceived by documentary filmmaker Kirsten Johnson after her father, Dick, began to show signs of dementia, the film brazenly confronts death as the father-daughter duo stage a series of over-the-top, comically absurd death scenarios. Dick is struck by falling construction debris, tumbles down stairs and gets stabbed in the neck in the created universe, while he moves in with Kirsten, sells his car and dismantles his psychiatric office in the real universe, all while adjusting to life with the awareness that his memories are slipping away. As the ever-lovable father plays along with his daughter’s morose game, the film becomes both a love letter and a living eulogy, balancing gallows humor with profound tenderness. Kirsten referred to the project “preemptive mourning,” a way of using the art of filmmaking to emotionally prepare herself for Dick’s decline and eventual passing. While dark and confrontational, critics note how the film is nonetheless uplifting and empowering, driven by the father’s warmth, charm and openness. Dick’s every gesture and glance captured by Kirsten becomes significant as we understand it may be the last time we see him clearly. Such an irreverent approach is what resulted in its 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, leading to praises like “an absolute original” and “a landmark in documentary form.”
KPop Demon Hunters (2025)
59 reviews — 97% approval rating
Last but not least, I feel compelled to highlight Netflix’s latest entry into near-perfect territory that so few films find on Rotten Tomatoes: KPop Demon Hunters, a project conceived by co-director Maggie Kang as a love letter to K‑pop and her Korean heritage. Directed alongside Chris Appelhans, this hit Netflix film draws visual inspiration from concert lighting, anime and K‑dramas to craft a striking “CG anime” aesthetic for its musical numbers, and pays homage to real K‑pop groups like Blackpink, 2NE1, Itzy and Twice for its characters. The result is a truly unique cinematic experience—an ultra-stylized world where high‑glamour idol moments coexist with “Chibi” exaggeration; a narrative where K‑pop fantasy, magical girl action and urban mythology all come together in an energetic pop‑fantasy cocktail. The film follows the sensational K‑pop girl group Huntr/x, which consists of Rumi (voice by Arden Cho), Mira (May Hong) and Zoey (Ji‑young Yoo). In Hannah Montana fashion, these three superstars balance world tours with their secret duties as demon hunters who use their music to maintain the mystical barrier known as the Honmoon. When demons cause Rumi to lose her voice, the group is forced to face off against a rival boy band—the Saja Boys, led by demon Jinu (Ahn Hyo‑seop)—who threaten to shatter the Honmoon and unleash chaos. As of late July, KPop Demon Hunters had amassed 158.8 million views, ultimately making it the most-watched animated movie Netflix has ever released. To boot, it owns near-universal acclaim on Rotten Tomatoes with 97%.