The 18 best Netflix Original movies for you to watch right now

Directed by David Fincher, this movie is an action thriller that follows a cold, methodical assassin. The unnamed assassin, played by Michael Fassbender, adheres to a strict code and avoids emotional attachments, believing empathy is a weakness. During a mission, his meticulous plan goes awry, resulting in the unintended death of a bystander and injuring his girlfriend. Plagued by guilt and a sense of unraveling control, the assassin embarks on a revenge mission against his employers. The Killer explores the psychological toll of a killer’s profession and the consequences of breaking his own moral code.

There are plenty of dark, heartbreaking movies on this list, but Private Life may be the most quietly devastating. The movie follows Paul Giamatti and Kathryn Hahn as a New York couple who are trying to have a baby. After numerous, expensive attempts at IVF, they decide to use a surrogate, even as they fight to keep their marriage from falling apart. Private Life is a small, intimate film about the pains of wanting a child, and it’s beautifully performed by its two leads, who don’t get to flex these muscles as often as they should.

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is not weighty or particularly serious. Its premise, which features the release of an introverted, romantic girl’s secret love letters to the world, is as silly as they come. What makes the first entry in the To All the Boys series work, though, is that it’s a deeply effective teen romantic comedy about allowing yourself to be open and vulnerable, even if it means you might get hurt. Featuring star-making performances from Noah Centineo and Lana Condor, the film is remarkably well directed, and it’s a sensitive portrait of the beauty and frustrations of young love.

Netflix has been able to poach some of the world’s biggest filmmakers in the years since it began making original films, and getting Spike Lee to make Da 5 Bloods for them was one of their biggest coups to date. The film follows four Black Vietnam veterans who reunite in Vietnam 50 years after the fighting to dig up a treasure they buried in the countryside long ago. From there, the personalities and politics of each member of the ensemble begin to unravel their bond, even as Lee makes salient points about the way Black soldiers are used and thrown out by their country. Delroy Lindo didn’t even get an Oscar nomination for his work in the film, and that in and of itself was an injustice worthy of protest.