20 straight to streaming movies that you need to see

published 6 April 2024

It used to be considered a poor reflection on the quality of a film when it skipped a cinematic release and went ‘straight to video’.

How times have changed. The modern version of this phenomenon is going ‘straight to streaming’, yet heading directly to a subscription service isn’t seen as a negative comment on a film’s worth. Rather, it often speaks to negative market forces and changing audience behaviour.

Indeed, there’s a prevailing sentiment among movie fans, critics and directors that many straight-to-streaming films have been underserved. That respected film makers are being forced to play to a fickle home viewing audience rather than having their work rewarded with the elevated status of a proper run in theatres.

On that last point, we should concede many of these films have technically been given a cinematic run of sorts. However, they’re typically extremely limited showings, both in terms of timing and in the sheer number of theatres.

In many cases, such cinematic runs exist solely and cynically to qualify them for awards consideration, or else to satisfy the demands of the filmmakers, who invariably wish their work to be experienced on the big screen.

All of which should tell you the following is no mere round-up of modern B-movies, but rather a collection of brilliant films that happened to get their financing from the new power brokers in Hollywood: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus, and Apple TV Plus.

20 straight to streaming movies that you need to see

Prey could very well be the first genuinely good film in the Predator series since the Arnie-starring original from 25 years prior. Serving as a prequel of sorts, it sees Amber Midthunder’s underestimated native American warrior going toe to toe with a deadly alien hunter on the Great Plains in the early 18th century. Prey’s success lies in the way it gets back to basics, patiently focusing on character development and steadily ratcheting up the tension before all hell breaks loose.

For his follow-up to the faulous Knives Out, Rhian Johnson takes his flamboyant detective Benoit Blanc (played by the outrageously accented Daniel Craig) and applies his suave talents to a murder mystery-gone-wrong on a tech bro’s private island. Featuring another stellar cast (Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kate Hudson, and Dave Bautista to name but a few) all playing various shades of awful people, Glass Onion is arguably even more riotously entertaining than the first film.

This low budget found footage horror movie from Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass really hits the spot. Struggling videographer Aaron (Brice) is offered $1,000 to spend the day filming the terminally ill Josef (Duplass), who ostensibly wishes to leave a video document for his unborn child. Uncomfortably friendly and prone to unpredictable behavioural turns, Josef’s eccentricities soon turn into something far more sinister – not helped by the remote rural location of his home, of course.

Netflix produced its very own timeless Christmas movie in Klaus. Hiring Sergio Pablos to make his directorial debut was a good start, the Spanish animator having worked on Despicable Me and several of Disney’s overlooked ’90’s cartoons. What follows is a Father Christmas origin story of sorts, but the real point of interest is a striking hand-animated art style that looks quite unlike anything from the usual CGI crowd. An excellent cast includes J. K. Simmons, Rashida Jones, Joan Cusack, and Jason Schwartzman.

If there’s a modern movie that’s painted a better portrait of a failing marriage than the appropriately titled Marriage Story, we’ve yet to see it. Noah Baumbach’s frequently painful yet deeply sympathetic and ultimately redemptive film focuses in on Adam Driver’s theatre director and Scarlett Johansen’s actor as they stumble into a messy continent-spanning divorce. It could just be the director’s best film, regardless of its status as a Netflix production that received only a token cinematic run.

We still can’t quite get over the idea of The Coen Brothers – those uncompromising masters of modern auteur cinema – making a film for a streaming service. After watching The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, however, it’s difficult to imagine it being released in any other format. Its anthology structure, made up of six distinct western fables, resembles the kind of limited series that Netflix has built its name on, albeit with sky high production values and that customary off-kilter Coen sensibility.

David Michôd’s film is a historical epic of Shakespearean proportions – quite literally. Taking as its inspiration The Bard’s ‘Henriad’ plays, it’s a loose retelling of the life of Henry V, whose brief but militarily effective rule in the early 15th century turned England into a major force. Timothée Chalamet plays the young playboy-turned-ruler, while Robert Pattinson plays his rival the Dauphin of France, complete with outrageous French accent and improbable blonde wig.

They Cloned Tyrone is the rare film on this list that seems custom-made for streaming. How else to explains its curious mash-up of tone and genre? Part nod to ’70s exploitation movies, part paranoid conspiracy thriller, part sci-fi action adventure, you can almost hear the gears of that Netflix algorithm machine grinding in the background. Thankfully, the movie works on its own terms, thanks to a bold visual style and stellar performances from John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Jamie Foxx.

This Indonesian production from Timo Tjahjanto – one half of cult production duo The Mo Brothers – shows a typical flair for brutally choreographed violence. It also sees charismatic The Raid stars Joe Taslim and Iko Uwais reuniting and facing off against one another as former friends on opposite sides of a bitter triad dispute. The resulting action extravaganza is packed full of stunningly shot, wince-inducing action scenes. It’s difficult to imagine how any of the actors emerged unscathed.

Alfonso Cuarón’s stunningly shot black and white paean to the Mexico City of his childhood follows a middle class family and their live-in indigenous housekeeper Cleo. As the idyllic veneer of the family privileged life starts to peel away due to infidelity, Cleo’s life is shaken when she falls pregnant. Cuarón’s camera expertly captures the beauty, political volatility, and unexpected violence of the time, while exploring two completely different but closely entwined worlds.

Jon Mundy is a freelance writer with more than a dozen years of experience writing for leading tech websites such as TechRadar and Trusted Reviews.