Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

Thought it might be fun/useful to devote a thread that flagged semi-obscure or off the radar films & tv shows on Netflix's Watch Instantly service.

A few recent discoveries:

Burnt Offerings
MST3K: The Wild World of Batwoman
American Grindhouse
Vampyr
Who Is Harry Nilsson?
Shock Waves
Nightmares in Red, White and Blue
Man with the Movie Camera
World's Greatest Dad
Rolling Stones: Stones in Exile

There are so many MST3K movies available, it is awesome.

My roommate and I watched about three quarters of the Doors doc that Tom DiCillo made. Johnny Depp narrates.
It's pretty ridiculous and awesome.

xpost -- between that, the DVD sets and YouTube it's a golden time.

yeah, I think I've gone through about a dozen MST3K's this month already

x-post - I'm not a Doors fan, but that I've heard good things about that doc

Between checking a few months ago and checking a few days ago, a bunch of Criterion Collection films have been added. I don't remember so much from the Essential Art House boxes being available before, and it looks like almost all of them are there now.

Unfortunately, I found this out after I added the Bergman box set to my Criterion order the other day. Hopefully they'll let me return it unopened so I can get the Cassavetes box instead.

you can stream a woman under the influence now so... maybe rethink that, too

oh shiiiit, Killing of a Chinese Bookie is streamable now too!

Recently I've watched and enjoyed the following: The Watermelon Woman, Suspiria, Rockers, She, The Last Picture Show, and Le Jetee (inspiration for 12 Monkeys).

Oh and a lot of old Nickelodeon cartoons from the 90s have been added but y'all probably already know that.

The White Ribbon is available!

Claire Denis' 35 Shots of Rum

I think all of the Paul Morrissey Warhol-produced films are on there.

Louie season 1, one of the most fascinating shows in a long time.

Dogs Decoded: Nova is an awesome doc about recent canine research. Highly recommended for any dog owners.

Loved Louie as well.

Also streaming:
The Girlfriend Experience
Slings and Arrows
Blue Thunder

And HAVOC!

i watched the happy hooker goes hollywood on streaming netflix tonight. "recommendation" is a strong word, but i had fun.

"American Grindhouse"

Haha so amusing who co-produced this (it's okay btw as talking head features like this go).

if you liked "The Wild World of Batwoman", make sure to check out "Eegah!"

Louie season 1, one of the most fascinating shows in a long time.

Yeah, I never got a chance to check this out until it was on Netflix - it's great.

"I Am Love" is pretty fascinating

if you liked "The Wild World of Batwoman", make sure to check out "Eegah!"

I did and it was great!

barking dogs never bite - korean black comedy about eating the dogs
we jam econo - awesome minutemen doc

if i start posting on this thread i will be participating in 3 different netflix streaming threads which seems excessive

There's two other streaming threads? Did I miss something?

dont feel bad, one of them is my own self-indulgent fault and the other is on I Love Games.

JJJUSTEN MAKES ONE SENTENCIRIFIC REVIEWS OF ALL THE CRAP THAT HE WATCHES LATE AT NIGHT ON NETFLIX STREAMING XBOX SOMETHING WHY BECAUSE HE BORED ALSO BECAUSE
Netflix Streaming Film Recommendations: Because You Can't Always Play With Yourself

one is jjjusten's personal joint and the other has a tmi title

xp

Sorry jjjusten! I totally missed your thread. Thought I did a search first. Look forward to reading those threads.

Tales from the Script has interviews with everyone from Richard Rush to Paul Schraeder to Shane Black about big-studio screenwriting. Lots of guys I'd never heard speak before. Good documentary.

the documentary about milton glaser (hugely important graphic designer) is on instant netflix. can't wait to see it.

Exit Through the Gift Shop (aka "The Banksy documentary") is an unexpected mindfuck, and surprisingly isn't really about Banksy at all. I recommend!

yeah that looks good

^Had me all fucked up over art, commerce, life in general, for a couple days.

Recent watches:

Soul Kitchen
Vengeance
Valhalla Rising
Centurion
Rewatched first five eps of Party Down Season 2
Planet B-Boy

Another thumbs up for Exit Through the Gift Shop. Just watched the Joan Rivers doc this weekend, too.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye is a good doc, not sure if it's on Netflix instant.

Rewatched first five eps of Party Down Season 2

when are they going to put up the final 5 is my question

they took mall cops away :(

i only got to see, like, 4 episodes.

you could write, like, ten doctoral thesiseseses just watching that show and never leaving your couch. amerikkka writ sad.

Just watched Black Narcissus -- so good.

when are they going to put up the final 5 is my question

up now

Milton Glaser doc is good btw.

Just watched Black Narcissus -- so good.

― pixel farmer, Thursday, December 23, 2010 12:38 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Beautiful stuff like these seems worth waiting for the disc to show up, no?

I just watch Hoarders and old SNLs

Exit through the gift shop is so awesome

I know the disc would be better quality than streaming, but streaming is definitely better quality than regular tv -- there are far fewer compression artifacts than I get on cable. Maybe Netflix can tell I have decent downstream bandwidth (10 Mbps), I dunno. Turn off the lights in my office, watch fullscreen on the larger monitor, in with the earbuds, ask the family not to mess with me for two hours (or watch in the morning before they get up), a nice near-cinema experience.

"Beautiful stuff like these seems worth waiting for the disc to show up, no?"

Not with my TV, no.

ah good point

i'm a little of worried that Netflix is gonna phase out discs before the internet connections get good enough for streams to be disc-quality

I'M STILL HERE, one of the greatest and most underrated films of the year, is now on instant. Time will be very kind to it.

Just watched Moon, pretty good.
Now starting the Red Riding Trilogy.

Just watched "I Think We're Alone Now" about two disturbed dudes obsessed with Tiffany. Pretty interesting, if a bit depressing.

Come to think of it, both of the dudes are probably ILM regulars.

I Am Not Ok W/ This I thought was more in that Heathers vein and not like, this is what teens do nowadays.

F&G is definitely a high-water mark. The other teen-focused stuff I like is usually refracted through another adult genre so realism doesn't really matter and the melodrama isn't the only thing going on (e.g., Buffy, Veronica Mars; Sex Education to a degree too, though I would never watch that with my parents in the room).

Stuff I liked watching with my parents: various UK comedies, the Simpsons, my mom got into X-Files with me, and lots of oscarbaity movies that were a good gateway to developing my own taste in film while transitioning out of "kid's movies."

Tbf I don't remember MSL well enough to explain why I hated it--for all I know I felt owned by it

I am total contrarian on this I know, but I never got F&G. It was fine. It was a bit of work to get through for me because it felt really really slow and I didn't like most of the characters/casting. Would always rate Buffy, VM, Se all of the other shows listed above it.

for anyone in the UK here's a list of films on Netflix and Prime that are a bit more buried under algorithms.

https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/lists/100-great-films-streaming-netflix-amazon-prime?fbclid=IwAR2Ms_2cw2a8SDK0lBI6BreEAm8sEYJYSfyCdNwwSHbPWvXZMY8TWLtk7Ok

xps to Josh. Don't know how old your kids are but if you've got Prime then Gortimer Gibbons is a fantastic family show.

Also my daughter has been watching Atypical on Netflix and the bits I've seen seem really good (but does have quite a few sexual references)

My kids, even the 15 year old, love Gortimer Gibbons. Also some Disney show right now called ... Dear Future President? My older one really liked the One Day at a Time remake.

FWIW, they can't get into Buffy (I wish) and I dunno about Veronica Mars (though Kristin Bell might entice them). Both of those, but specifically Buffy, are not about teens, really. They are about teen issues refracted through an adult lens, imo, or at least a more adult frame of reference.

teens like shows about adults and adults like shows about teens

otm, I think!

Freaks & Geeks, fwiw too, is the only of these types of shows where I've heard multiple generations react to it the same way. I have a friend in his early '50s who says it nails 1981 midwest. I'm in my '40s and it nails my east coast high school experience. And my kids appreciated the themes and complexities of the relationships, too. While I can't believe someone would dislike the cast/casting, which imo is dead-on (and single handedly launched several major careers), I guess I can see how someone would call it "slow," because I think it's pretty realistic, and real life is "slow." It's not "The Flaming Lips are playing the Peach Pit!" or "Half of Riverdale is in some sort of a cult!" It's "my friend and I are fighting because he wants to watch Dallas and I don't."

lol I haven't thought of the Peach Pit in decades

yeah it's really weird, because I know the cast has had big careers after but I just wasn't into them at all. It was fine. I went to hs in virginia in the 90s.

oh yeah +1 for atypical. I really enjoyed it.

I think the daughter on atypical is playing Ted's? daughter in the new bill and ted movie.

Oh, shit, Atypical is the one about the teen with autism? I think we watched maaaaaybe the first episode of that a year ago and absolutely hated it.

No doubt these shows are all being made by people who were teens 20 years ago and whose only exposure to teenagers are the Hollywood kids they cast.

Chuck Forsman doesn't cast the English TV shows based on his American books.

I'm not entirely sure what you are talking about; this show is American, I thought. I'm not familiar with the comic book author, but looked him up, and indeed, he was a teen ... 20 years ago. fwiw.

as a family we're all enjoying Tiger King

I'm not entirely sure what you are talking about; this show is American, I thought.

The previous Forsman adaptation was made for an English TV channel, in England, starring English actors in their 20s, by the same English producer / director of I Am Not Okay With This. His short films prior to End Of The Fucking World were made in England. Casting the adaptation of I Am Not Okay With This would probably have been the first time in his life he was around "Hollywood teenagers."

Forsman was a teen 20 years ago, and the teens in various of his works do seem to be inspired by his own experiences, but both he and his partner have worked as lecturers and tutors for college-aged kids in the last decade.

Interesting. Anyway, I was talking about this new show, which I have heard from multiple places is a show that shows teens being teens. And I commented how teens being teens in these shows often reflects literally none of the teens I know or live with, nor do they reflect what studies repeatedly show contemporary teens are or are not doing, and I hypothesized it's because all the creators were basing their stories on their teenage years 20 years earlier. I predict in 20 years someone will make a show about teenage boys hanging out in their rooms and playing online games.

Also this is a fictional story (about teenagers with psychic powers). Movies that have relatable adults engaging in identifiable behaviour don’t necessarily show them flossing and making coffee and checking their facebook wall multiple times per day of story time, even if that’s a major part of how your suburban neighbours’ lives play out as you observe them.

this is fiction? is that why nobody poops?

ffs, this whole thread needs to go into quarantine now.

Yerac, Tan France is on Celebrity Bake Off. I am not watching it!

is he baking or a judge? I just want to judge things in life as a career.

He's baking.

Crip Camp is up!

I know it's been mentioned but seriously holy shit at Tiger King.

Also this show coming out in the middle of a pandemic is just... idk a giant self-own for humanity? There's something ironic about watching horrible people do horrible things to caged animals while being caged up ourselves.

Feel Good is good (on Channel 4 in the UK) and I'm astonished how great Mae Martin is as an actual actor but there's something annoying me about it that I can't quite place. Maybe it's that this new love of hers, for whom she's turning her whole life upside down, is just pretty insipid and has nothing to offer (apart from validation of Mae's desperate, grasping insecurity). To be fair this is the same thing that I don't like about Shrill. So maybe it's me

Was this the thread where we were talking about fuckinghell timeloop films? Cus Viavarium is really good, really stressfull, maybe relevant? ok sicpedant not literally timeloop, but fucking hell, I am annoyed by nonexistent children screaming right now, I cannae imagine folk with actual children right now

Basically imma go out dig in the garden right now...

Like maybe this would be better in some gaming thread or or whatever, but the reason I never completed Yoshi's Island was that constant WAAAAAH! WAAAAH! whenever you lost the baby, and I donno this film has me triggered

do you guys know any good netflix documentaries / docu-series ? haven't seen many but my favorites so far were probably untold history of the US and inside the mossad

ok sicpedant not literally timeloop,

I endorse any timecockery in film and would enjoy a thread dedicated to them

(this movie does not appear to be on DVD or Netflix streaming, and to still be ~in theory~ working through the festival circuit, RIP)

Me too. There was a bit of chat here
Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

Vivarium is on Amazon to rent, apparently, also it stars Imogene Poots, who is a person whose name I refuse to believe is real, like Piper Peraboo and Peekaboo Street.

Along w Scoot McNairy & Skeet Ulrich: all names that make me giggle & seem made up

Non Zappa division, presumably.

if they were both around in the '90s, we definitely would have had seen their buddy-cop films advertised with big

SCOOT
SKEET

posters in Video Ezy

I knew the new season of Ozark would be dark, and they did take it there

Not an REO Speedwagon fan then?

lol

yeah finished last night, fuuuuuck

fyi discussion over here: Ozark

OHHH, something I was surprised and excited to discover buried in the dusty subbasement of Netflix: what appears to be the complete contents of Kino Lorber's Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers and Pioneers of African American Cinema box sets. They're listed as television shows, iirc, with the individual films indexed as episodes.

if you haven't seen The Great Hack, go watch it immediately. mind blowing 🤯

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX8GxLP1FHo

Thanks for the tip!

I watched the first season of Freud this past week. It was entertaining, good actors, great sets, a healthy dose of creepy occult shit, A+ facial hair. On the other hand, the premise and plot were fairly ridiculous. Essentially a creepy mystery show set in a 19th century Vienna, in which hypnosis is used like a Marvel superpower. If you are looking for an informative show about the life of Freud, this ain't it. If you want some lurid kicks, and don't care much about realism, this may be for you.

Lurid kicks, I'm on it.

this seems like 100% my jam

theres these books i love about Arthur Conan Doyle & Oscar Wilde solving murders together & it holds ZERO real-life water but is a great time imaginary-wise & so i would definitely be coming into this almost ready to shed what i know of Freud & go forward in life accepting this fictional Freud instead

i will def watch

plus that actor is so handsome my god

theres these books i love about Arthur Conan Doyle & Oscar Wilde solving murders together & it holds ZERO real-life water but is a great time imaginary-wise

These sound fun - what books are these?