Yesterday we started Bill’s Best Bets While Social Distancing. Yesterday we highlighted things to watch on Amazon, today it’s Netflix.
NETFLIX
Call this the elephant in the room.
Netflix began as a massive distributor of DVDs, but has since become a member of the Motion Picture Association of America and wants to be regarded as a major film distributor in its own right.
Oscar-winning director Alfonso Cuaron’s 2018 drama “Roma” was shown in theaters only a few days before being made available solely on Netflix.
The same was true a year later regarding Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” and Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story.”
All three were nominated for multiple Academy Awards, including as Best Picture.
By March 2020, almost 3,000 films were available to be streamed on Netflix in the United States, including musician Taylor Swift’s first behind-the-scenes tour documentary.
Netflix has grown into a billion dollar industry, offering a combination of studio hits and Made for Netflix projects.
Indeed, those programming Netflix juggle thousands of hours of film and hundreds of Made for Netflix programs with many recognizable hits.
I scrolled through no fewer than 350 Netflix titles, finding the 10 best projects produced for Netflix.
Not every title in the Top 10 is well known: 1. “The Other Side of the Wind,” 2. “The Irishman,” 3. “Marriage Story,” 4. “Roma,” 5. “Okja,” 6. “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” 7. “Private Life,” 8. “Happy as Lazzaro,” 9. “High Flying Bird,” and 10. “My Happy Family.”
Website collider.com provides a list of the 10 most popular films streaming on Netflix: 1. director Peter Berg’s “Spenser For Hire,” 2. the 2019 animated sequel “Angry Birds 2,” 3. the 1996 comedy “Space Jam,” 4. the 2018 science fiction thriller “Freaks,” 5. romantic comedy “Life As We Know It,” 6. the 2011 animated sequel “Kung Fu Panda 2,” 7. the 1995 thriller “Outbreak” (perhaps a reaction to Covid-19), 8. the late Garry Marshall’s 2010 romantic comedy :”Valentine’s Day,” 9. the 2009 romantic comedy “He’s Just Not That Into You,” with Ben Affleck and Drew Barrymore, and 10. the 2010 action-comedy “Cop Out,” with Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan.
The same collider website also provides the 10 most popular series currently on Netflix.
They are: 1. reality series “Love is Blind,” 2. true crime series “The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez,” 3. teen science fiction series “I Am Not Okay with This,” 4. science fiction series “Altered Carbon,” 5. thriller “Narcos: Mexico,” 6. fantasy series “Locke and Key,” 7. comedy-drama “Gentefied,” 8. comedy “The Office,” with Steve Carell; 9. dramatic series “Better Call Saul,” and 10. crime drama “El Dragon: Return of a Warrior.”
I would also recommend a documentary titled “The Movies That Made Us,” a program letting us know much that we did not realize about the making of cinematic hits “Dirty Dancing,” “Home Alone,” “Ghostbusters” and “Die Hard.” The separate 2016 film “The History of Chicago,” on Netflix, provides a two-hour history of gifted band Chicago.
Evidently, Amazon Prime could not claim every documentary.
I should admit I also watched every episode in multiple seasons of both “Supernatural” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” my only excuse being: Insomnia.
Tomorrow … Disney +