Netflix added a wide variety of films on January 1, but even its critically acclaimed Oscar-winning movies like Erin Brockovich fall short of 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
The truth is that there simply aren’t a lot of movies that ever come close to that score.
To throw a spotlight on the films that did it, Watch With Us has picked out the three new Netflix movies with at least 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Our choices include a sci-fi drama, a documentary and a thriller.
‘District 9’ (2009)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90 percent
District 9 is one of the rare sci-fi films to land a nomination for Best Picture, and it was also the feature-length directorial debut of South African filmmaker Neill Blomkamp. This movie envisions an alternate timeline in which alien refugees become stranded on Earth and are forced to live in squalor. Blomkamp lived through the latter days of Apartheid, so there’s something very familiar about the racism and bigotry that the alien Prawns receive from humanity.
Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley) was a bureaucrat who didn’t have any feelings about the Prawns’ plight until he was infected by a liquid that began transforming him into one of them. Almost everyone Wikus knows turns on him as he starts mutating into an alien, and his only hope to hold on to his humanity is to aid an alien plot to return to the mothership and summon help for their people.
District 9 is streaming on Netflix.
‘Free Solo’ (2018)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97 percent
Free Solo is an outlier on this roundup because it’s a documentary rather than a scripted film. But you couldn’t ask for a more beautiful setting than Yosemite National Park. This film follows Alex Honnold, a professional climber who dreams of becoming the first man to ever climb the 3,000-foot rock wall of Yosemite’s El Capitan by free soloing. That means going up without any protective equipment that could catch him if he falls.
The reason why no one else has ever done it is because it’s incredibly dangerous. One wrong move and Honnold could plummet to his death on camera. We can only promise you that he doesn’t die in this movie, but the scenes where he makes his attempt are gripping and heart-pounding, even when experienced vicariously.
Free Solo is streaming on Netflix.
‘Green Room’ (2016)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90 percent
Green Room is an intense thriller that follows a punk band called the Ain’t Rights as they get into a very harrowing situation. Pat (Anton Yelchin), Sam (Alia Shawkat), Reece (Joe Cole) and Tiger (Callum Turner) unintentionally accepted a booking to play at a neo-Nazi dive bar. Before they can leave, the band witnesses the murder of a woman and finds themselves trapped in the green room with the dead woman’s friend, Amber (Imogen Poots).
Star Trek: The Next Generation and X-Men star Patrick Stewart has a rare villainous turn as Darcy Banker, the leader of the skinheads. When Darcy decides that there can’t be any witnesses to the crime, he orders his men to kill Amber and the band. In order to survive, Pat and his friends are going to have to fight their way out.
Green Room is streaming on Netflix.
