If one more person recommends The Crown or Black Mirror to us, we're going to puke harder than a British Prime Minister who has to fuck a pig on national TV.
Oh wait, none of you saw that episode because it isn’t on Netflix.
Netflix has some great content. That's inarguable. But every time something good lands on everybody’s favorite streaming service paid for by their parents, it completely hijacks the internet and every office conversation is only about how great that show is (*cough* Stranger Things).
But since Netflix is so much more of a treasure trove than the tiny fistful of its top-grossing shows here are 10 things you can watch on Netflix over the holiday that nobody has (probably) recommended to you, yet.
The Witch
Nothing says “holiday spirit” like satanic worship. The Witch is a “can’t look away” movie, which will make you so goddamn uncomfortable, you’ll need a shower once it’s over.
The premise? A puritan family is banished from their frontier town and now lives on the edge of the woods … and there’s a witch in the woods, and that witch fucks their lives up.
This 2015 flick is the first feature film directed Robert Eggers, and proudly flies in the face of modern horror. There are no jump scares, cop-out twists, lack of gore, or gore porn for that matter. Instead it feels distinctly Hitchcock-like.
The film instead relies on the slow build of tension and the knowledge which you, the audience, posses, and which our characters do not, and it makes for some awful, tense, uncomfortable fun. Just like the holidays with your family.
The Intervention
You’ve probably seen Clea DuVall as a character in a show you like. But in the case of The Intervention, DuVall makes a switch to writer/director and just happened to make my favorite film of the year.
The Intervention is about three couples who arrange a weekend getaway, to spring a “divorce intervention” on two of their friends — a couple on the rocks played by Vincent Piazza and Cobie Smulders.
It’s a total feel-good flick, stacked with familiar faces, but doesn’t pull a single punch when it comes to twisting your emotions. Some of the most interesting characterization and reversal of expectation in a low-budget film this year.
Green Room
Punks vs. nazis. Patrick Stewart as a nazi. So much tension you’ll clench every muscle in your body, including your butt — your butt is a muscle.
The late Anton Yelchin stars as the leader of a punk-revival band, who witness a murder at the hands of a group of not-unscary neo-nazis while hanging in the green room of their bar, and remain trapped there. The whole flick plays out like an American History X-themed escape room.
We'd tell you more, but we'd just ruin it.
The Lobster
Colin Farrell stars as a fat, pathetic man in a dystopian future where you have to find a mate, or be turned into an animal of your choosing.
After his wife divorces him, Farrell is sent to a retreat to meet a new mate, and elects to be turned into a lobster, should he fail.
Like the characters which populate the world, the film is dry, but bloody hilarious in its skewering of love, societal norms and counter-culture.
White Girl
If your tastes and ability to be shocked transcended what it was when you were 15-years-old, you probably won’t like White Girl … until the last 15 minutes.
White Girl will frustrate you as it makes you hate its manic, petulant protagonist, and as it hits you with more “edgy” faux-Vice horseshit than you can reasonably tolerate as someone who has had sex before.
You’ll want to bemoan writer/director Elizabeth Wood for making you sit through the most fake feminist, immature, overindulgent, hipster Scarface wannabe nonsense, every one of the 6,000,000 times a character does a line of blow.
(Somewhere around the 43-minute mark, I seriously considered sending Wood a copy of Save The Cat, so she could learn how long a first act should be.)
Again, right up until the last 15 minutes, when the thematic premise becomes clear, and you have to admit that every overindulgence was arguably necessary and the film as a whole is pretty damn clever.
Ms. Wood, we take it all back.
Please Like Me
There are currently three full seasons of this Australian gem on Netflix.
The show focuses on Josh, who, after breaking up with his girlfriend, realizes that he’s gay. With help of his now ex-girlfriend Claire, and his best friend and house mate Tom, Josh seeks the acceptance of his family. It’s about exploring sexuality, but also deals with mental health, depression and identity.
This is one of those soothing shows; like a refreshing warm blanket. Irreverent, yet timely, personal and wonderful.
Crazyhead
Hey, remember Buffy The Vampire Slayer?
Okay, well imagine if Buffy was replaced by the girls from Two Broke Girls, the girls were British and it was demons instead of vampires, and that’s Crazyhead.
There’s only six episodes in the first season (because the British know how to do TV right), but it’s worth investigating if you’re a Buffy or Ash vs. Evil Dead fan.
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
Created and show-run by the internet’s favorite screenwriter, Max Landis, who shares a writing credit with Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) the show follows the titular character as he solves supernatural crimes as a kind-of modern day Sherlock Holmes.
After most-boring-guy-ever, Todd, played by Elijah Wood, happens across a murder scene, Dirk takes him under his wing to help solve the crime, and the show is sort of off to the races from there.
It’s bloody hilarious, and has the kind of sharp plot progression, continuous reveals and fun world building you’d expect from these writers.
Easy
A couple years ago, director, Joe Swanberg put out a refreshing take on the classic rom-com called, Drinking Buddies.
Swanberg is back in the realm of comedy and sex, this time with an eight-part Netflix mini-series called Easy. Each episode is more or less a different case study — a different look at a different couple and their issues with love, sex and romance.
You’ll see a lot of familiar faces in this one, including Dave Franco, Orlando Bloom, Malin Akerman, Jake Johnson and Marc Maron.
PS: When you get through this series, Netflix will recommend the series Love, which you should also watch.
Jessica Jones
It blows us away that we still have to recommend this show to people because a.) it’s been out for a year and b.) it’s a Marvel show.
The trick here is that it really doesn’t feel like a Marvel show, because it deals with themes of control, abuse, trauma and rape.
Krysten Ritter stars as Jessica, a woman who can punch through walls, but hung up the cape and spandex in favor of a leather jacket and her own detective agency.
This is Marvel’s film noir show, and the one the internet seems to forget about when it bemoans Marvel’s lack of powerful female heroes.
Honorable mention: Letterkenny
Letterkenny is not on Netflix. But, you need to find a way to watch it.
The show feels like if Aaron Sorkin wrote Trailer Parks Boys. Whip-fast dialogue, tight writing and the most absolutely likeable and quotable characters on any show right now.
Letterkenny is a small town in Ontario, Canada, which is full of hicks, meth heads and hockey players, and it’s hard to describe how it all plays out. So just watch the pilot’s cold open and tell us ya don’t want more there, bud.
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