For all the live sports and games that Netflix has tacked on to its platform, film is still the streamer’s bread and butter.
Tudum! So goes the now-iconic “ring” that makes sure you know you’re settling in for a Netflix original. Decades after it launched as a mail-in DVD rental service, Netflix is now one of the biggest entertainment brands on the planet. While competition is stiff for Netflix these days, the bold-red giant maintains its footing with a “more is everything” approach to keeping subscriptions—yours included.
But for all the live sports and games that Netflix has tacked on to its platform, it’s still a way to conveniently watch movies. In 2025, Netflix continues to put up new movies, including out-there stuff from around the world. While we’ll openly admit that Netflix original films are rather slim at the moment—and all kind of look the same—there’s hope the rest of 2025 will offer subscribers more than just action rom-coms and true-crime documentaries. But a few of the aforementioned action rom-coms and true-crime docs ain’t half bad either.
In addition to a new Tom Hardy movie and a compulsively watchable Charles Manson documentary by Errol Morris, there’s some good cinema being imported from South Korea, Japan, and Italy. (Thank heavens streaming content is immune to tariffs, right? Wait.) If you’ve finished watching all the best TV shows Netflix has to offer, move right along to some of the best Netflix original movies of 2025 so far.
Revelations
Produced by Alfonso Cuarón and directed by Train to Busan’s Yeon Sang-ho, Revelations is a pitch-black mystery thriller from South Korea centered around a pastor (Ryu Jun-yeol) who believes punishing criminals is a divine right. He crosses paths with a detective (Shin Hyun-been), who is wrestling with her own traumas while tracking down a kidnapper. Teeming with darkness and mired in the morally gray quagmires of what is right and what is justice, Revelations should satisfy anyone looking for a little edge in their entertainment.
The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep
Furthering the expansion of the Witcher universe, the franchise’s second animated spin-off film, The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep, sees Geralt of Rivia caught in a bubbling war between humans of the land and merpeople kingdoms of the sea. In the wake of Henry Cavill hanging up his sword, voice actor Doug Cockle, who played Geralt in the Witcher video games, reprises the iconic monster slayer. While fans await the fourth season—in which Liam Hemsworth will take over as the new lead—Sirens of the Deep whets appetites.
Chaos: The Manson Murders
“Why are people still totally obsessed with it?” asks Errol Morris to prosecutor Stephen Kay in his latest work, Chaos: The Manson Murders. Morris brings his proven credibility as a documentarian to the infamous Tate–LaBianca murders, carried out by Charles Manson and his followers in 1969. With Tom O’Neill’s 2019 nonfiction book as a starting point and North Star, Morris interrogates the ins and outs of the cult of Manson; though it doesn’t say anything revelatory or conclusive, Chaos shows how evil can linger in the imagination forever.
Bullet Train Explosion
There is no Keanu Reeves in Speed without 1975’s The Bullet Train. Fifty years later, the Japanese action classic gets a sequel in Bullet Train Explosion, directed by Shinji Higuchi. As in its predecessor, a bomb is aboard a Tokyo-bound bullet train that is rigged to explode when the liner runs below 100 kph. This kicks off a race against time, where iron-pressed-suited train conductors work to defuse the bomb while standing on a speeding death trap. Bullet Train Explosion promises what it delivers on the tin—and it’s perfect popcorn fun.
Dhoom Dhaam
In this cheeseball screwball action comedy from India, Yami Gautam Dhar and Pratik Gandhi costar as a mismatched couple entering an arranged marriage. Their wonderful first night together? Well, it turns upside down after a case of mistaken identity. What was almost the start of a forgettable life becomes happily ever after as the newlyweds spend their wedding night dodging bullets, throwing punches, and inevitably falling in love along the way.
Havoc
The Raid director Gareth Evans lets loose with the help of Tom Hardy in his newest blood-soaked banger, Havoc. Hardy stars as a rugged detective tasked with tracking down the estranged son of a politician (Forest Whitaker), who is caught up somewhere in the criminal underworld. The kinetic energy of Evans’s action direction meets the scowling charisma of Tom Hardy, all of which cement Havoc as an early spring win for Netflix.
Miss Italia Mustn’t Die
The Miss Italia pageant is a ceremony that dates back to 1927. But in modern-day Italy, it is maybe finita. In the new documentary Miss Italia Mustn’t Die, director Patrizia Mirigliani makes a case for the pageant’s continued existence in spite of its behind-the-stage struggles, scandals, and increasing irrelevance in the face of changing beauty standards.
