Last weekend, Spider-Man: Brand New Daymight’ve finally lost its spot at the top of the box office charts to fantasy legacy sequel Practical Magic 2, but it also smashed its biggest record yet, having now overtaken Star Wars: The Force Awakens to become the highest-grossing film of all time at the domestic box office. This weekend, the likes of Resident Evil, Bad Apples, and a brand-new Aardman stop-motion movie all join the theatrical race, and streaming continues its run of offering perfect competition from the comfort of your own home. With that in mind, here’s a look at three movies you should watch this weekend on Netflix.
Disclaimer: These titles are available on US Netflix.
1
‘The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist’ (2026)
Rotten Tomatoes: 88% | IMDb: 6.8/10
Yes, streaming can be a great way to escape from the biggest stories dominating the news, but it can also be a perfect way to enhance your knowledge of said stories. With the latter in mind, don’t miss out on one of the most pressing documentaries available on Netflix right now: The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist.
Co-directed by Oscar-winner Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell, The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist simply follows a concerned father-to-be as he tries to piece together the chaos surrounding AI in “a hand-made, eye-opening documentary about the most powerful technology humanity has ever created.” A big hit with critics and audiences, there are few documentaries available right now that you should be watching more urgently than this.
Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.
02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?
03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
05
What do you want from a film’s ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
2
‘Best of the Best’ (2026)
If you really don’t want to explore the scariest realities of our modern world and need a break, then Netflix also has you covered with a charming new comedy, courtesy of director Lena Khan. Best of the Best follows childhood best friends, Maya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and Anjali (Priyanka Kedia), as they discover just how brutal the cut-throat world of collegiate Bollywood dance competitions can be.
Never Have I Ever favorite Ramakrishnan is back on streaming with another must-watch comedy, which is described as “a film about sisterhood, friendship, and self-acceptance,” according to Hasan Minhaj, who features as Professor Hamza Latif. A vibrant, exciting streaming release that is as easy to watch as it is important for representation, Best of the Best is sure to jump to the top of the streaming charts.
3
‘9 to 5’ (1980)
Rotten Tomatoes: 71% | IMDb: 7.0/10
Last month, the world learned that Dolly Parton, best known as the Queen of Country, had passed away at age 80 after a “brief battle with cancer.” A true icon of both the stage and screen, Parton’s legacy deserves to be celebrated, with Netflix now hosting one of her very best movies for your streaming pleasure this weekend.
Alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, Parton broke into the Hollywood spotlight with her performance in 9 to 5, the story of three female secretaries who change their workplace for the better by turning the tables on their bosses. A film both ahead of its time and perfectly nostalgic, Parton steals the show with a witty and ever-so-charming performance as Doralee Rhodes — one that simply must be at the top of your watchlist this weekend.
