We all do it: scrolling through Netflix for eons, giving up before finding anything to watch. At this point, facing the Netflix homepage is a daunting task.
The Top 10 shows you titles you have no interest in and the algorithm is scrambled by things you half-watched and didn't like and the choices of whoever else is using your Netflix password. Inundated with irrelevant recommendations of the same Netflix originals, it can seem like there's nothing to watch.
But there must be. Netflix Originals have been dominating at award shows for years and the streaming giant adds new content almost daily. Yet, all the potential gold seems buried under the same tired content. But there is hope beyond the disappointing streak you might be stuck in — from hidden gems to less problematic alternatives to overrated Netflix titles.
Overrated: Emily In Paris
Emily in Paris
The quintessential overrated show, Emily in Paris has terrorized our Netflix recommendations since it premiered in the middle of lockdown. It was a godsend for white women who moved to New York thinking they were Carrie Bradshaw and are now fantasizing about another city to ruin with nothing in tow but their bad outfits and their dreams.
Inexplicably, Emily in Paris was quickly granted a second season and famously received Golden Globes nominations. Like Sex and the City-lite, the show plays up the fantasy of living in the big city, surviving with nothing but your wits and your white privilege. It was ostensibly so popular because of the escapism it offered, and the part-enviable, part-relatable story of a young woman's life.
But in this genre, it's the bottom rung and there are alternatives which feel-good without sacrificing quality to such an egregious extent.
▲Watch Instead: She’s Gotta Have It
She's Gotta Have It
Based on the film of the same name, Spike Lee revisits the iconic story of Brooklyn-based artist Nola Darling, navigating her life in contemporary Brooklyn. Adapted for the current day, the show follows Nola as she lives, works, and dates in New York.
Like Emily, Nola juggles her growing relationships with multiple men, which makes for a similar vicarious thrill of relationship drama, but with a more compelling character. Nola is complex and interesting where Emily is not much more than an animated Barbie doll.
Though only two seasons, She's Gotta Have It leaves you enthralled by Nola and her story. Miss Emily could never.▲Overrated: Marriage Story
Marriage Story
What is it about Adam Driver that everyone has been obsessed with since Marriage Story? His giant hands? His character's frequent crying? That scene where he punches a hole in the wall that's perfect fodder for memes? Whatever about Adam Driver has had the internet gripped, it can't be this movie because though it might have been technically good, it kind of just felt like if that couple from La La Land had gotten together and then divorced — some sort of sad, boring, familiar-feeling trek.
And though the film got more than its share of awards attention and Noah Baumbach, aka the director dating Greta Gerwig, has had his share of hits, he's had his share of misses too. Marriage Story falls somewhere in the middle, but we're tired of hearing about it.▲Watch Instead: 20th Century Women
20th Century Women
20th Century Women is not the middle-tier watching experience that Marriage Story is. Mike Mills expertly balances directorial artistry with genuine emotion. The family in 20th Century Women is less conventional and more complex than the one in Marriage Story, but it feels more realized.
Set in 1979, the film manages to feel nostalgic without being too sentimental while Marriage Story veers close to the latter. Combined with powerhouse performances from Annette Benning, Elle Fanning, and Greta Gerwig's Manic Panic-esque red hair, 20th Century Women is a slow burn that will actually satisfy your contemplative-indie-film cravings.▲Overrated: Trial of the Chicago 7
Trail of the Chicago 7
Despite its 2021 Oscar Best Picture Nominations, The Trial of the Chicago 7 is not a good film. It had all the overtures of a good film: political commentary, an artfully experimental structure, and a powerhouse cast including Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne, Jeremy Strong, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Yahya Abul-Mateen II.
However, its lukewarm version of the infamous trial of 1969 fails to do justice to the actual historical moment. The overly capacious effort dilutes the complex politics and personalities of the Chicago 7 and reduces Bobby Seale especially into a contrived plot point meant to stir white guilt.
The film's ending is not the powerful emotional catharsis it wants to be and makes a hero of the least radical character. Over all, the film was placating with a satisfying ending — overly so, for a move about the persistently unfair legal system.
▲Watch Instead: When They See Us
When They See Us
When They See Us makes no such attempts at being placating. The Ava DuVernay production doesn't just tell a famous story, but excavates the little-known emotional reality of the Central Park Five, of their families, and of the years spent proving their innocence.
As a docuseries, When They See Us does not have to compromise its characters’ multidimensionality to tell its story. Each character is complex and treated with a kind of compassion that the real Central Park Five were not afforded. The series is not an easy watch, but you can't turn away. And we shouldn't, given the present implications and realities of the criminal justice system.▲Overrated: Hillbilly Elegy
Hillbilly Elegy
When the memoir Hillbilly Elegy came out in 2016, it very quickly became the book white liberals touted to prove that they were Not Elitist and, in the face of the 2016 election, tried to understand what went wrong by understanding the lives of people different from them.
The film version feels gratuitous and overdone. The chronicle of poverty p*rn is melodramatic in an attempt at morality. It's also, frankly, boring and predictable. Despite the high profile actors and Netflix promotion, the movie fell flat.
▲Watch Instead: The Devil All The Time
The Devil All The Time
The Devil All The Time is based on a novel, not a memoir, so it's more melodramatic moments happen to create a world defined by drama and suspension of disbelief. The film makes no attempt at morality and revels in the opposite. There is no outside observer, unlike Hillbilly Elegy's attempt to chronicle the return of the one who "made it out," which keeps the film from feeling didactic.
Though it's far from a perfect film, The Devil All The Time is a compelling watch with even more compelling performances. Its own all-star cast does not feel bogged down by stereotypes, but instead elevates their characters beyond familiar tropes — Robert Pattinson as the sinister, but charismatic preacher is the perfect level of unhinged.
▲Overrated: I Care A Lot
I Care A Lot
Rosamund Pike is glorious in I Care A Lot, but the film's attempt at feminism — and even its hint at the perils of corporate feminism — is more implied than realized. The film is enjoyable enough to watch, mostly because of the thrill of watching Pike and Eiza Gonzalez rise to meet the stakes in excellent pantsuits and incredible hair, but it was ultimately hollow and overhyped.
Rosamund Pike and her vape carried the film on its back but, for a film about Girl Power, some of its overly-pointed dialogue felt so obviously written by a man, and there were no memorable lines or monologues or speeches — imagine casting the woman who delivered the Cool Girl Monologue and wasting it. Disappointing.▲Watch Instead: Molly’s Game
Molly's Game
Jessica Chastain has become famous for playing the fast talking, pantsuit wearing, powerful lead in high stakes dramas. And she's so good at it. Usually these characters have an air of corporate feminism or some GI Jane trope, but Molly's Game is more complex.
Based on a true story, Chastain is at her best in the story of a high stakes poker game run by a woman, the powerful men who participated, and the powerful men who tried to take her down. The film chronicles her rise to success with less of a girlboss narrative, and a more genuine chronicle of navigating a male-dominated culture, and being punished for succeeding.
Also, Idris Elba is in it. Say less.
▲Overrated: Django Unchained
Django Unchained
Of all the Tarantino revenge fantasies, Django Unchained is the most egregious. I wish cancel culture had been around after Tarantino cast himself saying the N-word liberally and unnecessarily in Pulp Fiction just so that we would not have been subjected to a career defined by foot-shots and gore.
Yes, we may have gotten the gift of long haired Brad Pitt shirtless on a roof in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, but we were also subjected to Brad Pitt fighting a racist caricature of Bruce Lee and murdering his wife in the same film so, with Tarantino, we can't win.▲Watch Instead: Da 5 Bloods
Da 5 Bloods
Da 5 Bloods is less about revenge and more about redemption. The story is connected to a grief that feels prescient: a group of Black men coming together to mourn the loss of their leader, played by Chadwick Boseman. The Spike Lee joint navigates racial dynamics and violence much more intricate than Tarantino could ever hope to.
Where Tarantino uses violence in place of healing, Da 5 Bloods is about healing from violence. The resolution is a happy one, and is earned by an emotional arc that, like all Spike Lee films, has wider implications about Black culture.▲Overrated: 13 Reasons Why
13 Reasons Why
13 Reasons Why had its run as one of the most famous Netflix shows — but it didn't deserve it. The book of the same name was a powerful exploration of teenage relationships and mental illness but the nuance was sacrificed for sensationalism in the Netflix adaptation.
This was not just disappointing, but dangerous. The show glamorized mental illness, valorized the emotional manipulation of the characters, and even inspired problematic real-life copycats. While an attempt to start a conversation about mental health, the show was inelegant and too focused on teenage drama to do any good.
▲Watch Instead: All the Bright Places
All the Bright Places
All the Bright Places, another novel adaptation, is one of the best film adaptations of a YA novel since The Perks of Being a Wallflower. With a stellar cast starring Justice Smith and Elle Fanning, and a script that allowed for genuine character development, the film is a well executed, well acted story that never feels trite, despite its familiar YA tropes.
The film has its share of drama, but it doesn't feel gratuitous and melodramatic. The film's depiction of mental illness is more accurate than many glamorized, sensationalized versions and emphasizes the lesson that 13 Reasons Why failed to teach: you can't save anyone, even if you try.▲Overrated: The Irishman
The Irishman
Martin Scorsese is known for his drawn out, epic tales that tell his character's stories starting from childhood like Goodfellas and The Departed. His craft is one that spares no detail, and even his shorter, more focused works like Taxi Driver and Shutter Island focus on character development.
The Irishman, released on Netflix, takes this slow detailed approach to an extreme — culminating in a three hour movie that keeps you guessing on who you're going to have to root for, and who is going to die before the halfway mark.
The film isn't bad, but it feels familiar to any other Scorsese mob film — the same actors, the same betrayals. You've seen it all before, and you didn't have to sit through three hours to do it.
▲Watch Instead: Good Time
Good Time
The Safdie brothers and Robert Pattinson are a perfect, chaotic match. Good Time follows less elegant, less practiced criminals than any from a Scorsese film and sits in the anxiety and uncertainty purely to make the viewer uncomfortable too. It's the complete opposite watching experience to The Irishman, one characterized by racing hearts and a screen filled with bright puffer jackets and preventable missteps.
▲Overrated: Uncut Gems
Uncut Gems
The more famous Safdie brother film, Uncut Gems is incredible and iconic — but still feels overhyped because of every boy in a Brooklyn basement party (oh to be at one of those now) who has ever mansplained it to someone.
Adam Sandler delivers a career performance reminiscent of his role in Punch Drunk Love and wears a wardrobe so iconic it will live on for years — a yellow scuba shirt, a leather jacket, a fist full of rings.
But if you haven't seen it by now, you probably won't, and so much of its euphoric impact comes from seeing the ending for the first time that the no watching experience lives up to the first.
▲Watch Instead: The Meyerowitz Stories
The Meyerowitz Stories
Adam Sandler's The Meyerowitz Stories is completely unprecedented in the best way. The film is artful and tender, with Sandler anchoring it with an earnest performance that feels anxious in a different way, one defined by compassion and insecurity and love.
While his role in Uncut Gems could have been predicted by his Paul Thomas Anderson role, nothing he's done before is as thoughtful as this.
▲