Browsing through Netflix can sometimes be a frustrating experience, especially when the algorithms seem to fluctuate wildly in trying to recommend you stuff to watch. You may wonder why the streaming service seems to pitch you the strangest things that either don’t align with your taste or are just not interesting. There was once a time when Netflix would literally take info you answered on a survey and randomly serve you up a title based on the data. It was not effective. While we can’t guarantee that we know exactly what will tickle your fancy, you may want to consider these 10 interesting titles on the service that will certainly shake up your algorithms.
American Factory
Fresh off winning the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, American Factory is one of the most important recent documentaries that takes aim on the tough topic of work relations with international owners. The picture follows the reformation of a newly opened car production factory when Chinese owners have purchased the business. While new jobs come about, there’s an undeniable cultural clash in the efficiencies and work culture between the two nations. And when unions come into question, the job becomes all the more complicated in this commentarial Americana that paints a more troubling future when more jobs bring new and interesting problems from new owners.
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
If you just binged all of Breaking Bad and need a little extra bit of closure and tension to cap off the series, Netflix has the perfect chaser with this gritty epilogue to the iconic series. After the events of the series, the young and nerve-wracked Jesse (Aaron Paul) tries to escape a life of selling drugs and close up all the gaps that remain in his affiliations with dangerous people. Though Jesse had survived the worst, he now needs to finish what he started if he ever wants to live a without constantly looking over his shoulder in this violent end to a thrilling crime saga.
What Did Jack Do?
If you’re finding yourself with not a lot of time on your hands for a bit of streaming entertainment, David Lynch has you covered with this surreal short film that is all sorts of retro, weird and wonderful. The black-and-white short takes place in a train station where David Lynch plays a cop that has tracked down the fugitive to a diner beside the train tracks. Oh, and Jack happens to be a monkey. Not just any monkey, mind you, but one with human lips that speaks English loud and clear. Oh, and he also has a musical sequence where he sings. Drowned in a cryptic noir slang, this odd little short film was originally shown years ago at a festival but has now found a home on Netflix.
Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon
Aardman Studios returns to brilliantly quirky, wholesome and stop-motion animated world of Shaun the Sheep. Though Shaun is still causing trouble on the farm in his many escapades, he finds himself making a new friend with the alien Lu-La, who has telepathic powers and can mimic sounds. But when Shaun needs to find a way to get Lu-La home, he’ll have to avoid both the dog of the farm and a secret organization who want to capture the alien. Aside from being a well-animated adventure, the film is the perfect bit of family entertainment that is gentle enough for young kids but sly enough to sneak in some sci-fi references for the adults.
Horse Girl
Having premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, Horse Girl depicts the life of the shy and quaint Sarah. She works in a hobby shop and spends her evenings making crafts and watching procedural thrillers alone in her apartment. Though she has friends who stick by her and even try to set her up on dates, Sarah is haunted by her past when she starts having mental visions and unnatural sensations about time and space. She soon starts losing her mind and fears that it may be connected to her family history in this surreal story that will leave you constantly questioning what is still part of Sarah’s swirling reality.
A Sun
Right off a winning festival run, Mong-Hong Chung’s A Sun is a stirring slice-of-life drama of how one family slowly drifts apart. Taking place in the towering and intimidating city, a family of four finds themselves at very different spots in their life after they find themselves splintered emotionally. They face issues of med school, juvenile detention and pregnancy that sends their lives into a complicated tailspin that could do with much contemplation. A sincere and somber take on family life in the 21st century, A Sun is a Taiwan production that carries enough relatable emotion to resonate with any audience.
Rocko’s Modern Life: Static Cling
Though mining old properties for the most nostalgia bucks has become a common modern media practice, Rocko’s Modern Life returns with the most insightful take on the nature of nostalgia itself. Though the film does feature the return of the adult wallaby Rocko to his satirical life of technology and slapstick, the central story concerns the dangers of hanging onto the past and not moving forward. Shifting from the go-go 1990s to the new age of the 21st century, the cartoon has grown up enough to not hide behind stand-ins and better tackle topics of change, nostalgia and even being transgender.
The Great Hack
The advent of the Internet has created a unique and frightening shift in lifestyle that can be hard to understand at times. Journalist Carole Cadwalladr attempts to unravel some of it in this documentary that takes aim at the influence of social media and how it can be spun into manipulating just about anything. Namely, the 2016 election. This film digs deep into Cambridge Analytica, a data company that played a pivotal role in reshaping the cultural influence with their practices of affection social media. It’s a troubling picture for taking aim at such an issue but worth a watch to keep ourselves knowing of the influences we ingest online and how easy it is for companies and powers to take advantage of our eyes and minds.
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese
Before Martin Scorsese debuted his Oscar-nominated true-crime drama The Irishman on Netflix, he squeezed out this intriguing documentary on rock icon Bob Dylan. In this rather lengthy picture, Scorsese focuses on Dylan’s career from the mid-1970s when America was finding itself deeply divided and how Dylan’s music played a part in the cultural landscape of the era. Loaded with digitally restored footage, including Dylan’s 1978 film Renaldo and Clara, it’s the perfect bit of insight for any music nerd who has a love of Dylan that will only grow deeper with this sincere documentary that pays the ultimate tribute to a rock legend.
Aggretsuko
In this slice-of-life style anime, the young adult Retsuko struggles to get through her office job that seems to be weighing her down. In her attempt to blow off steam, she breaks out into heavy-metal singing with outbursts of karaoke rage, fuming at everything from off relationships to her overbearing boss. With cute visuals of animal characters and witty observations on the nature of work, Aggretsuko is just the sort of relatable show for any desk jockey that wants to break out and scream their lungs out in this anthropomorphic world that is just as intelligent as it is exaggerated.