Silence of the Lambs

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 94%

Silence of the Lambs was only the third film in history to win “The Big Five”: Best Film, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, and Best Director. Anthony Hopkins’ performance as Hannibal Lector may be one of the best of all time, succeeded only by Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight. Jodie Foster also won an Oscar for her role as FBI agent Clarice Starling. Viewers beware, this movie is considered to have strongly disturbing content.

Mud

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 98%

Mud is an extremely underrated and unrecognized film that may be the best independent film on Netflix. Matthew McConaughey delivers a strong performance alongside Reese Witherspoon. Mud starts off as if it is an adolescent film but quickly turns into a southern drama. Director Jeff Nicholas also uses the Arkansas landscape very well throughout the movie.

 Spider-Man (2002)

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 89%

Let me be clear: the original Spider-Man is leaps and bounds better than the 2012 The Amazing Spider-Man. The newer version is not only repetitive- they attempt to re-make our favorite scenes and don’t succeed- but the acting is terrible. In this version, Tobey Maguire plays an extremely convincing Peter Parker, while Andrew Garfield tries to be a hipster and is a jerk to cops. Spider-Man is a classic and a great addition to Netflix.

ESPN 30 for 30: Without Bias

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 88%

ESPN’s 30 for 30 series is wildly popular and will continue to be while they produce such great stories. Len Bias was a All-American basketball player for the University of Maryland and was selected as the number two overall pick in the 1986 NBA draft by the Boston Celtics. The next day, Bias did a line of cocaine with his teammates in his dorm, after which he eventually collapsed and died in the next few hours. This compelling documentary goes through the reaction and mourning of Bias’s death.

The Avengers

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 92%

The obvious summer hit of 2012, The Avengers, is the ultimate superhero/ action movie. All the individual superhero movies fall far short of this combined group movie. Robert Downey and Mark Ruffalo deliver great performances as Ironman and the Incredible Hulk, respectively. Many superhero fans have deemed this as the best superhero movie of all time.