Netflix has had an attention-grabbing yr. Its advert tier, launched final yr, has grown significantly, and its stay TV initiative has expanded to incorporate not solely bizarre one-offs like hot-dog-eating grudge matches but in addition WWE programming. Taking KPop Demon Hunters off Sony’s palms for the enterprise equal of $200 in a potato chip bag additionally turned out to be a reasonably sensible transfer for Netflix. The animated characteristic about, properly, demon-hunting Ok-pop stars, turned the most watched movie in the platform’s history and a global cultural phenomenon in its own right. The sing-along theatrical launch offered out, songs from the film sat comfortably at the top of music charts for weeks, and we obtained Huntr/x in Fortnite and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade mere months after the film’s launch.
However KPop Demon Hunters wasn’t the streamer’s solely high quality providing this yr. Right here’s a listing of Netflix’s better of 2025.
Sean Combs: The Reckoning
There are two life classes to remove from this documentary: Don’t be a horrific abuser and never piss off a self-described petty man with cash to burn. This four-part docuseries, directed by Alex Stapleton and produced by Lifetime Achievement Fellow in the Hater Hall of Fame Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, chronicles the rise of Sean “P Diddy” Combs from music video character actor, to hip-hop enterprise mogul, to convicted legal.
The documentary options new interviews from former associates, workers, and buddies who allege all the things from dishonest enterprise companions out of their share to having data of if not outright arranging the hit that took Tupac Shakur’s life. This isn’t a “enjoyable” watch, so heed the content material warnings, however if you’d like a succinct accounting of the place Combs got here from and the way the enterprise of hip-hop can flip males into monsters, that is an informative overview.
There may be vanishingly little I can say about KPop Demon Hunters’ brilliance that hasn’t already been mentioned. So I’ll let what has been mentioned converse for it:
Rian Johnson’s Knives Out collection has as soon as once more delivered a sharply funny, intensely moving whodunit. Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc drips southern attraction, aided by an ensemble forged that includes Josh Brolin as a fiery Catholic priest and Glenn Shut as his secretary. Josh O’Connor delivers some stunning moments as a junior priest struggling to search out that means in his religion, creating attention-grabbing pressure in opposition to Blanc’s chilly, grim logic. With them working collectively, Wake Up Lifeless Man turns into a enjoyable story that examines the aim religion can have in our lives.
One factor director Guillermo del Toro is gonna do is make a luxurious, sumptuous-ass movie with over-the-top units and costuming. However Frankenstein is not only a visible delight. Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as his monster give unbelievable performances which can be each grounded within the film’s late Victorian aesthetic whereas resonating with the tales of right this moment. A quote unquote discovered man irresponsibly utilizing expertise to create one thing he doesn’t perceive and in his conceitedness tries to manage that winds up destroying his life and others? It’s not that Frankenstein is anyone allegory for right this moment, it has a number of purposes.
And whereas we’ve got quite a few Frankenstein diversifications, there’s nothing fairly like watching GDT do it. You simply know that man is gonna grab all the production designers, make-up artists, and costumers, give them some money, and say basically “Prepare dinner,” and rattling in the event that they didn’t do precisely that.
The Nice British Baking Present
I stay for The Nice British Baking Present (generally known as The Nice British Bake Off exterior the US). When the solar begins setting at 4:30PM and seasonal have an effect on begins disordering my life, I’m okay as a result of I do know meaning it’s Baking Present season. This yr, the present has accomplished some attention-grabbing issues with the format, making an attempt new variations on the present’s technical problem the place bakers are tasked with making one thing with stripped-down instructions. I want the challenges weren’t so overly targeted on sweets, nevertheless it’s all the time enjoyable studying the completely bonkers names the Brits have for his or her pastries. There is no such thing as a method in a logical world that an oatmeal bar like this needs to be known as a flapjack — it doesn’t even flap! Actually, yelling about how British English is Flawed is simply as a lot enjoyable as watching the newbie bakers themselves.
The first half of the final season of Stranger Things is out, and whereas we are able to quibble about whether or not or not it’s high quality tv, it’s good for one particular cause: it’s lastly ending. The present began off actually robust, telling a enjoyable story about children saving the world from the adults which can be making an attempt to spoil it. However that form of storytelling obtained misplaced within the close to decade between the primary season and now — regardless that the Duffer Brothers need us to consider that it’s solely been 4 years since Will first went to the Upside Down. It’s okay that tales finish, and I’m glad we’ve obtained the chance to finish this present on a excessive notice by returning focus to what made it so nice within the first place — them meddling children.
Squid Game is one other one among Netflix’s tentpole hits that has come to an finish this yr. Gi-hun / Participant 456 (Lee Jung-jae) has returned to Mr. Beast’s Murder Island to reveal the organizers of the lethal video games as soon as and for all. He’s befriended one other crop of determined folks prepared to do no matter for life-changing quantities of money and identical to within the first two seasons it’s brutal to observe the video games destroy them one after the other.
Clocking in at slightly below 200 days, James Garfield has the second shortest time period of a US president, and I used to be genuinely enthralled watching Demise By Lightning chart his rise to the workplace and tragic fall through an murderer’s bullet. As with Frankenstein, Netflix is as soon as once more on time with a metaphor appropriate for current events. Demise By Lightning takes a have a look at how incendiary political discourse, like the sort fomented in opposition to Garfield by his personal celebration, can result in violence.
However greater than the prescient political commentary, the performances make this present. Michael Shannon imbues Garfield with a salt-of-the-earth high quality that makes you root arduous for him. Shea Whigham has entered his character actor villain period taking part in New York Senator Roscoe Conkling, and Matthew “Mr. Darcy / Tom Wambsgans” Macfadyen provides a heartbreaking efficiency taking part in Garfield’s murderer Charles Guiteau.
The present’s greatest moments come from Nick Offerman as Garfield’s reluctant vp, Chester A. Arthur. Offerman as Arthur is regency-era Ron Swanson. All through many of the present’s 4 episodes, Offerman is both drunk, preventing, raving about sausages, or a mixture of all three. That man is having a blast chewing the surroundings in a high hat and mutton chops, and I’d genuinely watch an entire White Home sitcom with him because the star.