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7. “The Shawshank Redemption” (Now Streaming)

Image Credit: Everett Collection

Snobs be damned, this heart-tugging, spirit-soaring prison drama remains intelligent entertainment nearly 30 years later. 1994 was a competitive year at the Oscars, with Robert Zemeckis’ sentimental but more technically flashy “Forrest Gump” beating out the likes of “Shawshank” and “Pulp Fiction” for Best Picture. But the latter films have endured well beyond that Academy gaffe, even if “Shawshank” remains mostly the kind of movie that Gen X parents foist onto their kids. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman share a breezy, unmatched-by-many kind of chemistry as inmates who develop a deep and lasting friendship at the Shawshank State Prison in this adaptation of Stephen King’s “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.” That title refers to a seeming red herring that turns out to be instrumental in animating the movie’s iconic and triumphant final passages. “Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’.” I dare you not to shed a tear.
6. “Sorry to Bother You” (Now Streaming)

Image Credit: Annapurna Pictures / courtesy Everett Collection

Director Boots Riley threw acid in the face of genre expectations with this 2018 film that won the director the Best First Feature prize at the Independent Spirit Awards. LaKeith Stanfield plays Cassius Green, cash-strapped and living in his uncle’s garage, who takes a dead-end job as a telemarketer in an alternate-reality version of present-day Oakland. Cassius discovers the key to success at his new gig, however, when he starts affecting a “white voice” on the telephone, adopting a more affluent persona to appeal to callees. But as pressures mount against corporate greed among his more protest-leaning friends, the quickly selling-out Green falls under the sway of a cocaine-addicted CEO who offers him a deal with the devil — in the form of one of the wildest half-animal, half-human creations in recent memory.
5. “Top Gun” (Now Streaming)

Image Credit: Paramount / courtesy Everett Collection

“Top Gun” remains one of the most iconic, oft-quoted, and oft-references films of the 1980s, with a post-“Legend” Tom Cruise cementing his position as the marquee star of action tentpoles, then and now. His brash, hotshot fighter pilot Pete Mitchell, aka Maverick, brings a rebellious streak to a Naval Fighter Weapons School full of memorably very ’80s characters, pitting him against the more coolly reserved Iceman (Val Kilmer). But amid crackling aerial set pieces, Tony Scott’s film is grounded in the burgeoning romance between Maverick and flight instructor Charlotte (the great Kelly McGillis). The film’s complicated stance on the military — Matthew Modine reportedly turned down Cruise’s role over philosophical differences on the film’s exultant portrayal of Naval fighters — doesn’t necessarily undermine the film’s entertainment value, but nowadays invites us to reconsider how the Reagan era shaped a blockbuster.
4. “Blade Runner 2049” (March 26)

Image Credit: Warner Bros. / courtesy Everett Collection

“Dune” director Denis Villeneuve was up against a mountain in tackling another beloved piece of sci-fi IP with his sequel to Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner.” The film was a box office bomb in the United States, failing to cross the $100 million mark despite a production and marketing budget that was reportedly over $300 million. As Villeneuve has said, “The miracle for me about ‘Blade Runner 2049’ is the following: I’m still making movies and you’re still talking to me.” That said, the technically stunning follow-up starring Ryan Gosling as Nexus-9 replicant bounty hunter K has paid off in the long run as a cult favorite among fans; won behind-the-camera veteran Roger Deakins his long-overdue cinematography Oscar; and has now inspired a live-action Amazon spinoff series in the works from producer Ridley Scott. So the blood couldn’t have been all that bad.
3. “Starship Troopers” (Now Streaming)

Image Credit: TriStar Pictures / courtesy Everett Collection

While it may seem like Paul Verhoeven did a brazen 180, following 1995’s NC-17 “Showgirls” with the 23rd-century-set, ultra-violent sci-fi spectacle “Starship Troopers,” the movies share DNA in their bold and brash disregard for genre expectations. This costly box-office flop careens in tone from camp (thanks to the charmingly wooden performances of actors like Caspar Van Dien, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, and Neil Patrick Harris) to bloody, bug-squashing carnage. Verhoeven and screenwriter Edward Neumeier imagine a galaxy at war — between military super soldiers, dispatched by a colonizing Earth, and a race of insectoid aliens. Both a gross-out creature feature and a pummelling takedown of fascism, “Starship Troopers” pushes the limits of good taste, as all Verhoeven films should.
2. “Bright Star” (March 31)

Image Credit: Apparition / courtesy Everett Collection

Jane Campion proved she’s indeed the champion with her newest film “The Power of the Dog,” leading the Academy Awards race with a whopping 12 nominations. And while that revisionist western’s take on repressed male sexuality (something a missing-the-mark Sam Elliott has a thing or two to say about) may seem like a departure in terms of scope and a Netflix budget, it’s in line with the intimate character studies the New Zealand filmmaker has made all along. Take “Bright Star,” a swooning, atmosphere-oozing cinematic dream of the life of poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and his tragic romance with muse Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish). The film earned a muted response from audiences despite critical adoration in 2009, but with all eyes on Campion and her vast body of masterful work, “Bright Star” is ready for rediscovery — especially as Campion turns her lens onto the interior lives of men in this later stage of her career.
1. “Gattaca” (Now Streaming)

Image Credit: Columbia Pictures / courtesy Everett Collection

One of the most beautiful and beguiling sci-fi films ever made, Andrew Niccol’s “Gattaca” transports us to a biopunk future where eugenics drive procreation, and children are conceived to possess the best genetic traits of their parents. The film’s visual mood board blends a noir vibe with the sleek retrofuturism of the 1960s to imagine a world that’s not so distant, and even recognizable to our own, thanks to the Academy Award–nominated work of production designer Jan Roelfs, an early collaborator on visionary director Peter Greenaway’s art historically–driven period films. Ethan Hawke plays a genetically inferior loner who has long dreamed of space travel but is tethered to Earth because of his hereditary status. Assuming the DNA identity of lab-made “valid” Jerome Morrow (an unhinged Jude Law, at the peak of his late-’90s powers), he enters the space program and a complicated love affair with fellow “valid” Irene (Uma Thurman), in this melancholy rumination on how reproductive technology can rewire our destinies.

The 7 Best Movies New to Netflix in March 2022

Ryan Lattanzio

Deputy Editor, Film

7. “The Shawshank Redemption” (Now Streaming)

6. “Sorry to Bother You” (Now Streaming)

5. “Top Gun” (Now Streaming)

4. “Blade Runner 2049” (March 26)

3. “Starship Troopers” (Now Streaming)

2. “Bright Star” (March 31)

1. “Gattaca” (Now Streaming)

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