The 50 best movies on Netflix right now (July 2022)

Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma opens quietly, the camera staring, motionless, at a tile floor as the credits play; eventually, water pours over the floor as the sound of a mop spills in from just offscreen. It’s a boldly mundane opening, fitting for a film about an ordinary woman. Roma follows Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a maid working in the household of a wealthy doctor, Antonio (Fernando Grediaga), and his wife, Sofia (Marina de Tavira). Cleo cleans the house, tends to the children, and keeps the household running as Antonio and Sofia’s marriage strains. Cleo is the type of character typically relegated to the background of stories like this, but Cuaron makes her the focus, depicting her daily labor and struggles with a surprise pregnancy and unreliable lover. It’s a beautiful Netflix film, delicately composed and shot in stark black and white.

This animated feature from Attack on Titan director Tetsuro Araki is set in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo where a mysterious event has affected the laws of gravity, leaving strange bubbles and urban debris floating throughout the city. Skilled racers compete in parkour-like competitions for food and supplies, and when one gifted young man encounters a strange girl while exploring the epicenter of the gravity-twisting “bubble event,” their relationship changes the lives of everyone around them. A gorgeous spectacle of sights and sounds, Bubble begs to be seen on a high-end entertainment system, delivering remarkably detailed scenes of the characters traversing the city and a powerful score that accentuates its most thrilling — and quietest — moments.