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We are halfway through the year, but which Netflix Original movies actually deliver? Here are the 5 best films of 2026 so far, ranked.
By Andrew Morgan • @jokesondrew
Picture Credit: Netflix
It’s hard to judge a film year at the halfway point, especially with Netflix, as many of their best movies tend to land at the end of the year during their Oscar campaign pushes or maybe the summer when they attempt some big-name blockbusters and IP sequels like 2025’s Happy Gilmore 2, 2024’s Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, and next week’s Enola Holmes 3. Rarely does a first-half Netflix movie make it to the end of the year’s best-of list, but I, for one, thought this year may be different. Even with only a modest number of English-language original films (16, still down considerably from 26 in 2024), they had some amazing star power—Matt Damon, Jennifer Lopez, Michael B. Jordan, and others—and genres in which they tend to do very well—like romantic comedies, crime thrillers, and animation.
But we’ve all been fooled before, right? The Electric State seemed a logical choice last year and failed by critical measures. The previously mentioned J-Lo had a massive failure of her own in 2024 with the sci-fi film Atlas. So, how has this year fared so far? What stood out? Do any of them stand a chance at making it to the 2026 Best Movies of the Year list? While many of the films released so far this year were not on my most anticipated list, we may have some cinematic hopefuls that could carry on to the end.
While you can check out all my weekly reviews here https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/author/andrew-morgan/, let’s look at my list of the Top 5 Netflix Original Movies of the Year So Far:
Swapped
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The early part of this list includes films that I did not expect to impress me at all, and, at #5, the latest from the studio that brought us two painfully mediocre streaming animated projects in Spellbound and Luck definitely gave its best effort to erase the past and move towards a more impressive animation future.
From Skydance Animation (Spellbound, Luck) and producers John Lasseter (Toy Story, Monsters, Inc.) and new Paramount head David Ellison, Swapped is the first animated project for Tangled director Nathan Greno outside of Disney since he started there out of college in the mid-1990s.
Originally titled Pookoo, the story is set deep inside the animal kingdom in an area known as “The Valley” as we follow a tiny woodland creature, a pookoo named Ollie (voiced by Oscar winner Michael B. Jordan) and a majestic, strong-headed Javan bird named Ivy (voiced by Ted Lasso standout Juno Temple). The two natural enemies, intertwined by food supply, are thrown together following an accident with a magic pod that can transform one creature into another while giving them the ability to understand each other.
While their adventure starts with a simple need to turn back into their old forms, the two soon learn of a much bigger threat coming for the entire valley and every creature in it. Together, they must overcome their past mistakes, lead with kindness and trust, and defeat the ultimate evil in order to restore harmony to their land.
While the story can be familiar, basic, and reminiscent of past animated films like FernGully and Hoppers, Swapped impresses with dazzling character design and innovative creatures that integrate well into each other in a vibrant valley landscape. With bold and beautiful wildlife choices like the Pookoos, the Javans, the tree wolves, and the Dzo, the film feels distinct and imaginative in a unique way that separates itself from the competition of successful recent animal films.
The film also succeeds in its voice talent’s chemistry and heart-led messaging, hoping to shine some brightness and compassion in our current global climate of separation, fear, and violence. Swapped creates a level of empathy and discovery that can endear its audience to Ollie and Ivy, their adventure together, and the world they want to create for their families.
Overall, Swapped should prove itself to be a comfortable addition to the growing Netflix animated film canon.
Remarkably Bright Creatures
Continuing the theme of surprise successes, this Mother’s Day weekend tearjerker may not be for everyone, but those who can let it wash over them and bathe in its empathy, compassion, and hope may be rewarded and impressed by the experience.
Co-written by director Olivia Newman and Swapped screenwriter John Whittington, the story centers on Tova (two-time Oscar winner Sally Field), a widowed woman who works as the night-shift cleaner at a local aquarium and finds her joy again when she forms unlikely bonds with a giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus (voiced by five-time SAG Award nominee Alfred Molina) and a wayward young man named Cameron (Thunderbolts* standout Lewis Pullman) who comes to town in search of his family. Together, they uncover a mystery that will lead them to a life-changing discovery and restore their sense of wonder.
The film belongs in a rare category that I remember more from my youth in the ’80s and ’90s—the type of story that doesn’t make sense in a two-minute trailer or even a logline. It’s a movie that reminds you of that person you know, maybe a neighbor, a close relative, or a co-worker—that person who took a shine to you when you needed it, that person who wasn’t quite the same since something damaged them, that person who was just surviving until they saw you that day. It is like the ’80s films starring Oscar winner Jessica Tandy and her celebrated husband Hume Cronyn, more specifically the Steven Spielberg-produced sci-fi family film Batteries Not Included—a film that Roger Ebert called “sweet, cheerful, and funny family entertainment” while his critic partner Gene Siskel called it “so harmless, it’s boring.” Because with a movie like this, no matter which side of the coin you’re on, you’re right. You either see the wave of emotional manipulation coming toward you and run, or you lean in, let it take you, and let it resonate with you. I chose the latter.
I chose to let Sally Field, Lewis Pullman, and the voiceover of a wise octopus at the end of his life hit me in my feels… as the memes say. Every ounce of Field’s performance reminded me of older women in my life who have let their lives become an exercise in survival, feeling as though their mere existence is a bother to the world around them—if they are even brave enough that day to engage with it. They are people who were cut so deeply that each step reminds them of the pain—a pain they see every day as they live in a tomb of reminders in their homes, their communities, and their own minds. You want to see the rebound, you want closure, and you want to think that life can be a set of happy accidents and aquatic interventions in order for things to just work out before it’s too late.
With Remarkably Bright Creatures, I refused to ignore how this story got to me, reflecting a little-seen type of person we see every day. For every person’s “boring” and “harmless” label, I choose to engage with this film as “sweet… family entertainment.”
People We Meet on Vacation
While a Netflix rom-com or a movie based on a New York Times bestseller should come as no surprise as a people-pleasing success (just look at #4 for the latter), our #3 movie came as a surprise success for me because, much like Shaquille O’Neal to NBA player Christian Wood back in the day, I was not familiar with the game of the film’s lead actress, Emily Bader.
One of the better “beach read” romances from Beach Read author Emily Henry, People We Meet on Vacation gives us an updated, sun-soaked, and cozy look at what home looks like in a modern relationship, especially when you don’t often feel at home with yourself.
Adapted for the screen by Yulin Kuang, Amos Vernon, and Nunzio Randazzo, the story follows an unlikely pair of friends, Poppy and Alex, as they navigate their contrasting personalities to become as close as friends can get. In fact, following a road trip back to their Ohio hometown and a successful Canadian camping trip, the two become vacation pals for life as they make a pact to meet up every summer for a one-week vacation to some new destination around the globe. No matter where they are in life or who they’re with, Poppy and Alex always make time for their special time away… that is, until around two years ago.
But when Alex’s brother invites them both to his destination wedding in Barcelona, Poppy decides to cancel her latest travel-writing assignment and attempt to reconcile after the fallout of their last trip together. After almost a decade of friendship and jet-setting together, can the free-spirited Poppy and routine-loving Alex mend their relationship and potentially take it to a new level they haven’t yet explored?
Well, as we all know and Emily Henry knows, When Harry Met Sally taught us that “men and women can’t be friends because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive,” but the structure of People We Meet on Vacation at least lets us forget about that until we need to or don’t care if we do.
Directed by the emotionally in-tune and often sentimental Brett Haley (All the Bright Places, Hearts Beat Loud), People We Meet on Vacation gives us a mystery to solve, an autopsy to discover the cause of death. How could these two people who have so much chemistry and are having so much fun be so at odds right now? We probably know the answer pretty quickly, but Bader and Tom Blyth (the Hunger Games franchise) as Alex let their charms mask our need for quick answers, making up dance routines in New Orleans or losing clothes to the sea while skinny-dipping in Canada. That works out great for us because those answers are the best thing about the story: home as a person; home as a place to come back to after work or a vacation; home as the only place you feel your true self. It may be corny or cynical for some, but it sure feels more true than other romantic notions.
Ironically, or potentially by design, the film feels like all the elements of an actual vacation: the warm, inviting locales, the highest of highs, the excitement of the new, the joy of spending time with the ones you want to be with, the cold breeze of reality upon return, and the excitement of anticipation knowing you get to do it all again soon.
People We Meet on Vacation may not be as consciously insightful as all this sounds, but its messaging is clear and engaging when it is needed most.
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man
No surprise here as Oscar winner Cillian Murphy and the team from the BAFTA-winning hit series Peaky Blinders return for one last ride.
When the six-season run of the series faded to black, Peaky Blinders leader Thomas Shelby was in the wind. A caravan meant to be his final resting place was on fire. He had been saved from taking his own life by the spirit of his departed daughter, Ruby. We don’t know what he’ll do or where he’ll go. We just know he’s alive.
With Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, we join Thomas in self-imposed exile, living his days alongside Johnny Dogs in a house as beaten and withered as the remainder of his soul. He has no family aside from the ones he sees in whispers on the property or those buried on the grounds. He’s not a ghost himself, but he may as well be. He doesn’t leave and never has guests, yet he still hasn’t found peace from his past.
The film brings us back to Birmingham several years after the end of Blinders. With Thomas away, his bastard Gypsy son Duke (played by Oscar nominee Barry Keoghan) has taken over the Peaky Blinders, running roughshod over the city with a reckless abandon far worse than that of his father and uncles. He operates without morality or mercy as a man with no loyalties. He lives in his father’s shadow even without him around.
Set in 1940, Duke and the Blinders run their business in a climate of disarray and despair. Birmingham has been bombed and ravaged in a new wartime era as England tries desperately to hold off Germany during a time of fascism. Worse yet, the Germans have devised a plan to implode the British economy by flooding the streets with millions in counterfeit money. They will need to enlist the most powerful and most corrupt street-level men to push this money out into the hands of the British people—people like Duke Shelby.
When a German operative (played by another Oscar nominee, Tim Roth) approaches Duke with the deal of a lifetime, the young Shelby finds himself putting the remainder of his family in the crosshairs and his nation on the brink of collapse—something that may bring the mythical figure of Thomas Shelby back to the streets he once ruled.
The Immortal Man functions as the only thing we never got from the six seasons of the original series: closure. It serves as a way to show what Tommy would be like if he didn’t have Pol, Arthur, or Grace in his life—what a Shelby without guardrails would do and how far he would fall. It’s a Shakespearean dynamic with bittersweet tragedy on the horizon, delivered with a level of brutality, mysticism, and redemption that could only be expected from the pen of Steven Knight.
For Tommy himself, fans of the show are treated to a far truer and far more sentimental ending to his story. The series and this new film speak of peace: the peace Tommy gives the doctor who betrayed him at the 11th hour, and the peace Duke’s Gypsy aunt (played by the always spellbinding Rebecca Ferguson) tells Tommy she can give him after saving his son. Thomas Shelby wants to be freed from the guilt, the blood on his hands, the curses upon his family, the burdens of his patriarchal position, and the horrors he can’t shake.
In the end, the decorated soldier returns to his former glory. The tactical genius outwits his enemy and brings peace to himself, his family, and his home. He makes good on the promise of “From this bad will come some good” that he made on his family’s deathbed because Thomas Shelby knows what made him feel immortal: “But throughout it all, I had my family.”
The Immortal Man may not entirely live up to the heights that Peaky Blinders soared to at its peak, but, in a way, it’s not supposed to. It’s a reminder that Thomas Shelby achieved what he could because he had a family to back his play, set him straight, and give him something to live for. This movie gives him redemption—a taste of what he was before the war and a glimpse of what he could have been as a father if he hadn’t been destroyed by the war.
The Rip
While 2021’s Ridley Scott period piece The Last Duel or 2023’s Nike Air Jordan biopic Air may have served as the official Matt Damon and Ben Affleck reunion movies, this year’s crime thriller The Rip gave the Oscar-winning best-friend actors far more screen time together, the most since Kevin Smith’s Dogma in 1999.
Based on real events deeply personal to writer-director Joe Carnahan and his friend’s experience as head of tactical narcotics for the Miami-Dade Police Department, the film finds a similar tactical team, led by newly appointed Lieutenant Dane Dumars (Damon), in a state of grief, anger, and turmoil after one of their own, Captain Jackie Velez (S.W.A.T. star Lina Esco), was gunned down on her way to meet an informant.
Questioned by the FBI and fraying at the seams, the team responds to a tip about a derelict stash house with a considerable amount of cash on-site. When the estimate goes from thousands to several million, trust among the group is tested and emotions start raging out of control. As outside forces learn about the size of the seizure, everything is called into question, and their lives may be on the line.
Influenced by the more interpersonal, character-driven cop thrillers of his late-’70s and early-’80s youth, Carnahan lands The Rip smack between his far grittier, more intense riff on the genre, Narc, and a more straightforward crime story like recent Netflix films such as Rebel Ridge, Reptile, or Lost Bullet—police corruption mixed with a whodunit swerve and a climactic shootout.
The screenplay, co-written with TV police procedural veteran Michael McGrale, is designed to bluff, distract, and distort until you believe that almost anyone on this star-studded team—Golden Globe winner Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another) and Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Steven Yeun (Beef) besides Damon and Affleck—could be in on jacking the rip or something more heinous. Once the action moves to the stash house, the film flows with the performances of Damon and Affleck as they bounce from room to room telling assorted lies and half-truths for the benefit of whoever needs to hear them, even themselves. The chemistry between the longtime friends and frequent collaborators raises the ceiling for every scene they’re in, unafraid to get intense, with the believability of their characters’ long-standing relationship never in doubt.
The power of the film is in the orchestration and reveal of who is in control of the narrative, leading to how the corrupt finally get exposed. Do we want to believe a good man with nothing to lose can be corrupted by greed and power? Or do we think that a seedy underbelly within the department could be making moves and dismantling it from within? Anything is possible as the narrative and tone shift with the rise of the stakes (shoutout to composer and frequent Carnahan collaborator Clinton Shorter for punctuating those tonal shifts with well-constructed, ominous rips of his own).
Of course, as this is a modern Carnahan film, the dominoes topple one by one until the bullets start flying, and boy, do they. The action, while not as relentless as in Carnahan’s Frank Grillo films (Copshop, Boss Level), is smartly staged and ramped up as the film progresses. While the explosive armored-car chase will stand out among the rest, the best executions may lie in tighter environments like the armored vehicle’s interior standoff or the attack on the home garage.
The Rip may be one of the 2020s’ most entertaining law enforcement crime thrillers, full of intrigue, deception, and adrenaline in a normally dead spot of the year. Rarely do we get a combination of prestige, A-list acting talent, and explosive genre storytelling that doesn’t feel like it’s grabbing for a paycheck or an award, so enjoy this one while you can. This twisty update on the classic dirty-cop crime thriller is exactly the type of dormant genre that Netflix can bring back into our lives to great success.
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