No joke, I once spent an hour scrolling through movies, trying to pick what I wanted to watch. That’s the great curse of streaming services – infinite choice just means more time spent scrolling through rows and rows of titles while thinking, “Aw, yeah, that’s a good one”, without ever truly committing.
You can see where I’m going with this, right? If you find yourself regularly paralysed by such a wide selection of choices, we’ve made your life a little easier by rounding up 15 must-watch movies that are currently streaming on Binge.
If you don’t currently have a Binge subscription, you can sign up for a free 14-day trial to check out the range of movies and TV shows that are on offer.
Almost Famous
The ultimate “I was born in the wrong generation” movie for music lovers, Almost Famous is also one of the best music bios, despite being about a band that never actually existed.
Almost Famous follows William Miller, an innocent teenage music journo who is thrust into the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll world of Stillwater when he’s assigned to cover them for Rolling Stone.
Like I said, while it’s not based on an actual band this movie still cuts a great portrait of what it was like to be a rock god in the 1970s. It’s chock full of iconic scenes and performances, and also includes the best ever use of an Elton John song.
Attack the Block
Before he was fighting in the Star Wars, John Boyega was protecting a council flat from vicious aliens.
In a nutshell, Attack the Block is: “What if a group of lads had to stop an alien invasion?” One of the best cult films of the last decade. It’s funny, shocking and surprisingly heartbreaking.
The film also stars Jodie Whittaker, years before her turn as Dr. Who., as a nurse who reluctantly teams up with Boyega’s crew, despite being mugged by at the start of the film.
But make no mistake, it’s Boyega who steals the show. The moment he appears on screen you just know this kid is destined for great things. The sequel could not come sooner.
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
We’ve reached a point where whenever anyone mentions or quotes Austin Powers, it’s usually with the same ironic detachment people have when they do “Borat voice, my wife” or Shrek jokes.
I’m here to say that those people are cowards because the first Austin Powers movie is still pretty good. Groovy, even.
Set in 1997, the film follows Austin Powers (Mike Myers), a cartoonish British secret agent who has been frozen since the swinging ’60s, who has been thawed out to stop his nemesis, Dr. Evil (also Mike Myers), from taking over the world.
What makes this James Bond parody work is how committed to the bit it is, along with the staggering economy of jokes. For every gag that misses, there are at least two or three that manage to hit.
Also, a fun fact: we’re almost the same distance from the release of the first movies as it was from 1967. Hahaha aaaaaahhhhhhHHHHH.
Batman Returns
When Batman Returns was released, the Tim Burton-directed film was deemed a “Bit Too Much”. While Warner Bros. excepted a fun superhero movie they could market to kids, that isn’t what they got.
There has never been a Batman movie that has been so aggressively strange and weirdly horny like Batman Returns is. So much so that McDonald’s canned their Happy Meal tie-in for the film. Although to be fair, there is a scene where Danny DeVito violently bites a guy’s nose off.
With that all said, it’s a good movie. Depending on your mileage, it might even be one of the best superhero movies. You’ve got DeVito turning in an amazingly deranged performance as The Penguin, along with Michelle Pfeiffer‘s straight-up iconic Catwoman.
Clueless
What, like, you’re not going to rewatch Clueless for the 20th time? As if.
Drive
In Drive, Ryan Gosling plays a mysterious man (we never learn his name) who works as a stunt driver by day, and a getaway driver by night. When he agrees to do a job that’ll help the husband (Oscar Isaac) of his new neighbour (Carey Mulligan) get even with a local mob. Things don’t go as planned.
Set in Los Angeles, Nicolas Winding Refn makes the city look like this stylised, almost dream-like landscape, where the streets are bathed in neon and scored by a beautiful retro synthwave soundtrack.
Drive is undeniably cool. It’s so cool that it inspired hoards of supremely uncool people to dress in Gosling’s scorpion jacket, back when it was released in 2011. That’s the power of cinema.
Hereditary
Honestly? The less you know about Hereditary going into it, the better.
It’s an absolutely gut-wrenching horror movie with a real top-shelf performance by Toni Collette. If you’re not great with spooky stuff, maybe give Hereditary a miss.
I, Tonya
Before seeing this movie, everything I knew about Tonya Harding had come from other pieces of pop culture (see: The Simpsons), so I was under the impression that she was a vindictive ice-skater who broke a rival’s kneecaps out of jealousy. I can’t imagine I was the only one who thought this either.
After watching I, Tonya, it turns out that’s not really the true story. This biography casts a more sympathetic light on Harding’s life, who is played by Margot Robbie, in what might be her best performance.
Harding is portrayed as someone who dearly loves nothing more in life than ice-skating, and wants to become the very best there is, only to be saddled with an abusive mother (played by Allison Janney), and a sporting culture that wants her to fail because she’s “white trash”.
If you can look past the occasional shonky CGI-ing of Robbie’s head onto a figure-skater, this movie gives Harding nuance instead of reducing her to a one-dimensional punchline.
Knives Out
When Harlan Thrombey, a famous mystery novel author, is found dead in his study the day after his 85th birthday, the police rule the cause of death as a suicide.
But when private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is brought on to investigate, he discovers that his apparent suicide is actually a murder, with Harlan’s supremely dysfunctional family all suspects. It’s the kind of Agatha Christie, locked door murder mystery your nana is super into but updated for a modern audience.
Knives Out also includes two undeniable cinematic truths. One, Chris Evans is at his best when he’s playing an arsehole. And two, the quality of Craig’s performance is equal to the accent he’s using. The weirder, the better.
The Lighthouse
If you can stop being a huge baby and get over the fact that The Lighthouse is a black-and-white movie, this is one of the best thrillers of recent years.
Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson play lighthouse caretakers on a remote island, who slowly begin to lose their marbles from isolation.
The Lighthouse is unsettling and uncomfortable. Things get weird. The line between what’s real and what isn’t starts to break down to the point where you’re not sure if scenes actually happened or not.
It’s also visually dirty in a way that few movies are. Just looking at it you can’t help but feel like everyone on screen stinks like shit. A good movie, I highly recommend it.
The Matrix
To create The Matrix, the Wachowskis combined everything they love, from martial arts movies to cyberpunk sci-fi, with a healthy dose of philosophy and spirituality. The end result? One of the best-ever action flicks.
The Matrix follows Neo, a hacker played by Keanu Reeves, who learns that the reality he’s living in doesn’t exist. It’s a simulation, created by machines that are using humanity as living batteries.
After being freed from this simulated reality, Neo joins a rebellion to rage against these machines and free humanity from their control. So much of this film has been often imitated but never duplicated.
Mean Girls
You know all of the quotes, you know all of the memes. Almost 20-years later Mean Girls still holds up in a way that few teen comedies from the 2000s have. Chalk that up to an amazing lead cast (Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Amy Poehler) and Tina Fey‘s hilarious script.
Look, you read Pedestrian, so you’ve probably seen Mean Girls before, and you’ve probably seen it way more than once. But the fact that it’s so easy to rewatch over and over is a real testament to how good Mean Girls is.
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Ghost Protocol is the fourth movie in the Mission: Impossible series, but still fairly new viewer friendly if you’ve never seen any of them. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) leads the IMF, an espionage agency tasked with stopping global disasters. When a mission goes horribly wrong, the IMF is framed for a crime they didn’t commit. Now, it’s a race against time to clear its name while stopping a nuclear war from kicking off.
Over the past 20 years the Mission: Impossible series has slowly established itself as one of the all-time best action movie series. They’re really entertaining high concept spy flicks, and usually full of some amazing set pieces.
In Ghost Protocol, there’s a scene where Cruise actually scales the outside of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. You know, the tallest building in the world.
The Mummy
The Mummy has aged like a fine wine. Set in the late-1920s, it follows dashing adventurer Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) and stuffy Egyptologist Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) as they search for a hidden Egyptian city. When an ancient evil is accidentally awoken, it’s up to them to stop this mummy from regaining its cursed powers before its too late.
It’s a throwback to classic adventure films that somehow feels timeless – an Indiana Jones for ’90s and early ’00s kids. Honestly, it’s worth your time just for the performances and chemistry of Fraser, Weisz and John Hannah.
In retrospect, The Mummy was also a huge game-changer for leading characters in blockbuster flicks. Fraser’s character is like a prototype of the wise-cracking hero that’s in so many modern action movies. Without him, you don’t get a performance like Chris Hemsworth as Thor or Chris Pratt as Star-Lord.
Ocean’s Eleven
Ocean’s Eleven is one of the best hangout movies. It’s the kind of movie you throw on not because you’re invested in the plot, but because you just want to vibe with the character in it.
Seriously, look at that cast list: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Carl Reiner and Julia Roberts. Even Ross’ dad from Friends is there!
You come for the entertaining, twisty casino heist set under the bright lights of Las Vegas, stay for the amazing cast of personalities. Yes, that also includes Don Cheadle’s ridiculous cockney accent.
You can catch all of these movies, and more, streaming on Binge here.
