The Sydney Morning Herald
· collected 2026-09-16 · by Craig Mathieson
Every streaming platform has thousands of films available.
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thousands → stream → films
To help you cut through that, here are 30 great hand-picked titles that span genres and filmmakers.
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that → help → genres
12 Monkeys (1995)
Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam subverts the Hollywood blockbuster with this idiosyncratic meditation on love and loss.
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Gilliam → subvert → love
Bruce Willis stars as the inmate from a post-apocalyptic future sent back in time who meets Madeleine Stowe’s psychiatrist and Brad Pitt’s troublemaker.
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who → star → psychiatrist
13 Going on 30 (2004)
Jennifer Garner is a delightful anchor for this fantasy comedy-of-age comedy, playing the grown-up version of a 13-year-old girl whose wish goes awry.
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wish → go → girl
-starring Mark Ruffalo, it’s a funny, empowering film about being true to yourself.
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it → - → yourself
Babes (2024)
Broad City’s Ilana Glazer co-wrote and stars – with Better Things creator Pamela Adlon directing – in this complicated, feisty comedy about female friendship.
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Adlon → co → friendship
If follows two very different besties, played by Glazer and Michelle Buteau, dealing with their respective pregnancies.
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If → follow → pregnancies
Bad Santa (2003)
In this misanthropic comedy, Billy Bob Thornton plays an alcoholic thief who works as a department store Santa to set up his Yuletide heist.
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who → play → heist
The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
The best instalment of Matt Damon’s action franchise, English filmmaker Paul Greengrass ups the ante with jagged, tactile fight scenes.
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Greengrass → up → scenes
It’s a propulsive movie, yet the underlying theme is the need to atone for past sins.
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theme → ’ → sins
Bowfinger (1999)
Steve Martin is in exemplary form as the writer and star of this giddy Hollywood satire, playing a no-budget producer who decides to make a blockbuster on the cheap by secretly filming an unaware superstar (Eddie Murphy) in chaotic situations.
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who → play → situations
The Brutalist (2024)
Straining – and succeeding – at every turn to create an arthouse epic about individual endurance, Brady Corbet’s period epic earned Adrien Brody an Academy Award for his portrayal of an architect and Holocaust survivor who comes to America to build a monument.
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who → strain → monument
Children of Men (2006)
Set in a dystopic 2027, where society is slowly collapsing because of worldwide infertility
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society → Set → infertility
, Alfonso Cuaron’s vivid thriller stars Clive Owen and Julianne Moore as reunited activists in a story that combines humanism and remarkable set-pieces.
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that → star → humanism
It’s a serious flex of star power: Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen star in Mike Nichols’ scything adaptation of Patrick Marber’s hit play about desire and self-deception.
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Roberts → ’ → desire
Tone-wise, it’s the opposite of a rom-com.
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it → ’ → com
A Few Good Men (1992)
With Rob Reiner directing, this film based on Aaron Sorkin’s breakthrough stage play updated old Hollywood conventions for a stirring courtroom drama.
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film → direct → drama
Tom Cruise plays a military lawyer defending two Guantanamo Bay marines under Jack Nicholson’s intimidating command.
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Cruise → play → command
Friendship (2024)
In this absurdist stress test for male friendship, the perpetually wound-too-tight Tim Robinson (I Think You Should Leave) plays a suburban man who becomes obsessed with his new pal and neighbour, a perfectly cast Paul Rudd.
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who → wind → pal
This black comedy goes to extremes.
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comedy → go → extremes
Whether set in snowy Surrey or sunny Los Angeles, this Nancy Meyers romantic-comedy exemplifies cosy reassurance, with Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz as heartbroken women who swap homes and rebound respectively with Jack Black and Jude Law.
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who → set → Black
Quentin Tarantino goes full spaghetti western in this alternate reality World War II where the cinema is literally a screen-burning battlefield.
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cinema → go → reality
Led by Brad Pitt, a special unit rampages through Nazi-occupied France to counter Christoph Waltz’s mercurial sadist.
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unit → lead → sadist
Jaws (1975)
The film that invented the modern Hollywood blockbuster, opening wide in cinemas and on screen as a shark devours seaside tourists before a mismatched trio hunt it down.
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trio → invent → it
In Michael Mann’s bloody 18th century epic, the English actor plays a hardy frontiersman raised by Native Americans who risks everything for Madeleine Stowe’s British belle.
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who → play → belle
With a witty Tina Fey script, this high-school satire gave Lindsay Lohan her signature role as Cady Heron, a new student who tries to master high school – and Rachel McAdams’ terrifying top girl Regina George – via anthropological theories.
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who → give → theories
Memento (2000)
Christopher Nolan introduced himself to audiences with this beguiling reverse thriller, where each scene is followed by the one that chronologically precedes it as Guy Pearce’s desperate amnesiac tries to control a world he has no memory of.
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he → introduce → memory
Monkey Man (2024)
Dev Patel’s directorial debut is a heaving mix of crunching combat, Indian corruption commentary and spiritual longing.
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debut → heave → combat
The actor plays a vengeance-bound survivor of a massacre relentlessly pursuing his corrupt foes.
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actor → play → foes
No Country for Old Men (2007)
A Coen brothers masterpiece, where violence is an otherworldly constant as the 1980s drug trade entangles a defiant hunter (Josh Brolin), a nightmarish assassin (Javier Bardem) and an ageing sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones).
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trade → entangle → hunter
Nosferatu (2024)
Filmmaker Robert Eggers has delivered many takes on classic horror material with pungent detail, menacing period particulars and twisted carnality.
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Eggers → deliver → detail
His Dracula tale is no different, with Bill Skarsgård as the befouled vampire pursuing Lily-Rose Depp’s tormented wife.
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Skarsgård → pursue → wife
Behind this animated family comedy about a group of forest animals confronted by a new suburban development is a quick-witted critique of reckless consumerism backed by chase sequences that are models of Buster Keaton-like planning.
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that → confront → planning
His directorial feature debut, in which he stars as an impoverished immigrant working for a blistering widow (Tilda Swinton), is both hilariously absurd and strikingly political.
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he → star → widow
Scarface (1983)
A paean to American excess, exemplified by Al Pacino’s Cuban refugee turned Miami cocaine dealer, this garish classic directed by Brian De Palma is punctuated by unfettered violence and Michelle Pfeiffer as a mercenary mistress.
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classic → exemplify → mistress
With two US Marshals (Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo) arriving at an isolated hospital for the criminally insane, Martin Scorsese gets to riff on vintage horror movies and the history of psychiatry, with Michelle Williams featuring throughout as a haunting memory.
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Williams → arrive → memory
Shrek (2001)
Memorably subverting fairytale cliches at every turn, this fantasy animated adventure about an ogre (Mike Myers) who just wants to chill in his swamp has aged exceptionally well.
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who → subvert → swamp
It remains sprightly, complete with Eddie Murphy voicing a motormouth donkey.
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Murphy → remain → donkey
The Social Network (2010)
The historic flapping of the butterfly wings that gave us today’s Big Tech storm, David Fincher’s take on the creation of Facebook is an origin story for Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) that updates previous American studies of wealth and power.
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that → give → wealth
…and 10 more, not listed.
The Aporia
