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Netflix has a huge catalog of movies and TV shows, but its powerful algorithms often favor the streamer’s most recent and most watched fare, like the historical drama The Crown, the buzzy drama Baby Reindeer and the rediscovered 2010s legal drama Suits.
While many rival studios have clawed back movies and shows for their own streaming services, there are still tons of less popular gems buried on Netflix, from originals like the sexy Swedish dramedy Love & Anarchy to memorable films like Damien Chazelle’s First Man. Here are 20 buried treasures to add to your queue.
Apollo 13: Survival (2024)
Ron Howard’s Oscar-winning 1995 drama was a thrilling depiction of the 1970 NASA mission that had to scuttle its planned moon landing after a crucial oxygen tank ruptured two days after liftoff. Director Peter Middleton’s gripping documentary, which relies on interviews and archival footage, offers a step-by-step breakdown of how the astronauts as well as those on the ground narrowly averted disaster.
Watch it: Apollo 13: Survival
First Man (2018)
Two years after his Oscar-winning musical La La Land, director Damien Chazelle reteamed with Ryan Gosling for a fact-based film about the life of astronaut Neil Armstrong. But instead of your standard-issue Hollywood hagiography, we get a much more brooding look at an American hero whose ability to bottle up his emotions may have served his dangerous mission even if it complicated his home life. We also see how dangerous it was trying to put men on the moon with 1960s technology.
Watch it: First Man
UnREAL (2015–18)
This addictive series follows the behind-the-scenes shenanigans of a fictional dating show like The Bachelor and the struggles of one young producer (Shiri Appleby) to meet the demands of her unscrupulous, ratings-obsessed boss (Constance Zimmer) while trying not to be completely evil. Although later seasons were a bit uneven, there’s a vicarious thrill to watching all the off-camera backstabbing and scheming.
Watch it: UnREAL
Bodies (2023)
What if four different police detectives — spread out in different time periods over 150 years — stumbled on the body of the same murder victim in London’s Whitechapel? That intriguing premise is at the heart of this eight-part limited series, which adds a time-bending element to the old Jack the Ripper saga.
Watch it: Bodies
The Chair (2021)
The fictional Pembroke University seems like a fitting avatar for modern academia, with its stubbornly old-school faculty resisting most efforts toward modernization despite the appointment of the English department’s first female chair. Sandra Oh, in a delightfully flustered performance, faces down both crotchety colleagues and eager-to-cancel students while also nursing her crush on a hotshot colleague (Jay Duplass) who’s been spiraling since the death of his wife. Plus, this sadly short-lived series smartly casts David Duchovny as a celebrity actor-novelist-failed Ph.D. student (like Duchovny himself) who’s recruited as a guest lecturer to boost the department’s visibility.
Watch it: The Chair
Cunk on Earth (2018)
In this five-episode mockumentary series, the brilliantly deadpan comic Diane Morgan plays an inept interviewer named Philomena Cunk who quizzes real-life experts about world history. “Why are the pyramids that shape? Is it to keep homeless people from sleeping on them?” she asks an Egyptologist. The show plays the absurdity straight, which adds to the humor, but there’s an underlying curiosity behind the naivete that’s endearing.
Watch it: Cunk on Earth
Documentary Now! (2015-present)
SNL alums Fred Armisen, 57, Bill Hader, Seth Meyers, 50, and Rhys Thomas created this uproarious series that parodies classic documentary films — and imagines them playing in a long-running public TV series hosted by Helen Mirren, 78, who introduces each episode in the four seasons to date. Hader and Armisen camp it up as aging socialites in a spoof of Grey Gardens, while the Muhammad Ali doc When We Were Kings morphs into an epic battle involving a Welsh version of dodgeball with rocks. The results are equal parts silly and smart.
Watch it: Documentary Now!
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