15 Hidden Gems on Netflix

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, such as the historical drama The Crown, the action thriller The Night Agent and the rediscovered 2010s legal drama Suits. Though 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 such as the sexy Swedish dramedy Love & Anarchy to classic films including Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation. Here are 15 buried treasures to add to your queue.

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

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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, 52, in a delightfully flustered performance, faces down both crotchety colleagues and eager-to-cancel students — while nursing her crush on a hotshot colleague (Jay Duplass, 50) who’s been spiraling since the death of his wife. This sadly short-lived series smartly casts David Duchovny, 63, as a celebrity actor-novelist-PhD student who never finished his dissertation (like Duchovny himself) but is recruited as a guest lecturer to boost the department’s visibility.

Watch it: The Chair

The Conversation (PG, 1974)

Between the first two Godfather films, director Francis Ford Coppola shot another, undersung masterpiece: a noirish thriller starring Gene Hackman as a guilt-wracked surveillance expert who’s hired to eavesdrop on a couple and begins to suspect that a murder may be in the works. The tension mounts along with Hackman’s paranoia in a film that feels very much of its time — including the use of the same wiretapping technology employed by the Watergate burglars. (Keep your eyes peeled for the upcoming The Conversation TV series, directed and written by J.C. Chandor.)

Watch it: The Conversation

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!

Five Came Back (2017)

Did you know some of Hollywood’s biggest directors in the early 1940s — John Ford, Frank Capra, John Huston, George Stevens and William Wyler — were recruited during World War II to produce propaganda films and shoot footage of the battlefield? Netflix not only streams the original films but also a three-part docuseries about these Old Hollywood filmmakers, with analysis from contemporary auteurs including Steven Spielberg, 77, Francis Ford Coppola, 84, and Guillermo del Toro, 59. This show, based on the best-selling book by journalist Mark Harris, is a treat for WWII buffs and film fans alike.

Watch it: Five Came Back