11 movies to check out on Netflix this March

Before you check out Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire in theaters at the end of the month, check out the first film in Warner Bros. Pictures’ MonsterVerse: Gareth Edwards’ starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, and Bryan Cranston. In the 2014 monster mash, Taylor-Johnson stars as a soldier who gets caught in the middle of a battle between Godzilla and gigantic creatures known as MUTOs. The A.V. Club’s , “The director also proves himself a superb purveyor of eye candy, staging several instantly memorable scenes: a nighttime attack on Honolulu, a siege at the Golden Gate Bridge, and a scene of paratroopers plummeting into an ashen, fire-red war zone, godlike combatants looming in their periphery. He excels at the small details, too, using rolling pens the same way Spielberg used a cup of water—to tease the arrival of his main attraction.”

Based on the novel Spaceman Of Bohemia, the romantic sci-fi drama stars Adam Sandler, Kunal Nayyar, Lena Olin, Carey Mulligan, and Isabella Rossellini. The official description reads: “Six months into a solitary research mission to the edge of the solar system, an astronaut, Jakub (Sandler), realizes that the marriage he left behind might not be waiting for him when he returns to Earth. Desperate to fix things with his wife, Lenka (Mulligan), he is helped by a mysterious creature from the beginning of time he finds hiding in the bowels of his ship. Hanuš (voiced by Paul Dano) works with Jakub to make sense of what went wrong before it is too late.”

Directed by and starring Denzel Washington, the historical drama is based on the challenges facing the 1935 Wiley College debate team in Texas. The A.V. Club’s , “Washington’s film has other things going for it, namely his terrific performance as Mel Tolson, a real-life debate coach at East Texas’ historically black Wiley College, which Tolson led to debating glory in the 1930s. Washington plays Tolson as a man so fiercely uncompromising that a place on his squad served as a continual baptism of fire. The film also chillingly captures life in the Jim Crow American South.”

In the comedy , directed by David Wain and coproduced by Judd Apatow, Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston play a married couple who retreat to a commune in Georgia to find themselves after their financial situation sours in the Big Apple. The A.V. Club’s , “Rudd and Aniston escape to a utopian commune where free love rules, clothing is optional, drugs are everywhere, and the unofficial leader (Justin Theroux) has designs on Aniston. At first, Rudd and Aniston are exhilarated by their freedom and uninhibited new friends, but dropping out brings its own set of problems.”

Tye Sheridan, Lily-Rose Depp, Fionn Whitehead, and Colin Farrell comprise just part of the large ensemble assembled for Neil Burger’s sci-fi opus . The plot follows a group of teenage astronauts on board a multigenerational space mission to colonize an Earth-like planet in the year 2063. The A.V. Club’s , “The more the film begins to resemble a deep-space Lord Of The Flies—complete with fabled beast, ostracized Piggy, and urgent chases across the futuristic version of a secluded island— the more predictable it becomes. Neil Burger, director at the helm of this hurtling vessel, gives the conventions a seductive sheen of utilitarian plausibility: He’s made a zero-G thriller that’s at once handsome, in its cosmic and cosmetic design, and claustrophobically believable in how unglamorous it makes space travel appear.”

Fans will have to wait until 2025 to see Millie Bobby Brown in the final season of Stranger Things. Until then, check her out as a princess left to contend with a fearsome dragon in the dark fantasy also starring Ray Winstone, Nick Robinson, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Angela Bassett, and Robin Wright. The official description reads: “A young woman’s marriage to a charming prince turns into a fierce fight for survival when she’s offered up as a sacrifice to a fire-breathing dragon.” In this twist on tired fantasy-genre tropes, Brown plays a damsel who must fend for herself—not wait around for a prince to rescue her.

Lindsay Lohan seems determined to reclaim her rom-com crown after a decade or so of personal problems and unfortunate career choices. Unlike in Freaky Friday, in which she switches bodies with her mother played by Jamie Lee Curtis, Lohan swaps lives with her best friend in Janeen Damian’s . That’s right—Lohan is crushing on her best friend’s beau and a mystic wish causes her to magically wake up the next morning in his bed. Arriving on Netflix just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, Irish Wish also stars Ed Speleers, Alexander Vlahos, Ayesha Curry, and Jane Seymour.

In the horror-comedy starring Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Myha’la Herrold, Chase Sui Wonders, Rachel Sennott, Lee Pace, and Pete Davidson, a group of obnoxious Gen Z partiers get trapped in a mansion for a weekend due to a hurricane passing through. With the group cut off from social media due to a power outage and forced to interact with those physically present, tensions rise, secrets are revealed, and bodies start piling up. The A.V. Club’s , “Bodies Bodies Bodies, shrewdly and with abandon, adds social media-fueled performative wokeness to the mix and makes a damning case for their limits in the real world. If the film has any takeaway, it’s that a TikToker’s DEI-embracing identity is only as strong as their Wi-Fi signal.”

If you found that part of your brain dribbled out of your ears after streaming Bodies Bodies Bodies, bounce back by watching Oscar winner Regina King play Shirley Chisholm—the first Black Congresswoman who made a historic 1972 presidential run—in the biopic Shirley. Directed and written by John Ridley, the original Netflix film also stars Lance Reddick, Lucas Hedges, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Christina Jackson, Michael Cherrie, André Holland, and Terrence Howard. In a press statement, King said, “Shirley Chisholm’s fearless determination has been an inspiration to so many of us, and with this film we hope to inspire many generations to come.”

Bill Nighy stars in this sports drama about the Homeless Sports Cup—an actual football (soccer to Americans) tournament that shines the spotlight on unhoused athletes from around the world. The official Netflix description of The Beautiful Game reads: “Mal (Nighy) is the manager of England’s homeless football team, taking his players to Rome with the hope of being crowned champions of the Homeless World Cup, a global street soccer tournament. At the last minute he decides to bring with them a talented striker Vinny (Micheal Ward), who could give them a real chance at winning, but only if he’s ready to let go of his past and become part of the team.”

The Wages Of Fear, a French remake of a 1953 French film, is directed by Julien Leclercq and stars Franck Gastambide, Alban Lenoir, Sofiane Zermani, and Ana Girardot. The official description reads: “When an explosion at an oil well threatens hundreds of lives, a crack team is called upon to make a deadly desert crossing with nitroglycerine in tow.” The 1953 original was a box office smash in France and won the Golden Bear and the Palme d’Or at the Berlin Film Festival and Cannes Film Festival, respectively.