The best 15 films coming to Netflix in March

In 2010, pop sensation Christina Aguilera was at the height of her power as a rare breed of female pop ingenue who looked great, could seriously dance, and had the vocal pipes to back it all up. Sony Pictures caught onto this and gave Aguilera her very own star vehicle, . Realizing she may not be able to carry the film on her own, Sony cast her alongside Cher, who plays the owner of a burlesque-style nightclub who catches the eye of Aguilera’s Ali, a young girl with big dreams who has just moved to the big city. Somewhat hampered by 2010-era visuals, Burlesque is a fab time with scene chewing performances by Cher, Alan Cumming and Stanley Tucci as well as solid song and dance numbers.

Filmmaker Todd Haynes really doesn’t direct enough and 2015’s Cate Blanchett starrer makes you hunger for more from Haynes. Adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Price of Salt, Carol is the tale of two very different women who fall in love during the conservative 1950s. Rooney Mara plays Therese, a clerk in a Manhattan department store. There she meets Carol (Blanchett), who is in a classic loveless marriage with a prickly husband played by Kyle Chandler. Haynes indulges his penchant for melodrama, but the film also has a touching realism due to the director’s deft touch and the fact he has Mara and Blanchett, both of whom were Oscar nominated for the film.

In 2015, director S. Craig Zahler gave us the stone-cold classic . After a 2017 detour into prison with , he returned with 2018’s . The film stars Vince Vaughn and Mel Gibson as two cops who get suspended from the police force for beating the crap out of a suspect. Seeing as the two never saved any money, they now need a job and soon delve into the criminal underworld to pay the bills. Dragged Across Concrete is a gritty thriller and Zahler’s unwillingness to take a side in the action of his characters can be read as either interesting or cowardly. Yet another reason Dragged Across Concrete is worth a watch.

On her way to stardom and awards, Emma Stone made the clever teen comedy  in 2010. Notable for its early embracing of sex positivity, the film is also a modern take on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. As a way to seem cooler than she is, straight-edged teen Olive (Stone) fibs to her friend that she lost her virginity over a recent weekend. Unfortunately, this untrue secret stays secret for about an hour before being spread all over school, thus casting Olive into the gossip mill and turning her into …. well, a lot of things depending on who you talk to. While indeed Easy A is a young adult comedy, it’s a well done one, directed by the prince of easygoing comedies, Will Gluck ().

Come with us into a time machine, back to 2009, when director Todd Phillips made funny films, Ed Helms’ career seemed set for stardom, only the hip knew who Zack Galafianakis was, and Bradley Cooper was still a relatively unknown television actor. Yes, we’re talking about the hilarious smash hit , which you probably haven’t revisited in way too long. Watch again as Mike Tyson smacks Helms, a naked Ken Jeong jumps out of a car trunk and a funny end credits montage fills in the story’s several blank spots. The Hangover is a classic.

With the recent release of , the final film in the Channing Tatum/Steven Soderbergh Magic Mike trilogy, now’s the perfect time to rewatch the second movie, . Taking place three years after Tatum’s “Magic” Mike has shaken his final pelvis onstage, Mike’s getting the boys back together for one last round of male stripper awesomeness at a competition in Myrtle Beach, Florida. The Magic Mike films are all pretty great and feature some hysterical and sexy set pieces, but the Joe Manganiello gas station snack shop scene in Magic Mike XXL is probably the very best of them.

That crazy, lucrative deal Adam Sandler signed with Netflix in 2015 seems downright brilliant now. As his films began to decline at the box office, Netflix saw an opening after realizing back in that same year that subscribers had spent over 2 billion hours streaming his films. Rather than buy said Sandler films from others, they simply brought him into the fold. While results have been mixed, there’ve been some solid efforts including 2019’s romantic comedy  starring Sandler as a New York cop who finally gets a dream vacation with his wife (Jennifer Aniston) before shenanigans take place and the couple is framed for murder.  sees them now working as private investigators searching for a friend who was abducted at his own wedding. Look, if you don’t like Sandler or his Netflix films, that’s fine. But Murder Mystery was solid entertainment and there’s no reason to suspect Murder Mystery 2 won’t be equally fun.

One of the all-time greatest comedies, 1978’s inspired a brand of raunchy bro (and now female-led) comedy that still plays well today. Larry (Thomas Hulce) and Kent (Stephen Furst) are freshman who, after failing to get into one of their campus’ better frats, settle for the raucous Delta House. There’s never a bad time to party with the likes of Bluto (John Belushi), Stork (Douglas Kenney), D-Day (Bruce McGill), and Otter (Tim Matheson), and to laugh at one the best John Landis-directed, Harold Ramis-written comedies of the ’ 70s and ’80s.

The 2006 animated film  is totally fine and great for the whole family. But what makes it worth watching is the fact that singer-songwriter Paul Westerberg, frontman for one of the most underrated bands of all time, The Replacements, did eight of the songs on the soundtrack. Not only that, he managed to pull one off called The Right To Arm Bears which is a term he probably didn’t coin but using it in a song is a stroke of genius. The film also stars the voice talents of Ashton Kutcher, Debra Messing, Gary Sinise and Martin Lawrence.

By 1985, Robert Redford had eased into his handsome middle-aged man phase while Meryl Streep was continuing to prove herself one of the finest screen actors of all time. The two teamed up under director Sidney Pollack for , a sweeping romance film that thrilled audiences and also got props from critics. Streep plays Karen, the wealthy wife of a husband (Klaus Maria Brandauer) who buys an African coffee plantation. On the trip to visit their investment, their relationship frays and Karen is in the right place at the right time to meet dashing hunter Denys (Redford). Out Of Africa is a solid movie, the kind they just don’t make anymore. It also cleaned house at the Oscars, winning Best Picture, Best Director, and more. But strangely, Streep suffered a rare Best Actress loss with Geraldine Page () earning the gold.

In 2000, the sci-fi/action/horror/thriller was a surprise hit. While the film spawned a trilogy, the OG Pitch Black remains the standout in the series. The film stars Vin Diesel as Richard Riddick, one bad dude who’s headed to an interstellar prison. When his ship is struck by comet debris, he’s forced to crash land on an alien planet populated by an aggressive species that comes out to hunt every 22 years. Guess how long it’s been since their last feast? Also starring Cole Hauser, Radha Mitchell and Keith David, Pitch Black is somewhat over the top, but it’s an ultimately satisfying interstellar journey.

Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp had a good thing going back in 2011 with the cash cow in full motion. Then they got together for one of the most original and weird mainstream animated movies at the time with . Depp voices the titular character, an everyman chameleon who winds up in a dusty Western town named Dirt, which just so happens to need a new sheriff. As a lizard who always wanted to be an actor, Rango bluffs his way into the job, which attracts the attention of bad animals voiced by the likes of Bill Nighy and Ray Winstone. Rango is a fun, funny and fairly psychedelic story that took home the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

By 1993, Meg Ryan was atop the heap of romcom leading ladies, following her fantastic performance in , and Tom Hanks was America’s sweetheart as well. So what do you get when you put the two of them together in scenic Seattle? You get , a sweet charmer about a recently widowed man named Sam (Hanks) whose son calls in to a radio talk show to find his dad a date. The story spreads like wildfire and soon Baltimore reporter Annie (Ryan) tracks Sam down for a hard-hitting exposé that yields results we all see coming a mile away.

In the mid to late ’90s, Brad Pitt was honing his acting chops in a solid set of grownup movies. , , (1995),  (1995 and Pitt’s first Oscar nom), and all showcased very different sides of the Oklahoma-born actor. And while mileage may vary (we’re looking at you, ) Seven Years In Tibet is a fine showcase of Pitt in his golden-boy, neo-Robert Redford period. Based on the true story of Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian mountain climber who became friends with the Dalai Lama, Seven Years in Tibet is a fine biographical drama that’s lovely to look at … and not just for Brad Pitt.

What do you get when you have a cast featuring Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Adam Driver, Jane Fonda, Rose Byrne, Kathryn Hahn, and Corey Stoll? You get 2014’s overlooked comedy-drama . In what seems like a horror film setup, the film centers on four siblings forced to stay at their childhood home for a week after their father dies. Old wounds reopen, new ones are created, and hilarity ensues. But, seriously, This Is Where I Leave You is a solid and sometimes touching film about how we deal with those who are supposed to love us the most.