6 Must-Watch Movies on Netflix This July

Summer may be about beaches and soft-serve from the ice-cream truck melting down your fingers, but it’s just as much about time spent inside — the cool hum of the air conditioner and the glow of a screen on a relaxed night in. The Northeast endured a heat wave last month, and temperatures are only getting hotter. So start lining up some movie nights for July. The lineups on streaming have turned over, and while we’ve already recommended the new movies on Netflix and the best movies on Netflix, we’ve rounded up some personal favorites to share as well — one brand-new to the service, a couple about to exit, and others that you have no excuse not to watch. Consider this your shortlist.

A Brand-New Sports Comedy

Happy Gilmore 2

Year: 2025
Runtime: 2h 3m
Director: Kyle Newacheck

The Sandman is back on the green! Nearly 30 years later, Sandler, Christopher McDonald, and Julie Bowen are reprising their roles from Happy Gilmore. In the new film, Happy comes out of retirement to cash in — he needs to pay the ballet-school tuition for his daughter (played by Sunny Sandler, because this is a family business, after all). Several other appearances and cameos have been confirmed, but we don’t see the benefit of spoiling them here. As you wait for it to drop later this month, rewatch the original and remember: “It’s all in the hips.”

An Older Sports Comedy

Slap Shot

Year: 1977
Runtime: 2h 3m
Director: George Roy Hill

In the opening minutes of this raucous hockey jeremiad Slap Shot, a player makes a confession to his opponent, Paul Newman, right before the puck drop: He’s so drunk he can barely stay on his skates. (“Louise left me, and that sonuvabitch over there keeps playing me when he knows I’m shit-faced,” in his words.) The two hours that follow comprise one of the funniest sports movies ever made, as Slap Shot understands two ingredients crucial to both hockey and film: spectacle and violence.

A Thriller

The American

Year: 2010
Runtime: 1h 45m
Director: Anton Corbijn

Twin shadows follow George Clooney’s character in The American: death, because he is a gunsmith for criminals, and regret, because his job costs him all the human connections he could hope to maintain. Set mostly in the Italian countryside, where he’s decamped to build his latest sniper rifle, The American’s cinematography visualizes his emotional distance and proximity to hell: Whether he’s sitting supertemporally alone in a cafe or driving across the landscape, everything threatens to swallow him up.

An Action Epic

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Year: 2024
Runtime: 2h 28m
Director: George Miller

It may not be Fury Road, but it’s at least on par with Beyond Thunderdome, if not better. The latest (and we pray not the last) Mad Max–universe film stars Anya Taylor-Joy as a youthful Furiosa. We get much of the same heart-stopping action as well as the apocalyptic backstory for the titular character that was teased in Fury Road. “Everything in this movie is always on the verge of running out and dying out,” wrote critic Bilge Ebiri in his review of Furiosa. That’s what makes its weirdness, brutality, and hope cut through.

A Family Watch

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Year: 2022
Runtime: 2h 2m
Director: Jeff Fowler

Though Sonic the Hedgehog is still the fastest of this film series, the sequel is bigger and more stuffed with video-game fan favorites. Knuckles is here (voiced by Idris Elba), as is Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey), and the all-powerful Master Emerald serves as the film’s central Macguffin: If Sonic and Tails don’t get to it before Knuckles and Robotnik do, reality is doomed. It’s basically The Avengers but for video games, which is not a knock, especially on a family movie night. Shoutout to Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik, who fully embraced and revived the camp villainy of his role as the Riddler 30 years ago in Batman Forever to make his Eggman shine.

An Oscar-Winner About Living Through a Military Dictatorship

I’m Still Here 

Year: 2024
Runtime: 2h 18m
Director: Walter Salles

The Brazilian military dictatorship of 1964 was notorious for its practice of killing and disappearing its political opponents. I’m Still Here, which won Brazil its first Oscar for Best International Feature Film as well as a Golden Globe for Best Actress (Fernanda Torres), focuses on the story of one family affected by that cruel practice. It’s a timely and powerful watch that underscores the duality of living under an oppressive regime: One moment you’re enjoying a pleasant day on a beach, and the next agents of the state are showing up at your house without a warrant and kidnapping you and your loved ones. Without spoiling too much, the film, as its title suggests, is also about living on the other side of that cruelty and the importance of publicly stating that it happened in the first place, rather than allowing its victims to be forgotten.