This is it, the last week of April, and I know what you’re asking—is there anything left to watch on Netflix this week? With a U.S. library pushing past 5,600 movies and TV shows, you bet your Scarlett Johansson there is.
If you’ve already chewed through the streamer’s top 10, with movies like Apex and Thrash still dominating, then why not wind the week down with a mind-expanding sci-fi thriller with the aforementioned Scarjo, or a sexy crime drama with Austin Butler, or one of last year’s best movies, period, starring Emma Stone. Let’s go.
3
Lucy
Scarlett Johansson goes from drug mule to enlightened superbeing
“It is estimated that most human beings only use 10% of their brain’s capacity,” Professor Samuel Norman (Morgan Freeman) tells a lecture hall full of students. “Imagine if we could access 100%. Interesting things begin to happen.” In Luc Besson’s (The Fifth Element) 2014 fun-as-hell sci-fi action thriller, that’s exactly what happens to the titular Lucy (Scarlett Johansson), with some wild consequences.
While in Taipei, Lucy wakes up to find that she’d been drugged and, worse, some gangsters have cut her open and sewn a bag full of some experimental synthetic drug called CPH4 into her abdomen, and she’s to transport it for them, or else. When the bag ruptures inside her, something miraculous happens—it unlocks her brain’s full potential, giving her superhuman abilities, including telekinesis, telepathy, and other Neo-in-The-Matrix-like control over reality. With the gangsters on her tail, Luck seeks out the help of Professor Norman before she evolves beyond our physical limitations and into the unknown.
Lucy was one of Johansson’s highest-grossing non-Marvel movies, and while it doesn’t have the shiniest of Rotten Tomatoes ratings (67%), its fast pace, fascinating premise, and cool VFX (for the time) make it a movie I always enjoy watching.
2
Caught Stealing
Aistin Butler stars in this pulpy New York crime thriller
Since wowing audiences with his career-making portrayal of Elvis, Austin Butler has done a good job adding a diverse list of characters to his resume, including Dune: Part II‘s sinister, powder-whiter Harkonnen, Feyd-Rautha, and a World War II bomber pilot in Apple TV’s Masters of the Air. In Darren Aronofsky’s pulpy dark gangster comedy Caught Stealing, Butler adds ‘washed-up high-school baseball phenom-turned-badass’ to the tally, to great effect.
Quiz
Director match: Who made these movies?
Trivia challenge
Besson, Aronofsky, or Lanthimos — can you match these films to the visionary director behind them?
DirectorsFilmAuteursCinemaMatching
Which director made Poor Things (2023), the surreal Victorian fantasy starring Emma Stone?
Correct! Yorgos Lanthimos directed Poor Things, winning him the Golden Lion at Venice. It’s a typically absurdist, visually striking film that fits perfectly within his strange, formally precise body of work.
Not quite — Poor Things was directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. The Greek filmmaker reunited with Emma Stone after The Favourite, delivering another darkly comic, visually bizarre world that won the top prize at Venice in 2023.
Black Swan (2010), the psychological thriller about an obsessive ballerina, was directed by whom?
Correct! Darren Aronofsky directed Black Swan, earning Natalie Portman her Academy Award for Best Actress. The film is a hallmark of Aronofsky’s obsession with self-destruction and the psychological cost of perfectionism.
Not quite — Black Swan was directed by Darren Aronofsky. It shares thematic DNA with his earlier film Requiem for a Dream, exploring how the pursuit of perfection can unravel the mind entirely. Natalie Portman won the Oscar for her performance.
The Fifth Element (1997), the colorful sci-fi blockbuster starring Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich, was directed by whom?
Correct! Luc Besson directed The Fifth Element, which he had been developing conceptually since his teenage years. It remains one of the most visually inventive European sci-fi blockbusters ever made, blending operatic spectacle with pure pop-art energy.
Not quite — The Fifth Element was directed by Luc Besson. The French filmmaker poured years of personal world-building into the project, and Jean Paul Gaultier’s iconic costumes helped make it one of the most visually distinctive sci-fi films of the 1990s.
The Whale (2022), the intimate drama starring Brendan Fraser as a reclusive man with severe obesity, was directed by whom?
Correct! Darren Aronofsky directed The Whale, based on Samuel D. Hunter’s stage play. Brendan Fraser won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance — a remarkable comeback story that moved audiences worldwide.
Not quite — The Whale was directed by Darren Aronofsky. It’s a chamber piece set almost entirely in a single apartment, adapted from a stage play. Brendan Fraser’s Oscar-winning return to the spotlight became one of the most celebrated stories of the 2023 awards season.
The Favourite (2018), the darkly comic period drama set in the court of Queen Anne, was directed by whom?
Correct! Yorgos Lanthimos directed The Favourite, which earned ten Academy Award nominations. The film marked a shift toward working with larger casts and historical settings while keeping Lanthimos’s signature detached, darkly absurd sensibility fully intact.
Not quite — The Favourite was directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Starring Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz in a vicious power triangle, it became Lanthimos’s biggest awards success and introduced his unsettling worldview to a much wider audience.
Léon: The Professional (1994), the stylish thriller about a hitman who protects a young girl, was directed by whom?
Correct! Luc Besson directed Léon: The Professional, launching a young Natalie Portman’s career alongside Jean Reno. The film cemented Besson’s reputation for kinetic, stylized action with unexpectedly emotional undercurrents.
Not quite — Léon: The Professional was directed by Luc Besson. It was a major international hit that introduced both Jean Reno and a 12-year-old Natalie Portman to global audiences, and it remains one of Besson’s most beloved and debated films.
The Lobster (2015), the dystopian dark comedy in which single people must find a partner or be turned into an animal, was directed by whom?
Correct! Yorgos Lanthimos directed The Lobster, his English-language debut. It won the Jury Prize at Cannes and introduced mainstream international audiences to Lanthimos’s deadpan, rule-bound fictional worlds where social norms are taken to absurd extremes.
Not quite — The Lobster was directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Starring Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz, it was the Greek director’s English-language breakthrough and a perfect entry point into his work, in which bizarre societal rules are enforced with complete straight-faced sincerity.
Requiem for a Dream (2000), the harrowing portrait of addiction starring Ellen Burstyn and Jared Leto, was directed by whom?
Correct! Darren Aronofsky directed Requiem for a Dream, adapting Hubert Selby Jr.’s novel. Ellen Burstyn received an Academy Award nomination for her devastating performance, and the film’s relentless editing style — nicknamed ‘hip-hop montage’ — became hugely influential.
Not quite — Requiem for a Dream was directed by Darren Aronofsky. The film’s brutal depiction of addiction spiraling out of control shocked audiences and critics alike. Its rapid-fire editing technique and Clint Mansell’s iconic score have influenced countless films and trailers since.
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Hank Thompson (Butler) is licking his wounds in New York and working as a bartender in a dive bar after a drunk-driving accident in California ended his baseball career. But his life blows up after his drug-dealing, mohawk-sporting neighbor, Russ (House of the Dragon‘s excellent Matt Smith), inadvertently drags him into a world of hurt involving dangerous Russian gangsters, a Puerto Rican kingpin played by Bad Bunny, and two totally badass Hasidic Jewish brothers played by Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio. Zoë Kravitz costars as Hank’s girlfriend, Yvonne, and Regina King also appears as a hard-nosed detective who may not be what she seems.
Caught Stealing is a gritty and darkly funny underdog redemption story, with the entire cast turning out memorable performances. The film was well received by critics and has an 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
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Bugonia
Jessie Plemons thinks Emma Stone is an alien in this conspiracy thrill ride
Yorgos Lanthimos’ wildly creative, psychological conspiracy thriller, Bugonia, was my favorite movie last year, hands down. An English-language remake of the 2003 South Korean film Save the Green Planet! by Jang Joon-hwan, and adapted by Succession‘s Will Tracy, Bugonia reunites Lanthimos with his muse, Emma Stone, for their fourth movie together, and it’s their best yet (in my opinion).
Stone stars as Michelle Fuller, the steely, pretentious CEO of a pharmaceutical company, who is abducted by an unhinged conspiracy-obsessed beekeeper named Teddy (Jesse Plemons in one of his best roles), who believes that Michelle is actually an alien who has infiltrated Earth and is living among us for nefarious purposes. With the help of his naive, but innocent, autistic cousin, Don (Aidan Delbis), they shave Michelle’s head (so she can’t communicate) and lock her up in the basement until she agrees to take them to her emperors in on her mothership on the night of a lunar eclipse. What unfolds in Teddy’s basement is a twisted cat-and-mouse battle of the minds, as Michelle tries to escape.
Bugonia is a brilliant psychological trip that doesn’t stop, with an ending unlike any you’ll ever see. It’s no wonder it was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actress for Stone, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Tracy. It’s not to be missed.
Looking for something else to watch? Don’t you worry, at How-To Geek, we eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff. Are you into documentaries? Check out my weekly roundups of docs on Netflix and HBO Max, for starters. If you’re yearning for movie suggestions on Paramount+, I round up a few great ones each week, too.
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Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
