11 movies to check out on Netflix this July

Everyone’s been thinking about the Titanic this summer after the catastrophic implosion of OceanGate’s Titan submersible, which was on its way—with five people on board—to the wreckage of the doomed luxury liner. Netflix suffered some backlash after adding James Cameron’s 1997 epic Titanic to its service for July, with subscribers arguing it was taking advantage of a terrible tragedy. While the timing is certainly a bad look for Netflix, given the lead time needed to license any movie title for any service, Titanic was scheduled to return to the Red Envelope before the Titan launched. Maybe out of respect they could have pressed “pause” on making it available; you’ll have to vote with your remote on that one. As if you need reminding, Titanic won 11 Oscars, including Best Picture, and is one of the highest-grossing films of all time.

Are you excited for the upcoming sixth and final season of Cobra Kai, which follows the characters Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) from The Karate Kid movies? If so, you might as well go back to the beginning and check out the OG The Karate Kid before Cobra Kai returns for one last kick. The movie shows how LaRusso overcame bullies and defeated them in a karate championship with the training advice of Mr. Miyagi (Noriyuki “Pat” Morita). The Karate Kid was released in the summer of 1984 and spawned two sequels (both of which are also available on Netflix this month), a remake, and the Cobra Kai Netflix series.

English actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson played Quicksilver in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and is set to play another Marvel character in Kraven The Hunter. Before that, when he was still a teenager, Taylor-Johnson played the titular self-made superhero in Kick-Ass. Director Matthew Vaughn’s 2010 black comedy found humor in the superhero space that many self-serious movies in the MCU and DCEU still lack over a decade later. Kick-Ass also stars Chloë Grace Moretz as Hit-Girl and Nicolas Cage as her father, the former-cop-turned-vigilante Big Daddy.

If you loved Nicholas Hoult in Renfield as Dracula’s long-suffering familiar, check him out in the 2013 zombie rom-com Warm Bodies, in which he stars as a zombie named “R” who falls for a living, breathing young woman named Julie (Teresa Palmer). Hoult has made a career out of playing misfits and outcasts, but he doesn’t get enough credit for his ability to find humor in the bizarre and macabre. This zombie twist on Romeo And Juliet got decent reviews and made a tidy profit at the box office before falling off the radar. Those who were charmed by the never-aging Hoult in Renfield will want to stream Warm Bodies on Netflix.

Wham! was an English pop duo consisting of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley that had a string of hits such as “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” “Careless Whisper,” and “I’m Your Man” in the 1980s. The Netflix documentary WHAM! chronicles the trajectory of the duo, who struggled to be taken seriously as songwriters even as they were selling millions of records and packing stadiums. The late Michael, a gay man who was closeted during Wham!’s active years, struggled with his public perception as he became another poster boy on the walls of adoring teenage girls during the homophobic Reagan years.

Adam Devine plays a by-the-book bank manager suspicious that his future in-laws (Pierce Brosnan and Ellen Barkin) are the infamous Ghost Bandits who just held up his bank in the crime comedy The Out-Laws. The Vampire Diaries star Nina Dobrev is also on board the Tyler Spindel-directed movie as the bride-to-be with parental problems. There are no reviews floating around yet for the Netflix movie, but we’ll take a peek at Brosnan and/or Barkin in almost anything.

Do you remember the hit 2018 post-apocalyptic thriller Bird Box, in which Sandra Bullock’s character had to walk around blindfolded in order to protect herself and two children from entities who cause you to kill yourself if you look at them? Well, although Bullock is not back, a sequel has finally arrived called Bird Box Barcelona. The Álex and David Pastor-directed thriller starring Mario Casas, Naila Schuberth, Georgina Campbell, and Diego Calva takes place concurrently with the events of the first film as the alien pandemic spreads across Europe.

The Deepest Breath is a documentary directed by Laura McGann about Italian free diver Alessia Zecchini, who set world records in free diving. The captivating doc explores the unique relationship between Zecchini and expert safety diver Stephen Keenan as they navigate new and dangerous depths together. The film premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival where it earned solid reviews.

They Cloned Tyrone is a sci-fi comedy-mystery and the feature-length directorial debut of Creed II writer Juel Taylor. The movie stars John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Jamie Foxx (also one of the producers) as a trio who stumble upon a government cloning conspiracy. David Alan Grier and Kiefer Sutherland appear in supporting roles in this movie designed to be an homage to 1970s Blaxploitation films.

Big Eyes is an underappreciated biographical drama directed by Tim Burton and starring Amy Adams as American artist Margaret Keane. Keane had to fight in court to prove that she was indeed the creator of the popular “big eyes” paintings of the 1950s and 1960s that her odious husband (played by Christoph Waltz) took credit for. Look for the real-life Keane, who passed away in 2022, in a cameo sitting on a park bench.

Paradise is a promising-looking sci-fi thriller set in the near future when a company named AEON has devised a way for people to transfer years of their life span to another person. What happens if you change your mind, though? The German-language film is directed by Boris Kunz and stars Kostja Ullmann and Iris Berben.