My wife and I have been binging our way through the great new Netflix series I Will Find You that everyone’s been talking about, but like with any intense binge, sometimes you need to take a break and watch something different. We like to do that by throwing on a movie to change things up—they’re one-and-done, and nicely wrapped up (usually).
Well, as I’m sure you know, Netflix isn’t short on movies either, so here are a couple that have been climbing the Top 10 charts in the U.S. recently (a Spanish thriller and a charming rom-com), and one incredible Oscar-nominated crime caper that you should watch before it leaves Netflix soon.
3
The Marked Woman
No name, no memory, and someone wants her dead
You gotta love a good opening sequence in a movie that just sets a chilling tone for what’s to come. The Spanish thriller, The Marked Woman, which landed on Netflix earlier this month, has one such opener. An unknown woman is found bound, gagged, and tortured inside a shipping container at the port of Barcelona. She doesn’t know who she is, how she got there, or who it was who tried, and is still trying, to kill her.
The case brings in brooding detective Anna Ripoll (Candela Peña), a human trafficking investigator just back from a personal leave after suffering a tragedy, and draws the attention of an out-of-jurisdiction officer, the hard-nosed Quique Zárate (Pol López), to figure it all out before someone tries to kill the woman again. The woman (played by the excellent Ana Rujas) holds all the answers, and as she starts to remember things as well, her life is increasingly put in danger.
Originally titled La desconocida, The Marked Woman adapts the bestselling 2023 crime novel by Rosa Montero and Olivier Truc, and Money Heist fans will recognize Luka Peros in the cast. It’s a slow-burning, ticking-clock puzzle built for one tense sitting.
The Marked Woman
NC16
Thriller
Crime
Release Date
June 5, 2026
WHERE TO WATCH
Streaming
2
Voicemails for Isabelle
It’s like You’ve Got Mail, with a modern twist
Admit it—you lourrrve a good romcom. The meet-cutes, the misunderstandings, the secrets, the hidden affection, the running down the street in the pouring rain, or the racing to the airport before they’re gone forever! Voicemails for Isabelle has all of that, which is probably why it’s got an 85% critics and 92% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. It also has a tear-jerking, gut-punch at its core that adds weight that a lot of romcoms don’t have.
American actress Zoey Deutch (Invincible, Nouvelle Vague) stars as Jill, a young and aspiring pastry chef in San Francisco who is having a hard time coping with the death of her younger sister, Isabelle (Ciara Bravo), who she lost to Cystic Fibrosis. Even though Isabelle is gone, Jill finds comfort in speaking to Isabelle through voicemails she leaves on her old number. But what Jill doesn’t know is that (here comes the secret) the number has been reassigned to Wes (Nick Robinson), who starts falling for the stranger pouring her heart out on the other end.
Quiz
8 Questions · Test Your Knowledge
Which Netflix hit is this quote from? Trivia challenge
These lines could belong to almost any show — but only one is right.
Sci-FiDramaHorrorActionMystery
01 / 8
Mystery
Which show contains the line: “The darkness doesn’t scare me. It never did. It’s the light that lies.”
Correct! This brooding line belongs to Wednesday Addams in Wednesday, perfectly capturing her gothic worldview and distrust of cheerfulness. The show leans heavily into Wednesday’s sardonic philosophy, making lines like this feel entirely at home in her deadpan delivery.
Not quite — this line is from Wednesday. While Dark and Stranger Things both deal heavily with darkness and fear, this particular sentiment belongs to Wednesday Addams, whose entire worldview is built on embracing shadow and suspecting the sunny side of life.
02 / 8
Sci-Fi
Which show contains the line: “We didn’t travel through time to save the world. We traveled through time because someone had to remember it.”
Correct! This reflective line is from Dark, the German sci-fi thriller that made time travel feel less like adventure and more like a haunting responsibility. Dark is known for its philosophical weight, and its characters often speak about time with grief rather than wonder.
Not quite — this one belongs to Dark, Netflix’s mind-bending German series. Stranger Things uses time and alternate dimensions too, but Dark treats time travel as a tragic burden rather than an exciting power, and that distinction shows in lines like this one.
03 / 8
Action
Which show contains the line: “I didn’t come this far to be someone else’s story. I came to write my own.”
Correct! This defiant declaration is pure Monkey D. Luffy energy from One Piece. Netflix’s live-action adaptation kept the spirit of Eiichiro Oda’s original manga alive, and Luffy’s dream of becoming King of the Pirates fuels lines exactly like this one throughout the series.
Not quite — this line is from One Piece. Squid Game is also about survival and self-determination, but its tone is far bleaker. One Piece thrives on bold, adventurous declarations of freedom, which makes this quote a natural fit for Luffy and his crew chasing the Grand Line.
04 / 8
Horror
Which show contains the line: “They don’t come from another world. They come from the part of this one we buried.”
Correct! This line is from K-Pop Demon Hunters, where the mythology ties demonic forces directly to suppressed cultural trauma rather than alien dimensions. The show cleverly roots its supernatural horror in the idea that what humanity represses eventually resurfaces in monstrous form.
Not quite — this is from K-Pop Demon Hunters. It’s easy to guess Stranger Things here since the Upside Down has similar vibes, but K-Pop Demon Hunters distinguishes itself by framing its monsters as manifestations of buried history and cultural wounds rather than extradimensional invaders.
05 / 8
Drama
Which show contains the line: “The rules were never meant to protect us. They were meant to protect the people who made them.”
Correct! This line cuts to the heart of Squid Game’s central critique of capitalism and systemic inequality. The show’s entire premise is built on the idea that the powerful design games — and societies — in ways that guarantee their own survival at everyone else’s expense.
Not quite — this one is from Squid Game. One Piece also challenges corrupt authority figures like the World Government, but Squid Game delivers this message with raw, contemporary urgency. The show uses its brutal game format as a direct metaphor for economic systems rigged against the vulnerable.
06 / 8
Sci-Fi
Which show contains the line: “I’ve seen things in that lab that would make you stop believing in coincidence forever.”
Correct! This line belongs to Stranger Things, where Hawkins National Laboratory serves as the epicenter of government experimentation and supernatural horror. The show repeatedly frames the lab as a place where the boundaries of science and ethics were catastrophically crossed, changing everything for the town of Hawkins.
Not quite — this is from Stranger Things. While Dark also features scientific experiments with devastating consequences, the specific reference to ‘that lab’ points directly to Hawkins Lab, the shadowy government facility that accidentally tore open a gate to the Upside Down in season one.
07 / 8
Mystery
Which show contains the line: “Smiling is the costume everyone wears before they show you who they really are.”
Correct! Classic Wednesday Addams. This line is from Wednesday, and it captures her signature suspicion of warmth and social performance perfectly. The show is full of her sharp, cynical observations about human behavior, delivered with the same flat affect that made the original character iconic.
Not quite — this is from Wednesday. Squid Game might seem like a strong guess since it’s all about masks and hidden motives, but this particular brand of dry, gothic cynicism belongs squarely to Wednesday Addams. Her entire character arc in the show involves learning — reluctantly — that not every smile hides a monster.
08 / 8
Action
Which show contains the line: “Every stage you survive just means they’ve found a better way to kill you next time.”
Correct! This line is from Squid Game, where the escalating lethality of each game is both the show’s dramatic engine and its darkest joke. Contestants quickly learn that surviving one round is never cause for relief — the next challenge is always designed to be more psychologically and physically devastating.
Not quite — this one is from Squid Game. The show’s genius is in how it turns children’s games into elimination rounds with mounting dread. Stranger Things has its own escalating monster threats, but Squid Game makes the manufactured, deliberate cruelty of each new stage a core part of its social commentary.
Challenge Complete
Your Score
/ 8
Thanks for playing!
Yes, it is just like the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan romcom You’ve Got Mail (Wes’s friends even point it out), but with a more modern and refreshed take. One of Netflix’s most-watched titles, currently, it ticks all those romcom tropes and more, and is a fun date-night watch. Nick Offerman also has a small but hilarious role in the film as Jill’s tyrannical chef boss.
Voicemails for Isabelle
18
Romance
Comedy
Release Date
June 19, 2026
WHERE TO WATCH
Streaming
1
American Hustle
Back-to-back stars line this slick ’70s crime caper
When a movie is nominated for 10 Oscars, but doesn’t win one, does anybody hear? You bet your federal sting operation it does. OK, that was a bad metaphor, but what isn’t bad is American Hustle, David O. Russell’s masterpiece of a Mafia crime caper that reunites many of the stellar players from his Oscar-winning movie Silver Linings Playbook.
Set in the late ’70s (with all the gloriously bad hair and flashy outfits you can handle) during the real-life FBI ABSCAM operations targeting government corruption and organized crime, American Hustle follows con-artist couple Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) and Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), who are forced to cooperate with the FBI, led by agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), to infiltrate and help bring down corrupt New Jersey Mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner) who’s been pulled in to a mob-backed casino deal. But the wild card threatening to derail the whole plot is Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence), Irving’s jealous, firecracker of a wife, whose infidelity and loose lips with a mobster turn things deadly as ruthless mob boss Victor Tellegio (Robert De Niro) is alerted.
American Hustle is one of Russell’s best, with incredible performances all around that garnered nominations in all four acting categories. It leaves Netflix on July 1st, so watch it soon!
One of these movies is on a countdown for departure from Netflix, so don’t sit on it too long. The others will keep. And once you’ve run through all three, How-To Geek’s streaming section keeps a steady supply of fresh recommendations coming.
Credit: Lucas Gouveia/How-To Geek
