Got to thinking about this because I just got done watching K-pop Demon Hunters for the first time (as fantastic as everyone said).

My vote would be for The King (2019). I don’t understand how it continues to fly under the radar. 2019 was absolutely stacked with great films (Parasite, Midsommar, Little Women, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, etc.). and this was right up there with any of them to me. The screenplay and cinematography are fantastic, the performances are great (though I think Robert Pattinson might have been a miscast), and it’s Timothee Chalamet’s best role to date in my opinion.

All the Warner Bros stuff today has had me thinking about this. What’s the best film (or biggest Netflix original success story) that’s truly, completely a homegrown Netflix original film? Meaning that it:

• Isn’t from a famed creator who built their name on theatrically released films

• Isn’t related to a franchise that became successful via theatrical films

• Isn’t an acquisition from a film festival or anywhere else

My first guess was K-Pop Demon Hunters but that was an acquisition from Sony. Then The Irishman, but that one’s also borrowing cred from a previously established theatrical filmmaker. Glass Onion and Wake Up Dead Man are both sequels to a theatrical hit. I can’t think of a great Netflix film (or some success story) that wasn’t in one way or another buoyed by the monocultural power of wide theatrical releases. There must be some, but…