The biggest cultural export from China this century is the science fiction novel The Three-Body Problem. A ten-part Chinese version of it was made a few years ago, which was okay, but Netflix has just remade 3 Body Problem into an 8-part series produced by the guys behind Game of Thrones megahit series. I’m enjoying this version even more than the book. The story has been globalized, ramped up, and supercharged with appropriate effects, to make it clear, compelling, great science fiction. — KK

Do you find certain subjects too stressful to bear in a movie? If so, Does the Dog Die? is for you. Here, you can input a movie title and it provides a list of content warnings. For example, Marathon Man includes a warning for "damaged teeth," which makes my skin crawl. You can also search in reverse — a search for “Are any teeth damaged?” results in a scarily long list of movies that depict teeth being broken. — MF

I’ve run out of worthy new science fiction movies to stream, so I was happy to find the old episodes of Firefly streaming on Hulu, or downloadable on Amazon or Apple+. I missed them when they originally aired in 2002, so it’s a joy to watch them now. Firefly is an inventive “space western” set 500 years in the future, a science fiction drama with engaging characters – a ragtag collection of misfits – and what a science fiction series should be. I rapidly binged all 14 episodes (plus the Serenity movie), and can see why its fans are so ardent. — KK

“How to choose the streaming services that are right for you” is an incredibly helpful breakdown of the major streaming services and their costs. The guide suggests keeping a TV diary for a week to write down what you watch as you watch it to reveal where you direct most of your attention as a viewer. I’ve been slowly getting kicked off of shared streaming services and was surprised to find that I don’t miss Netflix at all. The shows I most enjoy are on Max and Hulu. — CD 

I’ve recently enjoyed some good streaming movies that were not blockbusters, and maybe not even Great. I thought they were entertaining, maybe just good, yet still recommendable, if below the radar.

Society of the Snow. Everyone’s heard of the sports team whose plane crashed in the Andes and the boys had to survive for 2 months. It was a great book (Alive!), and later an okay movie, but this 2023 movie, filmed in Spanish by a Spanish crew, is stunning, moving, accurate (parts filmed in original crash site) and as close to being there as anyone else will get. This one is memorable.

The Holdovers. A sweet drama about a jaded prep-school teacher and bratty, troubled students who have to spend the Christmas holidays together at school and they all get life lessons. Despite the well-worn premise, there are almost no cliches, and the turns are unexpected, in part because the story is semi-autobiographical. Perfect for a Christmas movie list.

Jules. A comedy about an elderly man living by himself (played by Ben Kingsley) who makes friends with an alien who crashes his space ship in his back yard. The alien is non-verbal and needs dead cats to fuel his rocket. It’s a rom-com with an alien. — KK

Many books would do better as an article, and many films should be a short. I’ve really been enjoying Short of the Week, a stream of short videos that carry the punch of a long movie. These shorts can deliver drama, new worlds, innovation, illumination, surprises, and are rarely boring. Wonderfully diverse in form and topic, they are also widely international. The home site has background info on each, but you can also subscribe to its YouTube channel. There’s great stuff here, from Oscar winners to the most ultra indie. — KK

The new movie The Creator posits a future war between humans and AI robots, but unlike previous Hollywood science fiction, it wants you to cheer for the AIs and robots. The Creator has the most daring and innovative sci-fi cinematography since the original Blade Runner, a deep blend of real and could-be. It might set a new standard for sci-fi style. For its visual pleasure alone, I found it worth seeing it on a big screen in a theater. — KK

Rocumentaries.com is a growing collection of over 200 documentaries handpicked by the website's creator for their quality and interesting subject matter. You can filter the selection by Genres and Channels, and each listing includes links that direct you to their streaming platforms. I always enjoy documentaries but don’t have the time to search for new ones, so I appreciate that these films have been vetted and vouched for, and I've added several to my watchlist. — CD 

Visit AirPano to watch 360 videos of beautiful places on Earth, from Tokyo’s Shibuya Scramble pedestrian crossing (the busiest in the world), to a village of the Warao Indigenous people on the Orinoco River in Venezuela. My travel bucket list grew after watching some of these videos. — MF

I think nature livestreams are the best corner of the Internet. Onlinesafari.tv has almost 100 wildlife cams online from around the world. You can search by type of animal or ecosystem. It’s always soothing to watch animals in their natural habitat. I was watching three bears roughhousing in a pond in Romania earlier. — CD

For laughs and for a sweet time watch a real-life Truman Show, the 8-part series Jury Duty on Amazon. Our unsuspecting hero is serving on a fake jury, where everyone else – judge, lawyers, witnesses, clerks and other jurors – are all actors.  Every one of the hundreds of people surrounding him are in on the fiction, except him. The level of deceit is epic. They conspire to keep comedic things happening every hour, but all the while our hero keeps doing the right things. He turns out to be a perfect juror, and as you go through the entire trial you also get a good lesson about the American jury system. The humor is honest, one surprise after another. — KK

The famous Chinese science fiction trilogy, The Three Body Problem, is now available as a Chinese movie production, consisting of 30 parts online (free YouTube), with English subtitles. Like the books, one of its attractions is that it does not feel American/Hollywood-made.  — KK

An emerging genre of lightly fictionalized dramas tell the true, improbable stories of how famous products came to be. Each legendary thing seems like a miraculous accident. Here are three product dramas that are extraordinarily entertaining, and mostly true to life. Tetris (Apple+) is the unlikely cloak–n-dagger tale of the Soviet KGB’s pursuit of this wayward video game’s escape to world domination. The Social Network (on Amazon or any streaming service, $4) is an oldie about Facebook that is still relevant and fascinating given its current return to grace. And the most recent is Air (Amazon Prime), the astounding story of how Air Jordan sneakers became the unlikely multi-billion dollar megahit they are. All have great casts and great scripting, but are “true stories” at the core. — KK

Running on Netflix, this 4-part nature documentary is extraordinary. Chimp Empire closely follows the largest known band of wild chimpanzees as individual chimps struggle to prosper, while their tribe wages war with other tribes for food resources. The intimacy you get is stunning. (It is directed by the same guy who did My Octopus Teacher.) Love triangles, betrayal, misfits, mafia bosses, murder. The personalities and drama are shockingly familiar. It is the chimpanzee equivalent of The Game of Thrones. I sure hope they keep it going with future seasons. — KK

I often recall watching a movie but can’t remember its ending. There is a website called Movie Spoilers that allows you to search for nearly any movie, providing a concise summary of the main plot, the key characters and their roles, as well as the ending. In an attempt to stump the website's database, I searched for The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976), and to my surprise, it was there. — MF

A good example of how technology and innovation can transform even something as elemental as surfing, check out this documentary series on HBO Max called 100 Foot Wave. It’s about the zigzagging insane quest to surf a 100-foot wave. Because there is no professional surfing without professional photography to record it, this 12-part series documenting all 30 years of the quest is incredibly complete and cinematic. Big wave surfers are unique human beings. — KK

The movie I have rewatched the most often is the sci-fi classic The Fifth Element. Directed by Frenchman Luc Besson, it is sublime in most ways, especially its worldbuilding, and design style, which are influenced by French comic book artists rather than Hollywood. I somehow completely missed that Besson released another sci-fi film in 2017, this one based on a legendary French comic book series: Valerian. I only recently discovered Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets on Amazon Prime and have already rewatched it. Its plot is forgettable, but like the The Fifth Element, it’s all about a playful, whimsical, baroque high-fashion future, a style not seen in Hollywood science fiction movies. (Valerian is the most expensive indie film ever made.) This exuberant future seems to be more plausible than the sleek streamlined future we usually expect. — KK

The Three-Body Problem is an original science fiction book trilogy from China. It is a major phenom in China and a huge hit in the rest of the world, sweeping the major science fiction awards in the US. Tencent, the owner of WeChat, funded a TV series version that ran on China TV. You can watch an English-subtitled version of The Three-Body Problem on YouTube, complete with Chinese TV advertisements. Even though I read the books I found the movies hard to follow, and too arty in an effort to be cool. I would only recommend it for the most diehard fans of the books, or just to see how China does long-form TV. — KK

OpenCulture is a clearing house directory for thousands of free movies to watch, thousands of free audio books, free ebooks, free textbooks, free online courses, and all media free and open. — KK

Here is an uplifting, charming film that should not work, but does. It is a live-action film with a talking sea shell as the hero. Marcel-the-shell overcomes disabilities (he is just a sea shell!) to reunite his lost family. It’s adorable, strange, inventive, weird, and heartwarming. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On began real life as a YouTube short that went viral, and was turned into a feature film with expert stop-motion effects. It’s so odd, but joyful, you won’t forget it. Available for rental ($6) on all the commercial video streams. — KK