The 10 best films on Netflix in February 2022

Edge Of Seventeen (Leaving 2/26)To date, the only gay teen romance I’ve seen that fully convinces is David Moreton’s lovely, little-seen indie Edge Of Seventeen. Set in Sandusky, Ohio, in 1984, it’s about a high school senior named Eric (the handsome, rake-thin Chris Stafford) who falls for the first gay guy he meets, a callow college student named Rod (Andersen Gabrych). But the real romance is with his female best friend, Maggie (Tina Holmes), whom he desperately wishes he could be attracted to. Essentially, Stafford lusts for Gabrych but loves Holmes, and he spends the entire movie trying—and failing—to reconcile those warring feelings.While Edge Of Seventeen was marketed largely toward gay audiences, it’ll resonate with anyone who remembers the awkwardness and elation of their first sexual experiences, because it captures those experiences better and more honestly than practically any other film. [Scott MacDonald]Read the rest of our appreciation

The Exorcist (Available 2/1)The Exorcist is a terrifying, repellant, physically exhausting, expertly made movie, and its massive, overwhelming box office success is frankly baffling. The film, admittedly, had a lot of things going for it. It was based on a runaway bestseller novel; its author, the screenwriter William Peter Blatty, had based his story on a famous tale of an almost-certainly-faked exorcism in St. Louis in the ’40s, and he’d sold the film rights before the book had even been published. Director William Friedkin was coming off of , a hit action movie that had won the Best Picture Oscar. Still, it was a grueling, troubled shoot that led to a grueling, troubling movie—not exactly a feel-good romp. And yet The Exorcist became a cultural phenomenon. [Tom Breihan]Read the rest of our Popcorn Champs column on The Exorcist

Good Time (Leaving 2/19)At a certain point, Good Time becomes about as exhausting as any real up-all-night misadventure. As if attempting to upstage the abrasiveness of their own characters, the Safdies capture everything in unflattering telephoto close-ups—a confrontational and literally in-your-face shooting strategy. But their boldest gamble is building this mess of exploits around such a belligerent, blatantly selfish protagonist: Connie (Robert Pattinson), in his reckless flight through the night, has a way of fucking over everyone he encounters, from the teenage girl (Taliah Webster) whose car he commandeers to a hapless, fast-talking knucklehead (Buddy Duress) who hilariously stops the movie cold with an anecdote about his own troubles. Only an intense brotherly devotion redeems this flawed specimen—and the Safdies, who know a little something about the subject, are unsentimental enough to see his particular family bond as quite the double-edged sword. Of course, they were also smart enough to entrust the role to Pattinson, who’s impossible to take your eyes off, even as Good Time gleefully pushes in on his sweaty, uncharacteristically splotchy mug. He’s never looked worse or been better. [A.A. Dowd]Read the rest of our review

jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy (Available 2/16)There’s a revealing moment early into jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy where a young Kanye West explains why he’s so cocky, years before he has much to be cocky about. “Hip hop is always about fronting,” shrugs the budding Chicago superstar, then barely old enough to drink, as a big smile creeps across his baby face. Humility, it would seem, has never been one of West’s defining traits. Then again, as he explains, bravado is part of the image—a performance required of anyone looking to make it in the rap game. What was exciting about Kanye, when he first blew up in the early 2000s, was how he cooked that acknowledgement into the music, mixing his doubts with his braggadocio, suggesting they were intimately related. That wasn’t subtext. It was right there in “,” where West established himself as a new kind of hip-hop star, vulnerable and relatable and honest enough to admit his insecurities.That’s the “old Kanye,” identified as so by the artist himself a few years ago, with a self-conscious . We get a lot of the old Kanye, a.k.a. the very young Kanye, in jeen-yuhs. Technically, this trifurcated documentary, which premiered in part at Sundance this evening and drops in full on Netflix next month, spans the entire length of West’s career, from his early days as a fledgling hip-hop producer with dreams of grabbing the mic to his current life as a gospel-choir leader in a Make America Great Again hat, incensing fans by the tweet. But the project is undeniably lopsided in its focus, spending two of its three installments—equal in length at about 90 minutes apiece—on the rise-to-fame portion of the Kanye story. As it’ll become clear later, that’s partially a matter of what footage was available and when it was shot. [A.A. Dowd]Read the rest of our review

Labyrinth (Leaving 2/28)A kidnapped baby. A Bog Of Eternal Stench. A Goblin King whose stretchy pants leave very little to the imagination. In 1986, director Jim Henson, producer George Lucas, and screenwriter Terry Jones combined these and other elements to make Labyrinth, a movie that depicts the horrors of being a teenager as a bedtime story gone terribly wrong, a magical journey filled with bizarre creatures and frustratingly deceptive pathways. In the film—a box-office and critical disappointment that’s since gained a massive cult following—the oddly intriguing Goblin King steals away with teenage Sarah’s baby brother, offering to return him only after Sarah navigates his maze. For the part of Jareth, the Goblin King, Henson recruited professional intriguing oddball David Bowie, who also provided a handful of the movie’s songs… [David Bruise]Read the rest of our article about the Labyrinth soundtrack