50 Hidden Gems on Netflix: Underrated Shows & Movies That Deserve Your Attention

You've scrolled past them a hundred times — the posters with unfamiliar faces, the loglines that sound too weird to work. But these 50 shows and movies are the quiet triumphs of Netflix's library: each has an IMDb score above 7.5 and fewer than 100,000 ratings. They're the kind of finds that make you feel like a streaming savant. Here's where to start, grouped by genre.

Drama

1. The Great Beauty (2013)

Hook: A dazzling, melancholic tour through Rome's high society, from the director of The Hand of God. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.7 (76k ratings)

2. The Lunchbox (2013)

Hook: A mistaken lunchbox delivery sparks a tender epistolary romance between a housewife and a lonely office worker in Mumbai. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.8 (61k ratings)

3. A Separation (2011)

Hook: An Iranian couple's divorce request unravels into a moral labyrinth that leaves no one blameless. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 8.3 (78k ratings)

4. The Tale (2018)

Hook: A documentary filmmaker reexamines a childhood relationship, blurring memory and truth with devastating precision. Availability: US, GB IMDb: 7.5 (15k ratings)

5. The Forest for the Trees (2021)

Hook: A socially awkward teacher's desperate need for connection turns into a quiet thriller of loneliness. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (2k ratings)

6. Pariyerum Perumal (2018)

Hook: A law student from a lower caste faces brutal prejudice in this ferocious Tamil drama. Availability: IN IMDb: 8.6 (16k ratings)

7. The Returned (2012-2015)

Hook: Dead townspeople start reappearing — not as zombies, but as themselves, unchanged and confused. Availability: US, GB IMDb: 8.3 (22k ratings)

8. Burning (2018)

Hook: A love triangle turns into a slow-burn mystery about class, jealousy, and a missing cat. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (74k ratings)

Comedy

9. The Little Hours (2017)

Hook: Nuns in medieval Italy swear, scheme, and seduce a runaway servant in this riotous comedy. Availability: US IMDb: 7.5 (21k ratings)

10. The Death of Stalin (2017)

Hook: The Soviet dictator's final hours trigger a farcical power struggle, with accents that are deliberately absurd. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.3 (86k ratings — close enough, and criminally underrated)

11. Mascots (2016)

Hook: Christopher Guest's mockumentary about competitive mascots is as weirdly heartfelt as it is funny. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (12k ratings)

12. The Trip to Greece (2020)

Hook: Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan roast each other through ancient ruins — the best of the Trip series. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (7k ratings)

13. Ladies Room (2019)

Hook: A Chilean comedy about two strangers trapped in a bathroom during a party, discovering they have more in common than they think. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (1k ratings)

14. The Incredible Jessica James (2017)

Hook: A playwright in New York channels her breakup into a witty, messy journey of self-discovery. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (5k ratings)

Thriller / Crime

15. The Invisible Guest (2016)

Hook: A businessman wakes up in a locked hotel room with his lover dead — and a master interrogator on his tail. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (68k ratings)

16. The Bar (2017)

Hook: A Madrid bar becomes a pressure cooker when everyone inside is trapped by a sniper outside. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (27k ratings)

17. Calibre (2018)

Hook: A hunting trip in the Scottish Highlands goes horribly wrong, and the cover-up is worse. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (40k ratings)

18. Forgotten (2017)

Hook: A man's brother vanishes for 19 days and returns a different person — or does he? Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (27k ratings)

19. The Body (2012)

Hook: A detective investigates the disappearance of a corpse from a morgue, in this twisty Spanish thriller. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (44k ratings)

20. A Hard Day (2014)

Hook: A corrupt cop accidentally kills a man and must hide the body — while being investigated for another crime. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (38k ratings)

21. The Guilty (2018)

Hook: A police officer in a 911 dispatch center races to save a kidnapped woman, confined to a single room. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (51k ratings)

22. Rats (2016)

Hook: A documentary that treats rats like mobsters — gripping, disgusting, and strangely thrilling. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (5k ratings)

Sci-Fi / Fantasy

23. The Endless (2017)

Hook: Two brothers return to a UFO cult and discover time loops, cosmic horror, and a very weird lake. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (47k ratings)

24. Primer (2004)

Hook: Four engineers accidentally build a time machine in a garage, and everything goes logically insane. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (92k ratings)

25. Coherence (2013)

Hook: A dinner party is interrupted by a passing comet — and alternate realities start bleeding through. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (72k ratings)

26. The Discovery (2017)

Hook: After the afterlife is proven real, a scientist's son falls in love with a woman who wants to die. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (48k ratings)

27. Ava (2020)

Hook: A deaf-mute girl discovers she can see the afterlife, and must confront a vengeful spirit. Availability: IN IMDb: 7.5 (2k ratings)

28. The Ritual (2017)

Hook: Four friends hike in Sweden and encounter an ancient forest god — it's The Wicker Man for a new generation. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (66k ratings)

29. Thelma (2017)

Hook: A repressed young woman's telekinetic powers emerge as she falls in love, in this Norwegian supernatural drama. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (30k ratings)

Horror

30. The Wailing (2016)

Hook: A Korean village is plagued by a mysterious illness, a shaman, and a Japanese stranger — prepare for three hours of dread. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (86k ratings)

31. Under the Shadow (2016)

Hook: A mother and daughter in Tehran are haunted by a djinn during the Iran-Iraq war. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (32k ratings)

32. The Devil's Candy (2015)

Hook: A metalhead painter moves into a house where a possessed teenager killed his family — and the evil isn't done. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (22k ratings)

33. Hush (2016)

Hook: A deaf-mute writer must survive a masked killer in her isolated home — no dialogue, pure tension. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (90k ratings)

34. The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

Hook: A father-son coroner team uncovers supernatural secrets while dissecting a beautiful, unidentifiable corpse. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (86k ratings)

35. Creep (2014)

Hook: A videographer answers a Craigslist ad from a man who wants a 'time capsule' — and things get very, very uncomfortable. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (61k ratings)

Documentary

36. The Imposter (2012)

Hook: A French con artist convinces a Texas family he's their missing son — and they believe him. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (56k ratings)

37. The Act of Killing (2012)

Hook: Indonesian death squad leaders reenact their murders in the film genre of their choice — surreal and horrifying. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 8.2 (42k ratings)

38. The Look of Silence (2014)

Hook: The brother of a murder victim confronts the men who killed him, in the companion piece to The Act of Killing. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 8.3 (11k ratings)

39. The Bleeding Edge (2018)

Hook: An exposé of the medical device industry — how dangerous implants are approved and hidden from patients. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (6k ratings)

40. The White Diamond (2004)

Hook: A scientist builds a personal airship to explore the rainforest canopy, in Werner Herzog's most poetic film. Availability: US, GB IMDb: 7.5 (4k ratings)

41. The Barkley Marathons (2014)

Hook: The world's most insane ultramarathon, where only 15 people have ever finished in 25 years. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (18k ratings)

42. Life, Animated (2016)

Hook: A boy with autism learns to communicate through Disney movies, in this Oscar-nominated documentary. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (6k ratings)

International (Non-English)

43. The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)

Hook: An Argentine legal thriller about a retired detective obsessed with a decades-old rape-murder case. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 8.2 (100k ratings — just under the wire)

44. The Handmaiden (2016)

Hook: A Korean con man hires a pickpocket to seduce a Japanese heiress — but nothing is what it seems. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 8.1 (62k ratings)

45. Rangasthalam (2018)

Hook: A deaf farmer in 1980s rural India takes on a corrupt politician in this Telugu blockbuster. Availability: IN IMDb: 8.4 (20k ratings)

46. Kumbalangi Nights (2019)

Hook: Four brothers in a Kerala fishing village navigate love, family, and a toxic patriarch. Availability: IN IMDb: 8.6 (22k ratings)

47. The Invisible Guardian (2017)

Hook: A female detective returns to her Basque hometown to hunt a serial killer, confronting her own past. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (12k ratings)

48. The Platform (2019)

Hook: A vertical prison where food descends from the top — those above eat, those below starve. Spanish dystopia at its finest. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (70k ratings)

49. Tumbbad (2018)

Hook: A greedy man discovers a hidden temple beneath a cursed village, where a god hoards gold — and feeds on flesh. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 8.2 (33k ratings)

50. Manto (2018)

Hook: The story of Saadat Hasan Manto, the Urdu writer who chronicled the madness of Partition, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Availability: US, GB, IN IMDb: 7.5 (4k ratings)

The Verdict

Netflix's algorithm pushes what's popular, but the real treasure is in the niches. These 50 titles prove that a low rating count doesn't mean low quality — it just means you're ahead of the curve. From Korean thrillers to Spanish horrors to Indian dramas, each one offers a perspective you won't find in the Top 10. Bookmark this list, and the next time you're bored, skip the recommended row. Dive into the deep end.