We're now just a few days away from the 2025 Academy Awards, which are happening on 2 March – which means this is the perfect time to catch up on huge Oscar-winners that you might have missed, or haven't ever seen. Almost as if it's aware of that very idea, Netflix recently added 2020's Best Picture winner to its library – Parasite.
Bong Joon-ho's masterpiece was rightly met with near-total adulation when it came out in 2019, and now you can watch it on Netflix in either the UK or the US, since it's now in the catalogue in both regions. It's one you absolutely don't want to miss, with searing social commentary and some unbelievably memorable sequences.
Parasite take a loser-focused look at social and class hierarchies in South Korea, centring around an extremely well-off family who bring in new helpers to tutor their child and help with housework. What they don't realise is just how desperate these new arrivals are to escape their own dingy and waterlogged existence.
What follows is a careful game of boundaries, as the new workers try to make the most of their access to a brilliant home, while their employers blithely overlook signs that their might be danger on the way. Over time, it also starts to become clear that the poorer family might not be the first people to think up their overall plan to become parasites, but I won't spoil any major twists here.
It's a pretty fabulous film, my favourite from 2020 and exactly the sort of recent award-winner that will make Netflix hard to ignore if you're searching out the best streaming service on the market. The acting on all sides is brilliant, but it's the sense of momentum in the film's final third that feels most memorable to me – and which makes me want to rewatch it myself, as soon as I can.
We'll have to see if Netflix can add to its personal Oscar haul in a few days (with Emilia Pérez nominated in a bunch of categories despite some controversy over its star's past statements). Regardless, though, any aspiring cinema fan needs to get Parasite watched ASAP if they haven't already.
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