Your tastes aren’t mine and my favorites don’t generally show up on too many of my friends’ Top 10 lists. I look for out-of-the-ordinary viewing experiences. I don’t like most garden variety, formulaic, US movies and TV shows, especially those created to go straight to streaming.
I want to feel what I watch - I like an active viewing experience.
So if you’re here to get the usual lists, or my sign off and endorsement on Netflix’s current top offerings - it ain’t happening. I just checked and that popular streaming service’s top 10 films now include two Spiderman movies, (from 2017, 2019) two other films that are at least three years old, two animated features, and then a few that look like maybes.
However - if you’re game - I got a few really good ones I’ve seen recently including a rewatch last week of S. Craig Zahler’s opus Dragged Across Concrete, a visceral and taut (the kids say taut when they review things now) drama about suspended cops (Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn) who plot to stakeout and then to takedown a group of slick criminals after a brutal bank heist.
Zahler, who also wrote and directed the macabre western horror flick, Bone Tomahawk (with Kurt Russel and Patrick Wilson), and the genre busting Brawl In Cellblock 99 (starring Vince Vaughn), painstakingly creates worlds that are morbid exaggerations of those we aren’t so familiar with in the first place, complete with unique languages and sharp turns of phrase.
In his films, including Concrete, we’re forced to pay attention, and often inspired to shield our eyes.
These films aren’t for the timid. Which is why I love all three. But start with Dragged Across Concrete (streaming now on Amazon Prime).
You want a few more? How are you with subtitles?
Ready - here’s my other 9 - for a total of 10 - on Ralph’s Summer 2026 Watch List…
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