Southeast Asia, a region typically not known for its cinema in the mainstream movie world, has had a contemporary renaissance with entertainment output. The market and demand have been expanding for dramas and movies from Thailand and the Philippines, two leading figures in the local entertainment industry, and Western filmmakers have begun to turn their eyes to the region. Crazy Rich Asians, which depicts the lives of Singapore’s elite, brought an international spotlight to Singapore and the region as a whole.

Other countries, like Vietnam and Indonesia, have shown exceptional promise. Vietnam’s The Third Wife premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and made its rounds in the North American film festival circuits, ultimately securing limited distribution in American theaters. It would win the top prize for new directors at the Chicago Film Festival. Southeast Asian films lacked this traction before, so this demonstrates the growth of the market and higher demand from global audiences. Netflix has many International movies options for your Friday night binge — these are the best Southeast Asian movies currently available on the platform.

8 The Hows of Us

     ABS-CBN Productions

Released in 2018, The Hows of Us stars top Filipino actors for romance. Kathryn Bernardo portrays George Reyes, a graduating medical student, while her love interest, Primo Alvarez (Daniel Padilla), is a musician chasing his dream of performing globally. The Hows of Us had the biggest opening in Filipino history, smashing records for domestic screenings — a feat considering this was a local film. A light-hearted romance, the movie also offers lessons in following your heart and dreams.

7 Hello, Love, Goodbye

Hello, Love, Goodbye sheds light on the issues of Filipinos who have to work abroad. Set in Hong Kong, migrant worker Joy (Kathryn Bernardo) has a degree in nursing but has to work as a domestic worker to provide for her family and herself. She dreams of immigrating to North America, but then she meets a local Filipino bartender (Alden Richards) who teaches her about enjoying Hong Kong despite the grind of working and escaping bad situations as an immigrant. Hello, Love, Goodbye is currently the highest-grossing Filipino film of all time.

6 Lingua Franca

     Netflix

Trans and LGBTQ representation has slowly but surely been increasing on the big screen, and Lingua Franca follows the life of Olivia, an undocumented Filipina immigrant. Olivia is a trans woman living in Brooklyn, New York City, and is deeply afraid of being found and deported back to her home country. As hope dwindles and the future seems uncertain for her, she considers marrying her employer’s grandson to get a green card. An intimate film, Lingua Franca brings to light issues both undocumented and trans people face in their everyday lives.

5 Bad Genius

     Jor Kwang Films

Heist films tend to provide a lot of action and entertainment, regardless of where they were made. 2017 saw the release of the Thai heist thriller Bad Genius, a film inspired by students cheating on exams like the SATs to get ahead in life. A group of students has devised a plan to cheat on their exams. This leads to disastrous consequences and capitalizing on the system already in place. Bad Genius was a smash hit in Asia and would become the most successful Thai film internationally.

4 First They Killed My Father

First They Killed My Father was based on a memoir by Cambodian-American author Loung Ung, who survived the Cambodian genocide. Angelina Jolie served as the director for the film. The movie begins with the start of the Cambodian Civil War, and five-year-old Loung Ung evacuates with her family as refugees. Unfortunately, the Khmer Rouge has larger plans in place, leading to widespread tragedy, including the separation of Ung’s family. The film preserves a heartbreaking moment of Cambodian history that many survivors can still remember clearly.

3 The Night Comes for Us

Indonesia’s 2018 action-thriller The Night Comes for Us was a graphic novel before becoming a film. Its main character, Ito, is a high-ranking crime enforcer that discovers a young girl in a village he helps massacre. He feels sympathy for this young girl and decides to change his life completely, killing his companions and starting a new life with this little girl. But it is not so easy leaving this life behind, making the film a bloody redemption arc for Ito.

2 One Day We’ll Talk About Today

     Vinisema Pictures

One Day We’ll Talk About Today is an Indonesian family drama that takes on the subject of a young woman watching the cracks in her family grow deeper. She meets a boy who changes the trajectory of her life, leading to some happier moments, but it also exposes some family secrets that should have stayed hidden. The film was well-praised by Indonesian audiences and won several awards in the domestic film festival circuits.

1 A Land Imagined

     mm2 Entertainment

Singapore’s A Land Imagined is a neo-noir mystery film that has a bite to it. With visuals reminiscent of other neo-noir movies coming out of mainland China, its danger is seductive. A local police officer investigates a migrant worker’s disappearance, but when he discovers another Bengali migrant worker has disappeared, it becomes a question of ethics and capital. In the shady underworld of Singapore’s business elite, the working class migrants become victims of something larger than themselves.