Netflix Has Debuted Its First Movie With A 95% Rating In 2025, But Keep In Mind It’s Subtitled
Ringing in the new year with a highly-rated Netflix original.
As we’re two weeks into 2025, we have a lot of Netflix streaming to do. Sure, we can revisit the best movies on the streamer, like Inception, the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies, 13 Going on 30 and more, but there are Netflix Originals we also need to give a shot like the streaming service’s first movie that managed to debut at 95% this year. However, it’s important to note that the 2025 Netflix movie is subtitled.
When the South Korean movie Parasite won Best Foreign Language Picture at the Golden Globes in 2020, its director, Bong Joon-hu, gave great advice in his acceptance speech. He believed that audiences have the potential to be introduced to so many spectacular movies once they “overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles.” The award-winning filmmaker happens to be right as many foreign language movies have been hitting it out of the park on Netflix. As 2025 has just started, Netflix introduced the first film of the year to hit an audience rating of 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s a Norwegian WWII film called Number 24.
Having arrived on Netflix January 1st, Number 24 is about the true story of Gunnar Sønsteby, who’s a young Norwegian man on a mission to disrupt the Nazi takeover in any way possible. With only six reviews not being enough to achieve a critic’s score yet, the positive audience reviews are through the roof. Many said they loved being educated on Nazi resistance in other countries and the hard lesson on the toll achieving freedom comes with it. It’s no surprise that Number 24 has achieved the #1 spot of Top Ten Films in Norway. However, it’s reached an impressive feat of #3 on a global scale for non-English.
It’s amazing to have a Norwegian film reach the impressive feat of being the first film of 2025 to hit 95%. Norway has recently been making a big name on Netflix. One of the streamer’s most popular original movies is 2022’s monster movie Troll which got over 128 million hours views in its first two weeks, achieving the most views out of any non-English Netflix Original at the time.
There’s also 2023’s Norwegian war drama Narvik which portrayed the events and aftermath of the Battles of Narvik from April to June 1940. And you can’t forget about the moving documentary The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, which did a great job showing how role-playing video games can enrich the lives of those with disabilities. With Number 24 to be the first to make an impact on one of the best streaming services, I’d like to believe Norway will continue to crank out more movies that’ll leave an impact on subscribers.
Other Netflix movies have premiered in the past couple of weeks that have had great success on the streamer. For example, British comedian Diane Morgan’s new mockumentary Cunk on Life has an 82% audience score. There’s also the January 3rd release of the new family movie Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, which made its worldwide premiere on Netflix with a 100% critic’s score. The French thriller Ad Vitam also made its debut a few days ago and is now the #1 global non-English movie on the streaming service.
The first Netflix movie to achieve a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes this year, Number 24, may be subtitled. but that doesn’t diminish its impact on audiences fascinated by the Norwegian film’s retelling of significant WWII events and deeply moved by the powerful message of the sacrifice involved in reaching freedom. Be sure to catch the highly-rated Rotten Tomatoes-scored flick and other great movies found on your Netflix subscription.
CINEMABLEND NEWSLETTER
Your Daily Blend of Entertainment News
Just your average South Floridian cinephile who believes the pen is mightier than the sword.