Glory

Glory is currently streaming in Australia on Netflix and Sony Pictures Core Amazon Channel, and in the US on Hulu and Paramount Plus Premium, and it rewards the patience it asks of you. The runtime earns every minute, with nothing here that feels like padding. A 7/10 rating says what the writing already makes obvious: this one works. Matthew Broderick leads a cast that never overplays its hand. There is no real reason to keep putting it off — it is right there on Netflix.

Glory arrived without much fanfare and built its audience the hard way — through word of mouth. Character-driven storytelling at its most effective — Glory earns every emotional beat it goes for. Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates. Matthew Broderick and Denzel Washington lead a cast that brings real weight to the material. It was released in 1989. The writing trusts the audience to sit with ambiguity rather than wrapping everything up in a tidy conclusion — it is the approach that separates good drama from great. It knows exactly what it is, and does not try to be anything else.

For anyone looking for storytelling that takes its characters seriously, Glory delivers. It stands on its own even without an obvious comparison point. A contained runtime means every scene is doing real work. Matthew Broderick's work here is the kind that gets referenced in career retrospectives. It makes everything else feel thin by comparison.