Lion

Lion is currently streaming in Australia on Beamafilm and ABC iview, and in the US on Netflix, and it rewards the patience it asks of you. The runtime earns every minute, with nothing here that feels like padding. 6,988 people have weighed in on TMDB, and the verdict leans heavily positive. Dev Patel leads a cast that never overplays its hand. Put it on tonight on Beamafilm and see for yourself.

Lion arrived without much fanfare and built its audience the hard way — through word of mouth. The writing in Lion treats its characters as people first, plot devices second. A five-year-old Indian boy gets lost on the streets of Calcutta, thousands of kilometers from home. He survives many challenges before being adopted by a couple in Australia; 25 years later, he sets out to find his lost family. Dev Patel and Rooney Mara lead a cast that treats the material with real seriousness. It hit screens in 2016. What elevates Lion is a refusal to let any character off the hook too easily. The consistency throughout is what elevates it — not every moment is the best, but none of them are a reason to stop watching.

Viewers drawn to character-driven storytelling will find plenty to sit with in Lion. If you have run out of similar titles to watch, this is a strong next pick. A contained runtime means every scene is doing real work. Dev Patel is the centre of it, and it is one of their strongest performances on record. The patience it asks of you early on is paid back with interest.