3 Best New Netflix Movies to Watch This Weekend (April 3-5): ‘Merrily We Roll Along’ and More

Jason StrussFri, April 3, 2026 at 12:05 PM UTC

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Matthew Murphy / © Sony Pictures Classics / courtesy Everett Collection

Sure, April showers bring May flowers —- but on Netflix, this month is bringing a lot of great movies you can watch after those flowers.

The streamer just added some must-watch films, and Watch With Us has selected three of the very best for you to view this weekend.

Leading the pack is Merrily We Roll Along, a filmed version of the Tony Award-winning musical revival starring Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe.

You should also stream Atonement, an Oscar-winning World War II drama featuring Keira Knightley’s best performance to date.

If action is more your thing, tag along with Tom Cruise in the entertaining blockbuster, Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol.

‘Merrily We Roll Along’ (2025)

A few years ago, it was announced that Richard Linklater would film one of Stephen Sondheim’s most underrated musicals, Merrily We Roll Along, with Ben Platt, Beanie Feldstein and Paul Mescal in the lead roles. The bad news is that he intends to film it over 20 years, so you won’t get a chance to see it until 2041 at the earliest.

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Fortunately for everyone, the recent Tony Award-winning Broadway revival was filmed for posterity, and it's making its streaming debut this weekend on Netflix. Jonathan Groff stars as Franklin Shepherd, a successful movie producer who got his start as a struggling songwriter. Told in reverse chronological order, the musical chronicles the once-close friendship between Shepherd, frequent collaborator Charley Kringus (Daniel Radcliffe) and theater critic Mary Flynn (Lindsay Mendez). As the years roll back, the plot jumps from the bitter end to the bright start of their friendship, with musical numbers providing details as to how each of them soured on each other.

If you’re a Broadway fan, you’re probably already going to watch this no matter what I write. But if you’ve never experienced the Sondheim musical, this version’s probably as good as you’re gonna get — at least for the next two decades. Groff and Radcliffe won Tonys for their roles, and they’re terrific as best buds who gradually turn into bitter enemies.

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Merrily We Roll Along is streaming on Netflix.

‘Atonement’ (2007)

Can one word change three lives? According to Atonement, the beguiling 2007 adaptation of Ian McEwan’s acclaimed novel, the answer is yes. When 13-year-old Briony (Saoirse Ronan) reads a graphic apology letter from the housekeeper’s handsome son, Robbie (James McAvoy), to her beautiful older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley), she misunderstands Robbie’s intentions and believes he’s sex-crazed. When Briony’s cousin, Lola (Juno Temple), is sexually assaulted while visiting their home, she accuses Robbie of the crime even though she didn’t clearly see him.

What happens afterwards is best left for you to discover. Nominated for seven Oscars, Atonement is many things at once: a tragedy, a love story, a cautionary coming-of-age tale and a war story with an epic sequence chronicling the battle of France. Even though its scope is epic, the film manages to also be an intimate portrait of three people whose lives are forever changed in a moment they all wish they could get back. The three leads are all terrific, with Knightley standing out as a woman caught between her desire for Robbie and her sisterly duty to Briony. Be warned — the ending will knock your socks off.

Atonement is streaming on Netflix.

‘Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol’ (2011)

Believe it or not, there was a time when Tom Cruise’s blockbuster career appeared to be over. In the mid-to-late 2000s, his infamous Oprah appearance made him a late-night talk show punchline, and both 2008’s Valkyrie and 2010’s Knight and Day underperformed. That’s why 2011’s Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol has an air of finality — Cruise’s Ethan Hunt was rumored to be retiring, passing the torch to a new character, William Brandt, played by Jeremy Renner. Fortunately, the movie was a big enough hit for Cruise to continue in the franchise, which has continued to deliver one hit film after another.

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In the fourth entry of the long-running and beloved franchise, Ethan and his team of IMF agents are on the hunt (pun intended) for stolen nuclear missile codes. They’re sure the French assassin Sabine Moreau (Lea Seydoux) has them, but to retrieve the codes, they must stage an elaborate undercover mission in the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. Even if their efforts prove successful, Hunt will have to find out who hired Sabine and why they want possession of weapons that could obliterate the world.

Ghost Protocol is Mission: Impossible at its finest, with exotic locations, outrageous stunts and Cruise risking life and limb to please the audience. Consider this mission a success — just don’t destroy any evidence you enjoyed it after you watch it.

Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol is streaming on Netflix.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”