Jodie Foster's 82%-fresh 'A Private Life' hits Netflix today

A Certified-Fresh French Hitchcockian mystery leads a six-title Wednesday that also brings a Brazilian MMA crime series, a three-part Idaho murders doc, a 61-episode Colombian telenovela, an America's Test Kitchen gadget show, and a panned Mexican teen micro-series, while Tallulah departs today.

The pick of the day: A Private Life

A Private Life makes its Netflix streaming debut today, and it lands with the strongest reviews of anything in the drop. Directed by Rebecca Zlotowski (Other People's Children) and released through Sony Pictures Classics under Netflix's Sony output deal, it is a French-language mystery in which Jodie Foster plays Lilian Steiner, a Paris psychoanalyst who refuses to accept that a patient's death was suicide and opens her own investigation.

• What it is: Foster headlines in French, opposite a who's-who of French cinema: Daniel Auteuil as her ex-husband, Virginie Efira as the dead patient, Mathieu Amalric, Vincent Lacoste, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire's Luàna Bajrami, with a small cameo from documentary titan Frederick Wiseman as Lilian's own analyst. The Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus calls it "Hitchcockian suspense, glossy aesthetics, and a playful streak of camp," and it sits at 82% Certified Fresh (Metacritic 67). Audiences are more divided.
• Who it's for: Anyone who wanted a Foster-led murder mystery back in her Silence of the Lambs lane, but art-house and Hitchcockian rather than serial-killer. The New York Times, Seattle Times, and Guardian all praised the performance; a festival run at Cannes, TIFF, and Deauville built its reputation before a quiet US theatrical run in January.
• Worth knowing: It is a Sony Pictures Classics title on an 18-month streaming window, so unlike the day's Netflix Originals it is not permanent, but it has a long runway. If you missed it in theaters or on VOD this spring, this is the easy watch.

Also new today

• Wrath (Netflix Original, Brazilian crime drama, Season 1) — A wounded amnesiac with no memory is taken in by an MMA coach in Rio de Janeiro and rebuilt as a cage fighter named Marcelo, only to keep unearthing clues to a violent past. Created by Igor Verde and Gustavo Bragança and directed by José Henrique Fonseca (Good Morning, Verônica), it stars Vinicius Neri, Bianca Comparato (3%), Cláudia Raia, Eduardo Moscovis, Fábio Lago, and rapper MC Cabelinho. No critic reviews yet; for fans of Brazilian crime series and fight-driven thrillers.
• The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare (Netflix Original documentary, 3 parts) — The third Idaho-student-murders doc to hit streaming, directed by Skye Borgman (Unknown Number: The High School Catfish) and executive-produced by Oscar nominee Joe Berlinger, with never-before-seen bodycam footage and family access centered on victims Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin. Bryan Kohberger pleaded guilty to the 2022 killings. For true-crime completists; Peacock and Prime Video already have their own versions.
• Forbidden Woman (Colombian telenovela, 61 episodes) — A Caracol Televisión melodrama in which a politician's wife (Valerie Domínguez) is rescued from an assassination attempt by a famous singer (David Palacio) and falls into an affair her presidential-hopeful husband (Rodrigo Candamil) will not tolerate. Sixty-one episodes is a broadcast-novela binge commitment, and the Anna Karenina frame is deliberate. For telenovela and Latin-romance viewers; no reviews yet.
• Final Project (Netflix Original, Mexican teen drama, Season 1) — A short-form "micro-series" of roughly 10-minute episodes about a bullied transfer student (Isabella Tena) who turns her school documentary on cyberbullying back on her tormentors, in the Elite / Control Z mold. The one review out so far (Leisurebyte) is harsh, calling it "chaotic," "nonsensical," and full of twists "obvious from a mile away," so skip it unless you are the target teen audience.
• Gear Heads (America's Test Kitchen, Season 1) — ATK's kitchen-equipment experts Lisa McManus and Hannah Crowley put air fryers, immersion blenders, and the rest of the gadget aisle through the brand's rigorous testing to separate the buys from the skips. Light and useful, the same ATK lane Netflix has been stocking since Techniquely earlier this month; for home cooks and gear nerds.

No fresh weekly episodes land midweek: the ongoing Saturday-Sunday K-dramas (Spooky in Love, The Apartment Job) and the Friday J-drama 25 Years of You are dark today and return this weekend.

Leaving soon

• Tallulah leaves Netflix today, July 29, exactly ten years to the day after it debuted on the service. Sian Heder's feature directorial debut (before CODA) stars Elliot Page as a drifter who impulsively takes a neglected toddler, with Allison Janney and Tammy Blanchard. It is 85% on Rotten Tomatoes, and as a Netflix Original removal it has no obvious second home, so this is genuinely last call.
• Dog Man (2025, DreamWorks' animated superhero spinoff) and Here (2024, Robert Zemeckis's Tom Hanks reunion, 35% RT) both leave Thursday, July 30. Dog Man moves to Peacock as an exclusive the same day.
• The August 1 exodus (last full day to watch is Friday, July 31): a wave of roughly 50 licensed films exits Netflix, led by the Oscar-winning sci-fi Ex Machina, Atonement, Hacksaw Ridge, American Gangster, Kindergarten Cop, the Meet the Parents trilogy, and Smokey and the Bandit, with about 50 titles in all per Tom's Guide. If any of those have been sitting in your queue, this is the week.