Netflix & Chill: Note Panayanggool’s top 5 films

“I really like Tales by Light, especially the episode ‘Paradise in Peril’. That’s the one I watch most, and every time I do it tears me up, and I feel like I want to do something for Thailand’s oceans as well.”

Tales by Light shares the journey of photographers and filmmakers, as they scour the world, capturing striking images of the people, places, and cultures they come across from wholly new angles. The episode, Paradise in Peril, follows undersea photographer Shawn Heinrichs, who travels to the beautiful beaches and islands of Indonesia’s Raja Ampat. There, he fights to preserve the rich diversity of marine life, by capturing its natural beauty through a series of stunning images. 

“Environmental documentaries, like Chasing Coral, inspire me to do something good for the world. They’re really beautiful visually, but they also have so much information that is very important to us, on what there is to know about our forests and oceans.”

The result of over 500 hours of underwater footage and submissions from people from over 30 different countries all around the world, Chasing Coral follows a team of divers, photographers and scientists who embark on an ocean adventure. Throughout the production, the characters attempt to discern why our world’s coral reefs are disappearing at such an alarming rate, by shining the spotlight on coral bleaching. Through impactful, striking visuals, the film slowly reveals how corals are suffering and dying out from the heat and stresses caused by climate change. 

“In Puff, the storyline is basically focused around the life of this one fish, who is our narrator for the whole documentary. We follow the fish as he grows from this young fish who had to live in the corals because it was too dangerous out in the big ocean, and it kind of helps us to understand the life cycles of marine creatures. We feel more empathy towards these animals, and everything becomes more relatable.”

As the name would suggest, Puff follows the life of a baby pufferfish, as he travels through the majestic world of marine creatures, in search of a home for himself on the Great Barrier Reef. Through beautiful filmography, audiences experience the puffer fish’s extraordinary journey as he learns to survive, portraying the oceans through an otherworldly microscopic perspective.

“I love the dreamy narrative and beautiful animation, not to mention the storyline. Everything is just so dreamy and trippy and classic. The music is also really good.”

You’ll be hard-pressed to come across a Studio Ghibli fan who hasn’t seen Spirited Away. Among the many, many masterpieces of the ever-talented Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away tells the story of young Chihiro Ogino, who enters the Japanese spirit world while moving to a new home. When her parents are transformed into pigs by witch Yubaba, she takes on a job at Yubaba’s bathhouse, embarking on a dreamy journey to free herself and her parents, in order to return to the human world.

“This is definitely a binge-worthy show. The aesthetic, the music, the casting, the script… Everything is just so good. I’m sure a lot of people will agree with me on this.”

Let’s be honest. Do you really have a Netflix membership if you haven’t streamed Stranger Things? An American science fiction horror drama by the Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things is set mainly in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, and recounts the supernatural events that take place within the town. Such events primarily center around ‘Upside Down’, an alternate reality that became linked to the Earth, due to the activities of a child experimentation facility run by the government. Spooky and undeniably addictive, this is a definite must for any movie-night.