Many people use Netflix to rediscover lost or overlooked movies, and it’s somewhat ironic that one such film is about the rediscovery of a lost or overlooked city.
This is The Lost City of Z, which was added to Netflix UK in mid-July 2023 and has been shooting up the movie rankings. At the time of writing it sits as the third most-watched movie on the service, just below Bastille Day and The Commuter.
The Lost City of Z tells the real-life story of fabled explorer Percey Fawcett, who’s best known for disappearing in the Amazon after several successive attempts to find the fabled hidden city of Z in 1925.
Charlie Hunnam stars as the legendary Brit, while Robert Pattinson plays his expedition companion Henry Costin, Sienna Miller plays his wife Nina, and Tom Holland joins in the expeditions as Percy’s son Jack. It’s a star-studded cast, back from when Holland was only on the cusp of stardom, as at the time he’d only been in one Marvel movie: Captain America: Civil War.
When it was released in 2016, The Lost City of Z flew under the radar a little, failing to make back its budget, but it was very well received — so well, in fact, that it won 4th place in Rotten Tomatoes’ Golden Tomato Awards, meaning it was the 4th-best reviewed movie of the year.
So it’s well worth checking out, particularly for fans of the kind of adventure movie they don’t make much anymore. But there’s another interesting tie to an upcoming and anticipated picture.
The movie The Lost City of Z is based on the eponymous book, written by David Grann, and we’d absolutely recommend checking it out. It’s non-fiction, going into lots of detail about Fawcett’s past and failed expeditions, and the author himself ventures into the Amazon to try to discover the fate of this mysterious figure.
Another book by Grann is currently being adapted by Apple TV Plus and Martin Scorcese, with a release due at the end of 2023: Flowers of the Killer Moon is based on Grann’s novel about the Osage murders and the founding of the FBI.
In both cases, we’d recommend reading the book before watching the movie, but given that Flowers of the Killer Moon is one of the most anticipated movies of the year, and that The Lost City of Z is already charging up the Netflix rankings, it seems that most people won’t! You can catch up afterward if you prefer:
