Netflix’s #1 Movie Is the Underrated Comedy Everyone Slept On—Until Now

A new month means a fresh batch of movies and shows hitting Netflix and with that usually comes at least one title that climbs the Top 10 charts. This month, it’s not a brand-new documentary or psychological thriller making waves. Nope, it’s a comedy (a genuinely refreshing pick) that’s actually been around for about seven years. The film? Life of the Party.

Released in 2018, the movie was directed by Ben Falcone and written by Falcone and Melissa McCarthy (his real-life wife). McCarthy stars as Molly Gordon, a newly divorced mom who goes back to college to finish her degree and ends up bonding with her daughter’s friends along the way.

The cast also includes Maya Rudolph, Julie Bowen, Gillian Jacobs, Matt Walsh, Debby Ryan, Heidi Gardner, Adria Arjona and more.

Life of the Party premiered on May 11, 2018. It won a People’s Choice Award for Comedy Movie Star of 2018 but it hasn’t exactly wowed everyone, averaging just 39 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Still, clearly viewers aren’t letting that stop them: it’s currently sitting at the top of Netflix’s Top 10 movies.

The film is a classic buddy comedy, though reactions seem to depend on your sense of humor.

Some weren’t impressed:

"Love Melissa McCarthy but this is awful, and painfully unfunny," one viewer wrote. Another quipped, "If you'd brought this movie to a party, you definitely wouldn't be the life of it."

Others found it surprisingly entertaining:

"I wish it did better in the box office, because it’s not half as bad as people say it is," one fan shared.