Nearly three decades after its release, Matilda is sprinkling its magic on the Netflix Top 10.
The beloved 1996 movie, starring Danny DeVito and Mara Wilson, returned to the streamer on April 1, soaring into the Top 10, and now the Top 5, within a matter of days.
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As of this posting, Matilda ranks No. 4 on Netflix Kids, where it only falls behind more recent titles like Rise of the Guardians (No. 3), Despicable Me 4 (No. 2), and The Croods (No. 1). It beats out other popular children’s films such as The Secret Life of Pets (No. 5), Sing (No. 7), and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (No. 10).
One of the most iconic children’s films from the ‘90s, Matilda stars Wilson as Matilda Wormwood, a young girl gifted with the power of telekinesis. After realizing her powers, she uses them to deal with her crude, distant family – her father, played by DeVito, and mother, played by Rhea Perlman – and her school’s evil principal, Agatha Trunchbull, portrayed by Pam Ferris. The film also stars Embeth Davidtz, Brian Levinson, and Paul Reubens, among others.
Directed by DeVito from a screenplay by Nicholas Kazan and Robin Swicord, and based on Roald Dahl’s 1988 novel of the same, the movie hit theaters in 1996, grossing $33.5 million in the United States on a $36 million budget. The film holds a 73% audience score and 92% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, where a critics consensus reads, “Danny DeVito-directed version of Matilda is odd, charming, and while the movie diverges from Roald Dahl, it nonetheless captures the book’s spirit.”
In the decades since its release, Matilda has garnered a cult following and cemented itself as a fan-favorite movie from the ‘90s. It is widely considered to be a film that still holds up today. Writing for Elements of Madness in 2023, Douglas Davidson wrote, “DeVito has managed to create a film that delighted audiences in ‘96 that will do the same for another generation in ‘23.” Revisiting the film on its 25th anniversary, Camile Henriques wrote for The Film Experience that the “DeVito-directed adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Matilda is as charming, for me, now as it was back then as a child in the 1990’s, if not more.”
Matilda is now streaming on Netflix alongside the streamer’s 2022 film Matilda the Musical, an adaptation of the 2013 Tony-winning Broadway show directed by Matthew Warchus. The film is just one of several beloved films recently added to Netflix’s streaming library as part of the streamer’s April 2025 lineup. The list also includes beloved titles like The Breakfast Club, Field of Dreams, and Smokey and the Bandit.
