With school starting again, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with homework, classes and extracurricular activities. For those who choose to skirt their responsibilities in favor of alternative activities (such as watching hours upon hours of Netflix), we salute you. Managing Editor of The Daily Aztec J. Hutton Marshall has shared his current picks for some of the best new additions to the streaming giant’s catalogue that you may (or may not) have heard about.

Breaking Bad

I feel guilty for putting this on the list, because of what it may do to you. This show has consumed my life. In social situations, I’m powerless against my ability to stop rambling about how great this show is. It’s too late for me now; I’ve caught the bug and there’s no getting rid of it. Don’t let this happen to you.

From the first five minutes of the pilot to its current fifth season, “Breaking Bad” is dangerously gripping. The show’s protagonist, high school chemistry teacher-gone-meth-cook Walter White, is a darkly intense character with so much depth, you wonder at times if you’re cheering for the show’s bad guy.

Also, for a show set mostly in meth labs, gang fights and Albuquerque, N.M., it is beautifully shot. It must take an enormous amount of effort to make such a bleak setting, devoid of any humanity, so visually mesmerizing; but the show continually does so with apparent ease and creativity. Now available on Netflix, check out the fourth season today and re-watch the series from the start during its year long hiatus, before the final season next summer.

Adaptation.

Building off of what was possibly the most “meta” movie ever made, “Being John Malovich,” Spike Jonze directs writer Charlie Kaufman’s screenplay depicting the neurosisand disparity of being a Hollywood screenwriter in this painfully self-aware film. It also stars Nicholas Cage, Jonze’s apparent star of choice, so there’s that. To capture the inner workings of a screenwriter in action, the plot divides itself between the nervous, introverted life of Charlie Kaufman. He is a struggling, balding Hollywood writer who is losing his hair trying to turn Susan Orlean’s nonfiction book, “The Orchid Theif,” of which he is a subject, into a movie. Kaufman named the main character after himself, which should indicate just how deeply personal this movie strives to be.

Leprechaun In the Hood

I’m a little disappointed in Netflix as I’m writing this. There are six films in the Leprechaun franchise, yet only one of them “Leprechaun In the Hood” is available to watch instantly. This will not … Nay, this must not stand. The original “Leprechaun” (1993) was Jennifer Aniston’s first movie, for Christ’s sake! These movies are some of the great pillars on which our modern- day society is built.

OK, maybe I got a little carried away there. Still, these movies are hilarious. One little leprechaun causing massively violent damage in whatever situation he’s in: It’s a cinematic no-brainer. If you can get your hands on it, I highly recommend checking out “Leprechaun 4: In Space.” It’s my favorite of the bunch.

Small Soldiers

I was eight years old when this movie came out. When I saw it on Netflix last week, somewhere in the part of my brain that’s been inactive since the turn of the millennium awakened, and a little, knobby-kneed elementary schooler’s voice cracked with giddiness.

First of all, it’s got David Cross (yep, he was already bald). Besides that, it was one of the more violent—sorry, I mean action-oriented—movies I was allowed to see, and for some reason, this still factors into my adult self liking this movie.

While it may seem like a poorly animated ‘90s movie full of butt cuts, cassette players and Kirsten Dunst, this movie hits on some pretty heavy themes. From going after corporate imperialism and global warming to challenging our hero-villain stereotypes, this movie gets deeper than the Gorgonite philosophy.

The Big Lebowski

Any true Lebowski fan worth their salt in White Russians should live in a house with a hardcopy of this movie, but just in case some carpet-pissers come in and steal your copy of the movie, it’s on Netflix.