We’re almost to the end of the month and that means a coming and going on every major streaming platform. And while there are plenty of exciting films coming this October, with plenty of great spooky options to choose from, we’re here to make sure you don’t miss the gems leaving at the end of September.
To help you end the summer with the best movies possible, we’ve put together a list of the very best movies leaving streaming services at the end of the month, including a unique ghost story, one of the strangest video game adaptations you’ll ever encounter . ever seen, and a few bona fide classics from directors like Michael Mann, Brian De Palma and David Fincher.
Here are the best movies streaming in late August.
Editor’s Choice: Marrowbone
Director: Sergio G. Sanchez
Form: George MacKay, Mia Goth, Anya Taylor-Joy
Leaving Hulu: September 30
One of the most underrated horror films of the past decade, Marrowbone is a slow burn that’s more about mood and atmosphere than straight-up scares.
The film follows a group of siblings who move to their mother’s childhood home in Maine in the 1960s. But once they arrive at the house, the father they tried to escape returns. The film then jumps forward in time and shows the siblings still living in the house, but terrified of a ghostly presence that they believe is trapped in the house’s bricked-up attic.
To say much more about the film would spoil some of the surprises, but suffice it to say that it’s a beautiful, poignant ghost story that’s bleak, moody and tender in just the right degrees. Add to that the film’s fantastic cast, including George MacKay, Mia Goth, Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlie Heaton, and you have the makings of a hidden horror gem worth seeking out. —Austen Goslin
Director: Steve E. de Souza
Stars: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Raúl Juliá, Ming-Na Wen
Leave Netflix: September 30
If you want a movie that loyally recreates the atmosphere of the Street Fighter franchise, watch it Street Fighter II: the animated film. If you want a tournament fighting movie, watch one of the Undisputed movies or the original Deadly battle. But if you want a guaranteed good time with a positively silly movie, nothing beats it Street fighter.
More of a bizarre Vietnam War pastiche than a combat film, Street fighter follows all-American Colonel William Guile (all-Belgian star Jean-Claude Van Damme) as he leads a team of fighters in an operation against the totalitarian regime of General M. Bison (Raúl Juliá) in Shadaloo City.
Street fighter is a film full of contradictions. It has some of the best acting you’ll ever see (Juliá is absolutely transcendent), and some of the worst (Juliá seems to be the only person who knows what movie he’s in). It has great costumes and set design that perfectly match the setting and source material, but the troubled production is evident in the rushed editing and the slow, plodding fight scenes are unrecognizable to die-hard fans of the franchise.
It makes you wonder what it actually means for a movie to be good. Now that is cinema. –Piet Volk
Director: David Fincher
Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake
Maximum exit: Soon
An undisputed modern classic, you really don’t have to sell yourself on that The social network is excellent. But even if you’ve seen the movie before, the real reminder here is that you need to watch it again. I promise it’s a lot better than you remember, even if you remember it being great.
David Fincher’s excellent pacing makes the film more of a thriller than a dialogue-heavy drama, and the central performances from Eisenberg and Garfield remain two of the best of this century so far. Even Sorkin’s script has aged with prescient grace, showing the nascent stages of our bizarre modern world. Everything from the interpersonal disconnects that social media causes to the reckless abandon of Silicon Valley is there for all to see in its earliest and perhaps least damaging stages.
Unfortunately, Max doesn’t make it entirely clear when movies will disappear from the service, so while it probably won’t be available until late September, your best bet is to sneak in a movie Social network to rewatch is to jump right in. —AG
Movies leaving Prime Video
Director: Michael Mann
Stars: William Petersen, Dennis Farina, Brian Cox
To leave Prime Video: September 30
Long before Jonathan Demme’s The silence of the lambs or Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal While searing the characters of Hannibal Lecter or Will Graham into the collective imagination of audiences around the world, Michael Mann took a stab at adapting the novels of Thomas Harris with his 1986 film Man hunter.
Based on Harris’ 1981 novel Red DragonThe film follows retired profiler Graham (William Petersen), who is called in to help hunt a serial killer known only as the “Tooth Fairy.” With no other option, Graham is forced to resort to consultation with Dr. Lecter (Brian Cox), the infamous serial killer he apprehended years ago. While there is a trio of great performances from Petersen, Cox and Tom Noonan as the Tooth Fairy Killer, Man hunter was panned upon its initial release, but reassessed years later as one of Mann’s best early films. If you’ve ever wondered what an extravagantly lit and unapologetically ’80s version of Harris’s iconic characters and stories would look like: Man hunter is the movie for you. —Toussaint Egan
Films Leaving Criterion Channel
Director: Brian DePalma
Stars: John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow
Exit criterion channel: September 30
Brian De Palma is one of the greatest directors of his generation Blow out perhaps the best film he ever made. Directly inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film ExplosionThe film stars John Travolta as Jack Terry, a sound effects technician who makes a career of recording foley for trashy slasher films. While recording in a park late at night, Jack accidentally witnesses a car accident in a nearby creek. After saving Sally (Nancy Allen), a young woman who was in the vehicle and the sole survivor of the crash, Jack becomes embroiled in a conspiracy that puts both of their lives in danger.
A spiritual contemporary of people like Francis Ford Coppola The conversation and that of Alan J. Pakula The parallax vision, Blow out is an impeccably well-shot, paranoia-inducing thriller with a final act guaranteed to linger long after the credits roll. And yes, it goes without saying that a movie with an emphasis on including sound effects would have great sound design in itself, but seriously, the sound design and score in Blow out it’s great. —AT