11 best movies new to Netflix, Amazon, HBO Max & Hulu: October 2021

It’s finally October, and you know what that means: Halloween and pumpkin spice season. We’re finally in peak-Fall weather, with crunchy leaves, weather coats, hot beverages, and appropriately creepy decorations. There are also new movies available to stream on Netflix, Hulu and HBO Max.

We’ve got some spooktacular new movies to watch in October with the fabled 1931 Spanish-language version of Dracula Jennifer’s Body arriving on Criterion Channel, 1990’s Flatliners Hulu.com and the The Invisible ManOriginal version on HBO Max. If you happen to be in the mood for something less seasonal, we’ve got plenty of other great picks to fill blind spots, from 2020’s EmmaYou can find more information here Russia with Love

Here are 11 movies you should watch on streaming service in October.

A Knight’s Tale

Sony Pictures Releasing

A Knight’s TaleAlthough it was not a huge success in theatres, the film has become a beloved classic. Heath Ledger, opposite Shannyn Ssamon who is smoldering, drives the story forward. Both are backed by a modern, curiously contemporary soundtrack. Paul Bettany should have all the attention, as he is a pathological Geoffrey Chaucer and just goes nuts in every scene. —Charlie Hall

A Knight’s TaleIs streaming on Netflix

Dracula (Spanish Language Version)

Universal Pictures

Polygon’s Chris Plante wrote about the 1931 Spanish-language adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula for last year’s Halloween Advent Calendar: a sexier, faster paced version shot on the same sets as the original Tod Browning film with stunning lead performance courtesy of Carlos Villarías as the Count himself. It has been difficult to locate the film in years past and was only just made available for purchase via home video. Criterion Channel announced that it will be streaming the Spanish-language version as part of their October streaming options. Dracula along with several other classic Universal horror films such as 1933’s The Invisible Man, 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein, and 1954’s Creature of the Black Lagoon. If you haven’t seen this masterpiece of early horror cinema, you owe it to yourself to make time to watch it this month!

Dracula (Spanish Language Version)Is streaming on Criterion Channel

Emma

Photo by Focus Features

The 2020 version of Emma isn’t just decadent pastel gowns and curling ringlets of hair, it’s also an adaptation that really interrogates Emma being the mean girl she rightfully is. The Queen’s Gambit Anya Taylor Joy does an excellent job portraying the role of the antiheroine. She is a boring rich girl who loves to matchmaker with people in her neighborhood and is keenly aware social dynamics. The adaptation retains some of the edge others lose but it still shows Emma’s chemistry with Mr. Knightley. Emma grows as a character but there are some delightful misunderstandings. —Petrana Radulovic

EmmaIs streaming on HBO Max

Flatliners

A strangely boring 2017 failFlatliners was just a pale shadow of the 1990 original, about a group of ambitious med students (the all-star team of Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin, and Oliver Platt) who kill and revive each other to study “near death” experiences, with horror-movie results. Directed by Joel Schumacher at the height of his “colored lighting filters equal drama” stage, Flatliners The watch is both stylish and nervy. It rises above the cheesy idea and the equally cheesy execution. Every aspect, from concept to acting, is ridiculously funny. It’s also authentically creepy! —Tasha Robinson

FlatlinersIs streaming on Hulu

Russia, Love

James Bond may be an old fashioned spy with outdated morals, but Sean Connery’s piercing glances and disarming charm are really do make this 58-year-old action movie work in 2021. Based on Ian Fleming’s novel of the same name, the movie finds 007 going toe to toe with SPECTRE and aiding a SMERSH operative defect to the West. Bond is entangled in conspiracy and must fight his way through boat chases and helicopter attacks to defeat SPECTRE. The true franchise’s kickoff movie was bigger and had more tropes than this film. Dr. Russia, Love is a prime example of people of the era fell hard for Fleming’s character, and why everyone from Roger Moore to Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig looked back to Connery in this movie as an example of a perfectly calibrated action performance. —Matt Patches

Russia, LoveIs streaming on Hulu

Rushmore

Buena Vista Pictures

If you’re revving up to see Wes Anderson’s French Dispatch Later in the fall, you can watch it again or rewatch. Rushmore — a genuine modern classic. This bizarre character study is both heartwarming and deranged. It’s Jason Schwartzman’s breakout role, and perhaps one of the best Bill Murray performances of all time. It’s also on our list of the most ‘pumpkin spice’ movies of all time. —CH

RushmoreIs streaming on Hulu

Jennifer’s Body

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

Gory is not gratuitous. Sexy but not degrading. Empowering and without pandering. Jennifer’s Body It is an awfully good movie. This is the film I needed to watch as a teenager in the same era. —PR

Jennifer’s BodyIs streaming on Criterion Channel

Kagemusha

Image from The Criterion Collection

Akira Kurosawa’s samurai epic KagemushaThis is the story of a poor thief, who escapes execution to be hired as a body double for a dying clan lord. As the titular kagemusha (“shadow warrior”), the thief must convince the allies and enemies of daimyo Takeda Shingen that his clan still has a capable leader and preserve the clan’s deception. (You may notice some similarities to Ivan Reitman’s 1993 political comedy DaveStarring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Youaver KagemushaThis is something that should be taken seriously. Beautiful Kagemusha features some of Kurosawa’s most impressive military battles, worth sticking through its three-hour runtime. —Michael McWhertor

KagemushaIs streaming on Criterion Channel

Kill Bill

Andrew Cooper/Miramax Films

Kill Bill: Volume 1 It is a collection of 100 movies that are boiled together to create one movie. Every cutaway, flashback, and tangent is in service of getting us to the final conflict: O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) vs. Uma Thurman’s unnamed Bride. As this leaves, Volume 2This allows Tarantino’s first half to be freed from all of the responsibilities of plot and character creation.

Every neat trick Tarantino’s ever noticed in a movie, or fight scene he’s loved, or weird choice he’s wondered if he could get away with, is on display in Kill Bill: Volume 1. It’s like flipping through movie channels at midnight: a Jackie Chan-style fight — where glass explodes on contact and cast iron skillets beat guns and knives every time — is followed by a hospital scene coated with grindhouse grime, and capped off by the antagonist’s anime origin story (produced by the outstanding IG Productions anime studio). Then, in a climax that attempts to outdo everything that came before it, the movie’s final brawl switches from color, to black and white, to silhouetted shadows on a blue background, and back to color for a snowy showdown. It’s dizzying, and disorienting, and perfect. —Austen Goslin

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 & 2Is streaming on HBO Max

Untouchables

Image by Paramount Pictures

Brian de Palma’s UntouchablesKevin Costner stars as Eliot Ness, the Federal Agent assigned to take down Al Capone’s notorious bootlegger and criminal empire. With several offers on the police force secretly on Capone’s payroll, Ness must recruit police trainee George Stone (Andy Garcia), accountant Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith), and veteran officer Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery) into a special task force to take the fight directly to Capone and his cronies. The action is exceptional, with a fantastic and memorable shootout filmed in Chicago’s Union station and scene-stealing performances of Costner, Connery, and Robert De Niro as the cigar-chompin’ and sneering Al Capone himself. —TE

UntouchablesIs streaming on Hulu

The Invisible Man

Universal Pictures

Upgrade director Leigh Whannell’s contemporary remake of The Invisible Man stars Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid’s TaleCecilia Kass is a character played by Oliver Jackson-Cohen. She plays Cecilia Kass who flees her wealthy and abusive ex-boyfriend Adrian, only to discover two weeks later that Adrian had apparently committed suicide. Cecilia is left with $5million and tries to rebuild herself but doubts that Adrian really died. Stalked by an unknown presence, Cecilia’s demeanor begins to unravels as she grows increasingly more paranoid and terrified. Cecilia is being stalked by an unknown presence. Or, does it just all seem like she’s lying? Whannell’s cranks up the psychological aspect of the original story before pulling off some genuinely grisly and impressive physical horror in the film’s latter half. —TE

The Invisible Man streams on HBO Max