19 best movies to watch before they leave streaming (September 2022)

We are finally in fall, which means that there is a full season of movies available. Before we can get to those, though, we have to pick out the very best of what’s streaming in September before they float away like so many leaves.

We’ve got a fantastic crop of films to choose from in the form of David Prior’s 2020 breakout horror film The Empty Man, Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Volume 1.And 2, and Michael Bay’s action heist thriller Ambulance, not to mention classics like Alain Resnais’ avant-garde masterpiece Last Year at Marienbad, 1999’s The MummyYou can find out more.

Here are 19 movies you should watch before September’s streaming ends.


Ambulance

Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II face off, holding automatic weapons, in Ambulance

Photo: Andrew Cooper/Universal Pictures

It’s a great movie that you should stream, and it is available for streaming now. Michael Bay returns to his slimmest and most meanest with this tightly controlled thriller that features car chases and groundbreaking drone photography. Jake Gyllenhaal delivers a hilariously reckless performance. —Pete Volk

According to our review:

Ambulance’s greatest strength is how quickly it builds tension. To get to the action quickly, the plot and characters are planned with speed. The pressure and pace increase steadily. The film’s structure has an inherent momentum that Bay supercharges with his relentless filmmaking energy. It is truly a breath-taking film in the middle third, when the initial stage of the chase culminates and tensions within the ambulance reach an explosive climax. But it’s simply not possible to sustain that level of excitement over such a long running time, and the air goes out of the movie toward the end, especially after some overdeveloped plot mechanics require the ambulance to stop and start again more than once. Bay and screenwriter Chris Fedak didn’t learn Tempo’s lesson: Never, ever stop rolling.

Ambulance September 30th, Peacock leaves.


Batman Begins and The Dark Knight

batman threatening jonathan crane on a staircase, with his hand around crane’s throat

Warner Bros.

The first two entries in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy are generally considered the best, and they’re the ones leaving Hulu at the end of this month. My money is on the first two entries in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. Batman Begins The best: A rare story about a superhero’s origin that works. Scene where Bruce Wayne is hiding amongst the ninja corps while training with League of Shadows is a highlight. The Dark Knight is also quite memorable, but you probably don’t need me to tell you that. —PV

Batman Begins And The Dark Knight Hulu is closed Sept. 30,


Boogie Nights

Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) working in the back of a restaurant with Roller Girl (Heather Graham) in Boogie Nights.

Image: Warner Home Video, New Line Cinema

Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997 comedy-drama Boogie Nights charts the rise and fall of the “golden age” of pornography through the story of Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg), a young porn star who rises through the industry under the alias “Dirk Diggler” only to be undone by drugs and egotism. Blending real-life historical accounts and fiction, Anderson’s fascinating period film catapulted his career into stardom and earned three Academy Award nominations. Burt Reynolds, Don Cheadle and Philip Seymour Hoffman all gave memorable performances. Boogie Nights inarguably ranks as one of Anderson’s best films to date. —Toussaint Egan

Boogie NightsNetflix will cease to exist on September 30.


Constantine

Satan lights a cigarette for Constantine

Warner Bros. Pictures

John Constantine will reportedly be returning to the cinemas. Deadline earlier reported that Francis Lawrence, the director and star of Keanu Reeves will be returning to film “A Star in Every Movie.” Constantine The sequel is written by AkivaGoldsman. Reeves’ performance is greatly improved by the reevaluation of his role as a leader man. The movie is delightfully funny and cheesy. Constantine It worked quite well. But don’t overlook the supporting cast: Peter Stormare absolutely rules as Lucifer Morningstar, and Tilda Swinton, Djimon Hounsou, and Rachel Weisz build out a stellar ensemble. —PV

Constantine Netflix will cease to exist on September 30.


Dhoom 2

Image: Prime Video

Dhoom 22004: The smash sequel DhoomOne of the best cinematic experiences you can have is. It broke Bollywood’s box-office records with its motorcycle-centric action sequences and jaw-dropping music. There are also amazing motorcycle stunts.

A Taste: A train heist opens the movie as Mr. A (Hrithik Rosshan, as charming and beautiful as ever) He disguises himself to be Queen Elizabeth to rob the Queen’s crown in the middle of the Namib desert. Dhoom 2The music then shifts to one the most explosive musical numbers this century with Roshan proving why he’s one of the greatest movie stars and dancers his generation. —PV

Dhoom 2Prime Video will be discontinued on September 30.


The Empty Man

A gigantic malformed skeleton with steepled hands in David Prior’s cosmic thriller The Empty Man

Image: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Director David Prior’s feature debut is the scariest movie of 2020 and one of its best. The movie’s main story follows a man named James Lasombra (James Badge Dale) as he searches for a missing girl. While on the case, he hears about a legend of a shadowy figure called the Empty Man, who stalks anyone who’s seen him for three days before he strikes. While this premise alone might be good for a creepy-enough movie, Prior blows the concept up into something truly special, spanning the globe — in an outstanding 15-minute prologue — and finally bringing in a cult whose leader might actually have supernatural powers. While none of the above makes any sense, Prior somehow manages to combine them into one terrifying, cohesive story. —Austen Goslin

The Empty Man HBO Max will be discontinued on September 30th.


Groundhog Day

Bill Murray’s character Phil gives a heartfelt on-camera speech in Harold Ramis’ Groundhog Day.

Columbia Pictures

A trendsetter for time loop movies, Groundhog Day It’s just as entertaining as it is powerful. While it’s spawned many enjoyable knockoffs, like Palm Springs and the Happy Death Day franchise, it’s hard to beat the Bill Murray-led original. While primarily a comedy (and it sure is funny), this movie works in large part because of how it works with other genres: The situation Bill Murray’s Phil finds himself in is truly terrifying, and the movie recognizes this, able to play it for tension, laughs, and eventually, tender romance. —PV

Groundhog Day leaves Hulu on Sept. 30.


Kill Bill Volume 1 and 2.

Dressed in a yellow jumpsuit, Beatrix poses with her sword in Kill Bill: Volume 1

Photo: Andrew Cooper/Miramax Films

Quentin Tarantino’s neo-Western martial arts revenge thriller cut a swath through action cinema when it first premiered back in 2003. Heavily inspired by 1973’s Lady SnowbloodThe film features Uma Thurman, who is a frequent Tarantino collaborator, as the Bride. Uma plays an ex-assassin, who wakes up from a coma after she was brutally attacked on her wedding day by her compadres. She vows revenge and embarks upon a global manhunt to find and kill her accomplices before pursuing vengeance against her lover, Bill (David Carradine).

Inimitably fashionable and unrelentingly violent Kill Bill combines influences as far-flung as Hong Kong kung fu flicks, Western revenge dramas, and anime to create a film that confidently stands among Tarantino’s best. —TE

Kill Bill Volume 1And Volume 2 HBO Max is closed Sept. 30,


Last Year at Marienbad

Several people in black dress attire stand motionless in the courtyard of a french villa.

Image from the Criterion Collection

Alain Resnais’ 1961 avant-garde romance mystery stars Giorgio Albertazzi and Delphine Seyrig as man and woman who, upon meeting one another at mysterious and isolated chateau somewhere in the French countryside, retrace their memories in order to discern the truth of whether or not they met each years before and fell in love. Brazen with its dreamlike imagery and non-sequential experimentation, Last Year at MarienbadIt is both a cinematic thriller about subjective truth in matters of the heart as well as a beautiful cinematic mystery of ornate beauty. —TE

Last Year at MarienbadCriterion Channel to Close on Sept. 30,


Michael Clayton

George Clooney and Tom Wilkinson in Michael Clayton.

Warner Bros. Pictures

You are excited to Andor? Tony Gilroy was the showrunner and co-wrote Rogue OneHe directed the film, which is one of 21st-century’s best legal thrillers. George Clooney plays Michael Clayton, a corporate fixing agent sent to help a lawyer who has been suffering from an episode. Clayton uncovers an even deeper plot that threatens all he knows.

One of Clooney’s best performances, the movie also features great supporting turns by Tom Wilkinson (playing the aforementioned troubled lawyer), Tilda Swinton, and the great Sydney Pollack. It’s a tight, tense conspiracy thriller, reminiscent of the work of Alan J. Pakula and other titans of the genre. —PV

Michael ClaytonHBO Max will be discontinued on September 30th.


The Mummy

Brendan Fraiser and Rachel Weisz embrace in a desert in The Mummy (1999)

Universal Pictures

Oh, The Mummy The Mummy — how do I even begin to proclaim my love for The Mummy? The Mummy is charming. The Mummy is romantic and romantic, as well as romanticized. It starts out as a period piece but then turns into an amazing adventure. Brendan Fraser plays dashing rogue Rick O’Connell and Rachel Weisz plays plucky librarian Evelyn Carnahan, with John Hannah as her bumbling brother. It’s just plain Fun, even if the historical aspect isn’t super accurate and even if a lot of things don’t really make sense. How do you fight off the scary mummy? Classic! These creepy, flesh-eating insects are amazing! Amazing! Evelyn’s drunk and passionate “I am a librarian!” ramble? Wonderful! —Petrana Radulovic

The MummyPeacock leaves on September 30.


The Outpost

Scott Eastwood frontlit by neon in The Outpost

Screen Media Films Image

The story of a soldier at an American outpost in Afghanistan is the basis for this war thriller. This movie is as much about war’s futility and blindness as it is camaraderie, action and suspense. Scott Eastwood, Caleb Landry Jones and even Orlando Bloom give excellent performances.It is a touching moral centre about those who are put in an unacceptable position, such as physically or mentally, and face impossible odds. The Outpost This is one of the most important war films this decade. —PV

The OutpostNetflix to Close Oct. 1


Raging Bull

Robert DeNiro faces off against an opponent in the boxing ring in Raging Bull.

Image by United Artists

Here’s a list of top sports movies you can watch at home.

You should pay attention: Because, according to the American Film Institute, it’s the fourth-greatest American film of all time. Because it’s one of De Niro’s greatest performances, with a terrifying physicality. Because it’s a searing, tragic deconstruction of toxic masculinity. And because Scorsese’s filmmaking, powered by Michael Chapman’s black-and-white photography and Thelma Schoonmaker’s impressionistic editing, reaches a delirious intensity that will take your breath away, especially in the dumbfounding boxing scenes. —Oli Welsh

Raging Bull Prime Video and Criterion Channel are closed on September 30,


A Sexy Beast

Ray Winstone sunbathes next to a pool with two hearts in Sexy Beast.

Image: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Jonathan Glazer had a breakout hit with 2013’s Below the SkinHe made his feature film debut in 2000 with the black comedy, but it was more than 10 years earlier. A Sexy Beast. Ray Winstone portrays a retired felon living in a Spanish villa. Ben Kingsley (an old and dangerous acquaintance) visits him unexpectedly to try and entice him into his former life. Closer in tone and structure to a horror movie than the “one last job” heist flick the plot synopsis hints at, A Sexy Beast excels through its terrific leading performances and the totality of Glazer’s vision. —PV

A Sexy BeastHulu will be closing on September 30th


We are sorry to bother you

Lakeith Stanfield sits in a glass booth under purple lighting in Boots Riley’s SORRY TO BOTHER YOU.

Image: Annapurna Pictures

Boots Riley’s 2018 black comedy We are sorry to bother youFollow Cassius Green (LaKeith Stanfield), an Oakland telemarketer who is disillusioned by the tedious job of pitching products over the telephone to predominantly white customers. Things quickly take a turn for what at first seems the better when Cassius learns to use his “white voice,” propelling him to success as he shoots up the corporate ladder to the venerated position of “Power Caller.” Absurd, hilarious, and unapologetically political, We are sorry to bother you is an unabashedly unique film filled with twists that’ll have you scratching your head as frequently as you’ll be shouting at the screen. —TE

We are sorry to bother you Hulu will be closing on September 30, however, the service will remain available via Netflix.


The Talented Mr. Ripley

Matt Damon as Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Warner Home Video

Matt Damon’s lead performance in Anthony Minghella’s psychological thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley is inarguably one of the actor’s best: engrossing, shocking, and perversely sympathetic in equal measures. Damon is Tom Ripley. A low-achieving man with a knack for lying to others, Damon is employed by a shipping magnate in order to get his son Dickie, (Jude Law), from Italy. Befriending Dickie and his fiancée Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow), Tom’s ever-evolving grift morphs into a twisted love-hate obsession with Dickie and his lifestyle, a life which Tom will resort to Everything — anything — to possess.

With a brilliant performance by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman as Dickie’s lewd, boisterous, and perceptive friend Freddie and terrific supporting performances by Cate Blanchett and Jack Davenport, The Talented Mr. RipleyThis is an emotional, tense thriller that will make you want to root for the monster. —TE

The Talented Mr. RipleyNetflix to Close Oct. 1


Taxi driver

Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver

Columbia Pictures

Robert De Niro delivers one of the defining performances of his entire career in Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film Taxi driverTravis Bickle was a Vietnam War Veteran and taxi driver who suffers from post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Sleep-deprived and increasingly isolated, Travis’ idle observations on the corruption and vice of New York City quickly manifest into violent ideation, prompting him to become a vigilante as he grasps for power and uncertainty in an uncertain world. Even apart from the film’s tangential role in John Hinckley Jr.’s attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981, Taxi driver earns its distinction as a culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant film on the strength of De Niro’s aforementioned performance, Paul Schrader’s sharp and sorrowful script, and Michael Chapman’s beautiful cinematography. —TE

Taxi driverNetflix to Close Oct. 1

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