The 8 best movies new to streaming on Netflix, Max, and more in September

Polygon readers: Happy autumn! September is upon us, and that means it’s time time to dust off your favorite sweater and dapple a little pumpkin spice in your morning coffee. We’ve got a whole slew of new movies, television and books to look forward to in the coming weeks and months, not to mention all the exciting new films arriving on streaming this month.

Our roundup for September includes Denis Villeneuve’s 2016 sci-fi thriller ArrivalThe 2013 action sci-fi film Riddick starring Vin Diesel, William Friedkin’s supernatural horror classic The Exorcist, and more.

Let’s dive in and see what this month has in store.

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Arrival

Paramount Pictures

Year: 2016
Genre:Sci-fi thriller
Run time: 1h 56m
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Cast: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker

Based on Ted Chiang’s 1998 short story “Story of Your Life,” ArrivalIt is a good idea to use a bilingual translator Dune director Denis Villeneuve’s first foray into hard science-fiction and easily ranks as one of his best.

Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and other stars star in the movie. Louise Banks is a linguistics prof who’s enlisted to help a US government team investigate when 12 mysterious spaceships crash on the earth. With a beautiful score composed by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson — his last collaboration with Villeneuve before his death in 2018 — and a moving premise focused on the intrinsic power of language and communication, Arrival is an intimate sci-fi love story for the ages. —Toussaint Egan

Stand by Me

Columbia Pictures

Year: 1986
Genre: Coming-of-age drama
Run time: 1h 29m
Director: Rob Reiner
Cast: Wil Wheaton River Phoenix Corey Feldman

Stephen King’s adaptation of “The Greatest Stephen King Novel” is one of his best. Stand by meIt is about four boys aged 12 who go on an adventure to search for the remains of a kid that has gone missing. They run into speeding trains and local hoodlums as they trek through the Oregon forest. But the true thrill comes from childhood friendships. The main character closes the movie with a line that basically sums it all up: “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?” —Petrana Radulovic

Hulu – New Releases

A Knight’s Tale

Columbia Pictures

Year: 2001
Genre: Medieval action comedy
Run time: 2h 20m
Director: Brian Helgeland
Cast: Heath Ledger, Mark Addy, Rufus Sewell

Inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Knight,” Brian Helgeland’s semi-anachronistic medieval adventure comedy A Knight’s Tale stars Heath Ledger as William, a young peasant with a gift for jousting who poses as a knight and embarks on a quest for fame and glory alongside his friends Roland (Mark Addy) and Wat (Alan Tudyk). Paul Bettany plays Geoffrey Chaucer, an eloquent writer who has a flair for theatre and helps William achieve his goal of fame. An oddball comedy filled with surprising needle-drops, colorful characters, and a smoldering romance plot featuring Shannyn Sossamon as William’s love interest, A Knight’s TaleIt may have failed to impress when it first aired in 2001, but since then has become a fan favorite. —TE

Melancholia

Magnolia Pictures

Year: 2011
Genre:Apocalyptic Drama
Run time: 2h 16m
Director: Lars von Trier
Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alexander Skarsgård

Kirsten Dunst (Maria AntoinetteJustine is a bride-to-be who has a depression episode just before her wedding. When a rogue planet known as Melancholia appears hurtling towards Earth on a crash-collision course, Justine’s sister Claire struggles to maintain composure in the face of imminent disaster, while Justine navigates a strange euphoric resignation that washes over her in the planet’s last days. Melancholia is an achingly beautiful, somber, and harrowing journey through depression and ennui and one of Lars von Trier’s finest more touching films. —T

Prime Video: New Releases

Children of Man

Universal Pictures

Year: 2006
Genre:Dystopian Action Thriller
Run time: 1h 49m
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Cast: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine

Alfonso Cuarón’s 2006 dystopian sci-fi drama Children of ManIn recent years, the film has been recognized as an accurate portrayal of current global conflict and strife. Set in 2027, almost two decades after the last human child due to inexplicable worldwide infertility, Cuarón’s film finds activist-turned-government-pawn Theo Faron (Clive Owen) unexpectedly entrusted with ensuring the safe passage of Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), an asylum seeker and the first woman to become pregnant in over 18 years. Children of ManIt is an incredibly bleak and convincing portrayal of a world in which it seems there will be no more future. A drama where the only hope left for mankind rests with a man who’s lost all faith in humanity. —TE

Deja Vu

Image: Touchstone Pictures

Year: 2006
Genre: Sci-fi action
Run time: 2h 6m
Director: Tony Scott
Cast: Denzel Washington, Val Kilmer, Paula Patton

Long before John David Washington’s leading role in Christopher Nolan’s TenetDenzel’s father starred in a sci-fi film with a time twist, directed by Tony Scott. Washington is Doug Carlin. He plays an ATF agent that joins the top secret program of the government after his wife was killed in a terrorist act on the New Orleans ferry. Carlin, using an experimental VR headset and cutting-edge tech to look through the folds in space-time as the event unfolds to determine the identity of the culprits. Washington’s second collaboration with Scott following 2004 ‘s Man on Fire is an exhilarating whodunnit packed with explosive action, shocking twists, and frenetic pulse-pounding cinematography that’s well worth a revisit. —TE

Riddick

Universal Pictures

Year: 2013
Genre: Sci-fi action
Run time: 1h 59m
Director: David Twohy
Cast: Vin Diesel, Jordi Mollà, Matt Nable

Richard B. Riddick is basically Vin Diesel’s answer to “Mad” Max Rockatansky: A sci-fi action role meant to be as singular as the made-up world around him. David Twohy’s 2013 film picks up five years after the events of 2004’s The Chronicles of Riddick, and is essentially a reprise of 2000’s Pitch BlackServing as a “soft” franchise reboot, similar to Mad Max Fury Road.

Which is to say: It’s a lean, mean, back-to-basics sequel that sees Diesel’s semi-blind, karambit-wielding apex predator forced to once again team up with a band of unlikely allies as they fend off a horde of murderous mud creatures to escape the planet alive. It’s got great special effects, better cinematography, and more interesting action choreography than Pitch BlackThe film is a good one, even if you haven’t seen the previous two films in the live-action series. Both are available for rent via VOD. If you haven’t seen the prior films, though, RiddickThis is the best place to start, before going backwards in your own time. —TE

Max – New and Improved

Cat People

Warner Home Video

Year: 1942
Genre: Supernatural horror
Run time: 1h 13h
Director: Jacques Tourneur
Cast: Simone Simone, Tom Conway and Kent Smith

Jacques Tourneur’s classic horror movie is a dark and sexy tale of a woman (Simone Simon) who believes that if she is ever stimulated sexually, she will turn into a murderous panther. She struggles with balancing her desire for a marine engineer, Kent Smith.

There’s a tense sequence in this movie where one character stalks another. Tourneur builds up the tension to an uncontrollable point before he surprises the audience by revealing a bus. The sequence led to a technique coined the “Lewton Bus” after producer Val Lewton, and it is often considered the originator of the modern jump scare. Cat People It is a classic horror movie and at only 73 minutes it’s a good, short time. —PV

Cat People HBO Max is now available for streaming.

The Exorcist

Warner Bros.

Year: 1973
Genre: Supernatural horror
Run time: 2h 2h
Director: William Friedkin
Cast: Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Linda Blair

The late William Friedkin’s masterpiece The ExorcistIt is still as frightening as it was when released in 1973, and caused a slight panic across the country. After a girl named Linda Blair begins to act strangely, the mother does everything she can to try to reach her. This leads to… you already know what the name of the movie is. The realism of a mother’s desire to keep her daughter safe in an uncontrollable world set against a supernatural conflict pulls you right in from the very beginning, and keeps its hold on you far beyond the end of its two hour run-time.

David Gordon Green, who recently directed the Halloween trilogies, will be directing this sixth film in October. It’s a horror franchise that has a very high success rate. Either way, there’s no beating the original, and there’s no better time to watch it as we head into fall. —PV