The best movies leaving Netflix, Hulu, Prime, and Max in October 2023

The month of October will soon be over, as well as Halloween. Fret not, though — there are still a few days left, and fall continues around the corner. You can catch up on a lot of good movies that are leaving the streaming service before Halloween.

To fit the season, we’ve picked out some horror movies leaving streaming platforms — a stellar found-footage movie, an all-time classic franchise starter, and a TV reboot that improves on a vampire classic. But if you’re not a horror buff, don’t worry — we’ve got you covered, too. Dark City The perfect euphoric vibe to accompany this holiday season, it is a cult-classic that has been criminally ignored. Be the change etc.

Here’s what you should watch this weekend before these titles leave their streaming services.

Editor’s pick

Dark City

New Line Home Video

Director: Alex Proyas
Cast: Jennifer Connelly, Kiefer Suggerland and Rufus Sewell
Leaving:October 31st on Criterion

The late ’90s was a peak era for cerebral science fiction movies that probed at the concept of simulation theory, a hypothesis that speculated that everything that humans know and experience, from the physicality of our own bodies to the validity of our beliefs and the security of our institutions, is all just one big artificial simulation running inside a computer that houses the universe. Alex Proyas’ neo noir sci-fi movie beat out the Wachowskis by a long shot Dark CityThe year-old film was released a month before The Matrix. And while it may not command the same level of fervent fandom (let alone sequels) as that film, Proyas’ movie is still a fascinating and thoroughly entertaining experience in its own right.

John Murdoch wakes in the bath with no memory as to how he arrived there. After stumbling upon the murder scene, John Murdoch escapes before authorities can arrest him. John, wandering in a city that is always in darkness, embarks on an adventure to find answers and clues to the past. This search puts him at risk of being caught in the sights of a sect of shady psychics.

Dark CityThis is a film that everyone who enjoys grungy noir and sci-fi oddity should see. Kiefer Sutherland delivers a fantastic left-field performance as a nervous, put-upon scientist who knows too much, and Jennifer Connelly is absolutely stunning in her role as John’s wife, a jazz club singer whose own life is turned upside down by this strange series of events. If you’re looking for a beautifully shot work of mind-bending fiction, give Dark CityA shot. —TE

Netflix

Collateral

DreamWorks Pictures

Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx and Jada P. Smith
Leaving: Oct. 31

Tom Cruise gives one of the best performances (and most terrifying ones) of his career, as the contract killer with steel-eyed eyes. Collateral. A cabbie, Max (Jamie Foxx), is hired to take him on a tour of the city.

Collateral’s nocturnal lighting and brilliant cinematography courtesy of Dion Beebe and Paul Cameron combine to make for one of the most hypnotic and memorable portraits of LA’s metropolitan sprawl ever committed to film. It’s hard to choose a favorite Michael Mann movie, but for all these reasons and more, Collateral sits firmly in my personal top five ranking of the director’s best. —TE

Watch Max

Interview with a Vampire

AMC

Creator: Rolin Jones
Cast: Sam Reid Jacob Anderson Eric Bogosian
Leaving: Oct. 31

I’m cheating a little bit, because this is a show. But it’s our list and we make the rules, and here’s a new rule: The Interview with a Vampire show is leagues better than the movie, and you should watch it while it’s on Max.

Interview with a Vampire This is just one of many AMC series that has a short stay in Max. The Gangs of London The following are some examples of how to get started: Dark WindsIt might even be the most popular.

If you’re a fan of Hannibal, you’ll like this. The show is a very violent, queer adaptation of the novel. It takes its queer subtext and turns it into text. That’s not the only significant departure from the source material, moving the time period forward and transforming the character of Louis from a white plantation owner into a mixed-race pimp. It features a trio of terrific performance in Sam Reid, Jacob Anderson, and Eric Bogosian, and sharp writing from playwright Rolin Jones, the show’s creator. It’s one of the best shows of recent years — watch it in preparation for the eventual release of season 2. —PV

Hulu – Watch Movies Online

Evil Dead (2013)

Image: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Director: Fede Álvarez
Cast: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci
Leaving: Oct. 31

With only a handful of films under his name, Fede Álvarez has already asserted himself as one of the most exciting new voices in horror. If you want to know why the director was tapped to direct the next entry of the Alien franchise, look no further than his 2013 remake of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead series — a gory and twisted take that eschews the tongue-in-cheek horror-comedy of the original in favor of a scene of a possessed woman splitting her tongue down the middle with a knife.

Álvarez’s Evil Dead It is filled with gore and brutal images. The violence in the film can be genuinely frightening. I really can’t stress this enough: If you can’t stomach the sight of such horrors as a person getting stabbed with hypodermic needles, do not watch this movie. You can enjoy the movie if you’re not averse to such horrors. —TE

Watch Prime

[REC]

Image: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Directors: Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza
Cast: Manuela Velasco, Ferrán Terraza, Jorge-Yamam Serrano
Leaving: Oct. 31

The genre is one of the most popular in found footage. [REC]This short, terrifying film is filled with tension and terror. The story follows a TV crew embedded in Barcelona with the local fire department, who are sent to a complex of apartments that is undergoing an unknown disaster.

[REC] came out right in the middle of a run of zombie movies in the mid-2000s, and it might be the best of the bunch from that era, right along with George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead Hard to beat the master. It’s also one of the smartest uses of the found-footage device, bringing out all the tension and dread you could ever want from a movie like this before ramping up into pure chaos as the monsters are truly unleashed. —PV