Each month, loads of new films and TV shows are added to Netflix UK’s library. Critic Craig Mathieson presents his picks for titles worth watching. For the full list of everything arriving on the platform, scroll down.
Top Picks: TV
The Midnight Club (October 7)
Mike Flanagan is single-handedly raising the bar for horror works at Netflix. Since arriving at the streaming service the American filmmaker has conjured up a succession of unsettling, trauma-laced scenarios, often adapted from classic horror texts, that simmer over a single season.
The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and Midnight Mass are now joined The Midnight Club, the story of a group of terminally ill young adults who share spooky tales for fun but make a pact that whoever passes first will send back word from the afterlife. It’s not hard to imagine what happens next, but with Flanagan in control it should be decidedly chilling.
From Scratch (October 21)
Zoe Saldana has been crucial to so many otherworldly blockbuster franchises—Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Trek, and Avatar no less!—but in this limited series she comes down to Earth and headlines the story of a Texan woman who finds love and new horizons in Italy, but must struggle to make it all work with her community and family back home.
Adapted from actor Tembi Locke’s 2019 memoir of the same name, with Locke and her author sister Attica as the creators, this fictionalised account stars Saldana as aspiring artist Amy and Eugenio Mastrandrea as Sicilian chef Lino. Less special effects, but a whole lot of tears.
Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities: Season 1 (October 25)
Guillermo del Toro is to horror filmmaking’s rich history as Martin Scorsese is to world cinema: an enthusiast, an archivist, and a celebratory voice. So it’s not a surprise but nonetheless welcome that the Mexican filmmaker has curated this anthology series as a collection of “eight unique horror stories”.
The roll call of talent shows del Toro’s commitment, with the first episode, The Murmuring, written and directed by Jennifer Kent (The Babadook) from a del Toro story, with Essie Davis and Andrew Lincoln starring. Other directors featured included Panos Cosmatos (Mandy) and Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight).
Top Picks: Movies + Specials
Mr Harrigan’s Phone (October 5)
Plainly Netflix sees October—which culminates in Halloween—as their prime month for horror titles. As well as the series above they have this Stephen King adaptation from writer/director John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, The Founder).
Originally a story in the 2020 collection If It Bleeds, the movie stars Jaeden Martell (It) as a young boy who befriends Donald Sutherland’s titular senior citizen. After the old man passes, his mobile phone becomes a tool of supernatural revenge—bad things start to happen to whoever’s name is spoken on the line.
The Stranger (October 19)
With The Stranger, Australian filmmaker Thomas M Wright does to the crime thriller what his debut feature, 2018’s Acute Misfortune, did to the biopic. Lean and lacerating, it strips away the extraneous storytelling, replaces exposition with uneasy imagery, and hones in on the psychological transactions that define troubled relationships.
Joel Edgerton (The Underground Railroad) plays an undercover police officer seeking to get close to a murder suspect played by Sean Harris (Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation), a process that is a mix of procedural deception and trauma-laden endurance. It’s a deeply gripping movie.
The Good Nurse (October 26)
Based on the shocking 2013 true crime book of the same name, this crime-drama stars Jessica Chastain as a barely coping single mother and ICU nurse who begins to suspect that her colleague and friend (Eddie Redmayne) may be involved in the mysterious death of several patients.
The behind-the-camera talent is equally impressive: screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns wrote 1917 for Sam Mendes, while Danish director Tobias Lindholm has a telling eye for the way individuals navigate crises that was honed in the series Borgen and the features A Hijacking and A War. Perhaps leave this one until after your next hospital visit.
All titles arriving on Netflix UK in October
October 1
Eden: Season 1
Halloween 2
I, Frankenstein
One The Woman: Season 1
Pixie
Sleepy Hollow
Ten Dollar Death Trip
The Final Destination
The Last Vermeer
The Name of the Game
The Scandalous Four
Through the Darkness (Those Who Read the Hearts of Evil): Season 1
Transition
October 2
Forever Queens: Season 1
October 3
Chip and Potato: Season 4
Peaky Blinders: Season 6
October 4
Hasan Minhaj: The King’s Jester
October 5
Bling Empire: Season 3
High Water: Season 1
Jumping From High Places
Mr. Harrigan’s Phone
Nailed It!: Season 7
The Fight for Justice: Paolo Guerrero: Season 1
The Trapped 13: How We Survived The Thai Cave: Season 1
Togo
October 6
Aftershock: Everest and the Nepal Earthquake: Season 1
Ngeri Ngeri Sedap
The Joys and Sorrows of Young Yuguo
October 7
Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes
Doll House: Season 1
Glitch: Season 1
Kev Adams: The Real Me
Luckiest Girl Alive
Man on Pause: Season 1
Oddballs: Season 1
Old People
The Midnight Club: Season 1
The Mole: Season 1
The Redeem Team
Tiger and Bunny: Season 2
October 8
Bad Guys: Season 1
October 10
Spirit Rangers: Season 1
Travel Man: 48 Hours In…
October 11
Iliza Shlesinger: Hot Forever
Island of the Sea Wolves: Season 1
Someone Borrowed
October 12
Belascoarán, PI: Season 1
Blackout
Easy Bake Battle: Season 1
Missing: The Other Side: Season 1
The Nutty Boy
October 13
Dead End: Paranormal Park: Season 2
exception: Season 1
Someone Borrowed
Sue Perkins: Perfectly Legal: Season 1
The Playlist: Limited Series
The Watcher: Limited Series
October 14
Black Butterflies: Season 1
Holy Family: Season 1
Mario Lanza: The Best of Everything
Mismatched: Season 2
The Curse of Bridge Hollow
Everything Calls for Salvation: Season 1
October 15
Happy Valley
Heroes of the Empire
Mad Dogs
The Queen’s Umbrella: Season 1
October 17
Waffles + Mochi’s Restaurant
October 18
Gabriel Iglesias: Stadium Fluffy
LiSA Another Great Day
Somebody Feed Phil: Season 6
Unsolved Mysteries: Volume 3
October 19
Love is Blind: Season 3
Notre-Dame: Season 1
The Green Glove Gang: Season 1
The School for Good and Evil
The Stranger
October 21
28 Days Haunted: Season 1
Barbarians: Season 2
Descendant
From Scratch: Season 1
High: Confessions of an Ibiza Drug Mule
ONI: Thunder God’s Tale
October 22
LOL Surprise! Winter Fashion Show
October 23
Franco Escamilla: Eavesdropping
October 24
The Chalk Line
October 25
Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities: Season 1
October 26
Fugitive: The Curious Case of Carlos Ghosn
Hellhole
Robbing Mussolini
The Good Nurse
October 27
Cici
Daniel Spellbound: Season 1
Dubai Bling: Season 1
Earthstorm
Family Reunion: Part 5
Romantic Killer: Season 1
October 28
All Quiet on the Western Front
Big Mouth: Season 6
Drink Masters: Season 1
I AM A STALKER: Season 1
If Only: Season 1
The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself
Wendell & Wild
See also
* All new streaming movies & series
