We’re almost to the end of the month, and that means a lot of coming and going on every major streaming platform. And while plenty of exciting movies are on the way in October, with plenty of great spooky options to choose from, we’re here to make sure you don’t miss the gems leaving at the end of September.
To help you close out summer with the best movies possible, we’ve put together a list of the very best movies leaving streaming services at the end of the month, including a unique ghost story, one of the weirdest video game adaptations you’ll ever see, and a few bonafide classics from directors like Michael Mann, Brian De Palma, and David Fincher.
Here are the best movies leaving streaming at the end of August.
Editor’s pick: Marrowbone
Director: Sergio G. Sánchez
Cast: George MacKay, Mia Goth, Anya Taylor-Joy
Leaving Hulu: Sept. 30
One of the most underrated horror movies of the last decade, Marrowbone is a slow burn that’s more about mood and vibes than direct scares.
The film follows a group of siblings who move to their mother’s ancestral home in Maine in the 1960s. But as soon as they arrive in the house, the father they attempted to escape returns. The movie then jumps forward in time, and shows the siblings still living in the house, but terrified of a ghostly presence that they think they’ve trapped in the house’s bricked up attic.
To say much more of the movie would be to ruin some of its surprises, but suffice it to say that it’s a beautiful, haunting little ghost story, that’s bleak, moody, and tender in just the right measure. Add to that the movie’s fantastic cast, which includes George MacKay, Mia Goth, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Charlie Heaton, and you have the makings of a hidden horror gem that’s well-worth tracking down. —Austen Goslin
Image: Columbia Pictures/Everett Collection
Director: Steve E. de Souza
Stars: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Raúl Juliá, Ming-Na Wen
Leaving Netflix: Sept. 30
If you want a movie that loyally recreates the vibes of the Street Fighter franchise, watch Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie. If you want a tournament fighting movie, watch one of the Undisputed movies or the original Mortal Kombat. But if you want a guaranteed good time with a positively zany movie, there is nothing like Street Fighter.
More a bizarre Vietnam War pastiche than a fighting movie, Street Fighter follows All-American Colonel William Guile (All-Belgian star Jean-Claude Van Damme) as he leads a ragtag team of fighters in an operation against the totalitarian regime of General M. Bison (Raúl Juliá) in Shadaloo City.
Street Fighter is a movie of contradictions. It has one of the best acting performances you’ll ever see (Juliá is absolutely transcendent), and some of the worst (Juliá seems to be the only person who knows what movie he’s in). It has terrific costuming and set design that feels spot-on for the setting and source material, but the troubled production shows up in the harried editing, and the slow, laborious fight scenes are unrecognizable to die-hard fans of the franchise.
It’ll make you question what it even means for a movie to be good. Now that’s cinema. –Pete Volk
Image: Columbia Pictures
Director: David Fincher
Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake
Leaving Max: Soon
An undisputed modern classic, there’s really no need to sell you on the fact that The Social Network is excellent. But even if you’ve seen the movie before, the real reminder here is that you should watch it again. I promise it’s a whole lot better than you remember it being, even if you remember it being great.
David Fincher’s excellent pacing turns the movie into more of a thriller than a dialog-rich drama, and the central performances by Eisenberg and Garfield remain two of the best of this century so far. Even Sorkin’s script has aged with prescient grace, showing the nascent stages of our bizarre modern world. Everything from the interpersonal disconnects that social media spurs to the reckless abandon of the silicon valley is there for everyone to see in its earliest, and perhaps least harmful, stages.
Unfortunately, Max doesn’t make it totally clear when movies will leave the service, so while this one is likely only here until the end of September, your best bet for sneaking in a Social Network rewatch is to jump in right away. —AG
Movies leaving Prime Video
Director: Michael Mann
Stars: William Petersen, Dennis Farina, Brian Cox
Leaving Prime Video: Sept. 30
Long before Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs or Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal seared the characters of Hannibal Lecter or Will Graham into the collective imagination of audiences worldwide, Michael Mann took a crack at adapting Thomas Harris’ novels with his 1986 film Manhunter.
Based on Harris’ 1981 novel Red Dragon, the film follows the retired profiler Graham (William Petersen), enlisted to aid in the hunt for a serial killer known only as the “Tooth Fairy.” With no other recourse, Graham is forced to resort to consulting with Dr. Lecter (Brian Cox), the infamous serial killer he apprehended years ago. Though boasting a trio of terrific performances by Petersen, Cox, and Tom Noonan as the Tooth Fairy Killer, Manhunter was panned upon its initial release, only to be reappraised years later as one of Mann’s finest early movies. If you’ve ever wondered what an extravagantly lit and unabashedly ‘80s take on Harris’ iconic characters and stories would look like, Manhunter is the movie for you. —Toussaint Egan
Movies leaving Criterion Channel
Director: Brian De Palma
Stars: John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow
Leaving Criterion Channel: Sept. 30
Brian De Palma is one of the greatest directors of his generation, and Blow Out might just be the best movie he’s ever made. Directly inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blowup, the film stars John Travolta as Jack Terry, a sound effects technician who makes a career recording foley for trashy slasher flicks. While recording late at night in a park, Jack inadvertently witnesses a car crash into a nearby creek. After rescuing Sally (Nancy Allen), a young woman who was riding in the vehicle and the sole survivor of the crash, Jack finds himself drawn into a conspiracy that endangers both of their lives.
A spiritual contemporary to the likes of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation and Alan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View, Blow Out is an impeccably well-shot, paranoia-inducing thriller with a final act that’s guaranteed to stick with well after the credits roll. And yeah, it goes without saying that a movie with a focus on recording sound effects would itself have great sound design, but seriously, the sound design and score in Blow Out is amazing. —TE