Stream These 9 Movies Before They Leave Netflix in October

Netflix’s venerable DVD wing shut its doors this month, and that’s not all that’s disappearing; Oscar winners, period pieces, genre thrillers and comedy classics are among the titles leaving Netflix in the United States in October. (Dates indicate the final day a title is available.)

‘The Rental’ (Oct. 1)

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This horror thriller from the actor and director Dave Franco — written with his co-star and offscreen partner Alison Brie and the indie stalwart Joe Swanberg — may well have benefited from what seemed like unfortunate timing: It was released in July of 2020, to the drive-ins that were the only operating movie theaters in those early days of the pandemic. Plenty of folks were also taking that opportunity to escape their surroundings and hole up in Airbnbs, so this story of two couples on an isolated weekend getaway in a rental home may have landed with more bite than even its skilled filmmakers intended.

‘Cliffhanger’ (Oct. 31)

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There’s a bit of a Stallone-assaince in the air, thanks to his streaming hit “Tulsa King,” the return of the “Expendables” franchise and a coming Netflix documentary. So it’s a fine time to revisit one of his best films of a not-so-great era: this 1993 action-adventure, frequently (but accurately) described as “‘Die Hard’ on a Mountain.” Stallone stars as a Rocky Mountain rescue worker who has a stranded climber slip through his fingers and plunge to her death in an intense, terrifying opening sequence. When he faces a supervillain (played with relish by a scenery-chewing John Lithgow) who has hijacked and crashed a plane full of cash, our hero has to rediscover his mettle. The director Renny Harlin stages the copious stunts and set pieces with eye-opening verisimilitude, and Stallone, though typically cast as superhuman brutes, proves adaptable to his John McClane-style Everyman role.

‘Collateral’ (Oct. 31)

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With Michael Mann’s “Ferrari” speeding into theaters for Christmas, the time is right to revisit the writer and director’s earlier auto-based action drama. Tom Cruise is calm, cool and chilling as an unnamed killer-for-hire who has a few hours in Los Angeles to take care of several “errands”; Jamie Foxx, at his most charismatic, is the poor cabby unfortunate enough to be hired to shuttle Cruise’s killer around town. Mann’s signatures are all accounted for — pulsing music, electrifying action sequences, smeary nighttime photography, effortless cool — but there are also generous and affecting doses of dark humor and character-driven drama.

‘Coming to America’ (Oct. 31)

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Eddie Murphy was the biggest movie star on the planet in 1988, and he could’ve easily continued to crank out fast-talking turns in “Beverly Hills Cop” and “48 HRS.”-style action-comedies for eternity. Instead, he developed and starred in this (comparatively) gentle and funny romantic comedy, playing against type as the soft-spoken Prince Akeem of the fictional African nation of Zamunda, who flees his homeland on the eve of his arranged marriage in order to find a wife he actually loves. He looks in what sounds like the perfect spot: Queens. Murphy is charming, the supporting cast is stacked, and the director John Landis’s ingenious inclination to have Murphy and his co-star Arsenio Hall play multiple roles results in some of the funniest and most quotable scenes of Murphy’s career.

‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ (Oct. 31)

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When Matthew Broderick popped up as an overprotective parent in the summer comedy “No Hard Feelings,” older viewers couldn’t help but chuckle; this was exactly the kind of affable pushover that his most famous creation, the high school con artist Ferris Bueller, would have eaten for lunch. It remains his defining role, thanks to his affable personality, the straight-to-camera asides that make the viewer a co-conspirator and the wickedly smart dialogue of the writer and director John Hughes. But it’s not just Broderick’s show; Mia Sara charms as his girlfriend, Sloane; Jennifer Grey is a scream as his resentful sister; and best of all, the future “Succession” standout Alan Ruck is a basset hound of teenage ennui as Ferris’s best buddy, Cameron.

‘Girl, Interrupted’ (Oct. 31)

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Angelina Jolie won the Academy Award for best supporting actress for her scorching turn in this adaptation of the best-selling memoir by Susanna Kaysen, and it was something less than a surprise; it’s the kind of role that’s written to steal the show, a ferocious yet charismatic troublemaker who gets an equal proportion of laugh lines and breakdowns. But there’s much more to recommend here: the sensitive and atmospheric direction by James Mangold (whose varied filmography went on to include “Logan,” “3:10 to Yuma” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”); the heartbreaking supporting work by Brittany Murphy and Whoopi Goldberg; and the especially striking lead performance of Winona Ryder as Kaysen’s avatar, a suicidal neurotic whose time in a Massachusetts mental hospital is both harrowing and healing.

‘Pride & Prejudice’ (Oct. 31)

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Viewers who know Matthew Macfadyen only as the ruthless social climber of “Succession” may be shocked by the humanity (and natural British accent) he brings to the role of Mr. Darcy in this delightfully energetic adaptation of the Jane Austen classic. The director Joe Wright (“Atonement”), in his feature film debut, stages it all with verve and wit, and Keira Knightley is marvelous as the plucky and gregarious Elizabeth Bennet. The jaw-dropping supporting cast includes Brenda Blethyn, Judi Dench, Tom Hollander, Jena Malone, Carey Mulligan, Rosamund Pike and Donald Sutherland.

‘Reservoir Dogs’ (Oct. 31)

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Few films of the 1990s announced, with the piercing clarity of a schoolyard whistle, the arrival of a startling new talent like this 1992 feature debut of the writer and director Quentin Tarantino. Exploding at that year’s Sundance Film Festival like a stick of dynamite, “Dogs” shook up the previously artsy expectations of independent cinema, thanks to what would become the Tarantino trademarks of stylized violence, pop culture-infused dialogue, incongruent needle drops, scrambled chronology and tough talk from a stacked cast (including Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Tim Roth and Tarantino himself). All would become clichés in the ensuing decade, but “Reservoir Dogs” still sparks with the electricity of a born filmmaker, already working with considerable confidence and skill.

‘Steel Magnolias’ (Oct. 31)

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Robert Harling’s adaptation of his modest Off Broadway play set entirely in the beauty parlor of a small Louisiana town was brought to the big screen in 1989 as a big event. The director Herbert Ross (“The Turning Point,” “The Goodbye Girl”) filled his cast with boldfaced names: the Oscar winners Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine and Olympia Dukakis; the ’80s icon Daryl Hannah; the force of nature Dolly Parton; and a then-unknown actress named Julia Roberts, who ended up landing, surprisingly enough, the film’s only Academy Award nomination. Despite Ross’s efforts to open it up, “Steel Magnolias” still feels like a filmed play, and that’s to its benefit; the characters are big, the emotions are bigger, and the comic dialogue has the zing of a Southern-fried Neil Simon.