The Best Movies and TV Shows Streaming in October: ‘Loki,’ ‘Goosebumps’ and More

Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of October’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)

New to Amazon Prime Video

‘Totally Killer’
Starts streaming: Oct. 6

The offbeat horror-comedy “Totally Killer” is a 1980s-style slasher film with a science-fiction twist. Kiernan Shipka stars as Jamie, a rebellious teenager who has lived her whole life in a small town that was the site of an infamous string of unsolved murders in 1987. When the masked killer — or perhaps a copycat — reappears and slays Jamie’s mother, Pam (Julie Bowen), Jamie travels back in time to 1987 to stop the original spree. While trying to figure out the identity of a knife-wielding maniac, the heroine handles the culture-clash of being a 2020s high school kid stranded in a clique-dominated, politically incorrect era.

Also arriving:

Oct. 3
“Make Me Scream”

Oct. 6
“Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe”

Oct. 10
“Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe”

Oct. 11
“Awareness”
“The Greatest Show Never Made”

Oct. 13
“The Burial”
“Everybody Loves Diamonds”

Oct. 20
“Bosch: Legacy” Season 2
“Upload” Season 3

Oct. 24
“Hot Potato: The Story of the Wiggles”
“Zainab Johnson: Hijabs Off”

Oct. 26
“Sebastian Fitzek’s Therapy”

Oct. 27
“The Girl Who Killed Her Parents: The Confession”

New to Apple TV+

‘Lessons in Chemistry’
Starts streaming: Oct. 13

Based on a Bonnie Garmus novel, this mini-series stars Brie Larson as Elizabeth Zott, a talented chemist who struggles to be taken seriously in the sexist 1950s scientific community. When her brazen defiance of her lab’s rules — coupled with an unwillingness to be subservient and girlie — gets her fired, Elizabeth reinvents herself as the host of a science-focused TV cooking show. “Lessons in Chemistry” covers a decade in the heroine’s life, balancing her rise to fame with her early struggles, while also following her brilliant, eccentric colleague and love interest Calvin Evans (Lewis Pullman). A combination of “Mad Men” and “Julia” — with a little bit of “Oppenheimer” mixed in — the series is a portrait of smart, independent people bucking the conformity of their times.

Also arriving:

Oct. 20
“The Pigeon Tunnel”
“Shape Island: Creepy Cave Crawl”

Oct. 27
“The Enfield Poltergeist”
“Curses!” Season 1

New to Disney+

‘Loki’ Season 2
Starts streaming: Oct. 5

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has lately been all about the multiverse, with movies and TV series offering alternate versions of the classic Marvel characters living in parallel realities. Season 1 of “Loki” got that ball rolling, with a creative and mind-bending story about the roguish Norse deity running afoul of the timeline watchdogs in the Time Variance Authority. For Season 2, Tom Hiddleston returns as Loki and Owen Wilson is back as the frequently flustered TVA agent Mobius M. Mobius. Because of the proliferation of new multiverses unleashed in the Season 1 finale, many of the show’s characters find themselves subtly altered and stuck in other worlds, necessitating another trip through time, space and dimensions for these unlikely heroes.

Also arriving:

Oct. 2
“Mickey and Friends Trick or Treats”

Oct. 11
“4EVER”

Oct. 13
“Goosebumps” Season 1

Oct. 25
“Primal Survivor: Extreme African Safari”

Oct. 27
“LEGO Marvel Avengers: Code Red”

New to Hulu

‘Goosebumps’ Season 1
Starts streaming: Oct. 13

R.L. Stine’s perennially popular “Goosebumps” young adult horror novels get a new television adaptation, although unlike the original 1990s anthology TV series, this latest version (available on Hulu and Disney+) features concepts from Stine’s books inserted into a larger serialized story, with a single cast. Justin Long plays Nathan Bratt, the new high school English teacher in a quaint small town, as well as the new owner of a spooky old house that the local teenagers like to use for their parties. Before Mr. Bratt chases the kids away from their annual Halloween bash, five of them encounter haunted objects that change their lives and put the community in danger.

Also arriving:

Oct. 1
“Ash vs. Evil Dead” Season 1-3
“Crazy Fun Park”
“Stephen King’s Rose Red”

Oct. 2
“Appendage”
“Fright Crewe” Season 1

Oct. 5
“The Boogeyman”

Oct. 6
“Bobi Wine: The People’s President”
“Undead Unlock”

Oct. 9
“The Mill”

Oct. 10
“Moonlighting” Seasons 1-5

Oct. 11
“Nada” Season 1

Oct. 12
“Monster Inside: America’s Most Extreme Haunted House”

Oct. 13
“Nocebo”

Oct. 14
“Empire of Light”

Oct. 15
“Slotherhouse”

Oct. 18
“Living for the Dead” Season 1

Oct. 20
“Cobweb”

Oct. 26
“American Horror Stories” Season 3

Oct. 27
“Explorer: Lake of Fire”
“Shoresy” Season 2

New to Max

‘Our Flag Means Death’ Season 2
Starts streaming: Oct. 5

The first season of “Our Flag Means Death” arrived without a lot of fanfare. Initially, the show looked to be just a mild-mannered pirate parody, about a ship full of misfit outlaws led by the inept captain Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby). But as the season rolled on — and as Stede’s rivalry and romance with the notorious Blackbeard (Taika Waititi) became more central to the plot — the series’ creator David Jenkins began focusing more on piracy as a haven for people who yearn to live outside the mainstream. Season 1 ended on a cliffhanger, with Stede’s crew stranded on a deserted island and Blackbeard determined to get back to being mean. Fans have been eager ever since to learn how these twists will affect one of TV’s sweetest love stories.

‘The Gilded Age’ Season 2
Starts streaming: Oct. 29

The “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes brings his uncommon knack for energetic historical melodrama to “The Gilded Age,” a lavishly decorated and irresistibly entertaining look at high society in 1880s New York City. Carrie Coon is superb as a shrewd social climber, married to a nouveau-riche tycoon (Morgan Spector) whose ruthless business tactics irritate the old money types. The rest of the cast includes Louisa Jacobson as a restless young woman living with her eccentric, judgmental aunts (Christine Baranski and Cynthia Nixon) and Denée Benton as an aspiring writer defying the era’s racist biases. Season 2 will continue Fellowes’s fascination with a pivotal era in American culture, when the upper-crust considered whether an ascendant democracy should still be following Europe’s unwritten rules of etiquette.

Also arriving:

Oct. 1
“The Ringleader: The Case of the Bling Ring”

Oct. 8
“Last Stop Larrimah”

Oct. 12
“Doom Patrol” Season 4

Oct. 19

“Peter and the Wolf”
“Scavengers Reign”

Oct. 22
“AKA Mr. Chow”

Oct. 23
“30 Coins” Season 2

New to Paramount+ with Showtime

‘The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial’
Starts streaming: Oct. 6

The final film from William Friedkin is both an adaptation of Herman Wouk’s provocative 1953 play “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” (updated to modern times by Friedkin, who wrote the screenplay) and a summation of the director’s career-long fascination with the line between legal authority and raw power, as seen in his classic films “The French Connection” and “To Live and Die in L.A.” Jason Clarke plays Lieutenant Barney Greenwald, a Navy lawyer defending Lt. Stephen Maryk, who defied orders and relieved his commanding officer Lt. Cmdr. Phillip Queeg (Kiefer Sutherland) of duty during a storm. Though mostly confined to one courtroom set, the movie is a thrilling actors’ showcase; and as with the play, it toys with the audience’s sympathies, raising questions about how justice is properly served in a case involving the rigid military chain of command.

‘Frasier’ Season 1
Starts streaming: Oct. 12

Kelsey Grammer returns to his most famous role, in a sequel series that surrounds the fussy psychiatrist Frasier Crane with a mostly new cast of characters. Crane moves back to Boston from Seattle and gets involved in the lives of his son, Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott), and his nephew, David (Anders Keith). Freddy has turned out a lot like Frasier’s father, Martin — rugged and unpretentious — while David has the same dry wit and nervous energy as Frasier’s brother, Niles. Like the old “Frasier,” this new one traffics in farce, with the comedy driven by misunderstandings and personality clashes.

‘Fellow Travelers’
Starts streaming: Oct. 27

This historical romance tells a story that stretches from the 1950s to the ’80s, tracing a love affair between two political consultants whose lives are affected by the changing times. Matt Bomer plays Hawkins Fuller, a savvy, politically flexible congressional aide who has a fling with Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey), a right-wing speechwriter who admires Joseph McCarthy. Their relationship stretches across decades, through the more permissive ’60s and ’70s and into the conservative revival of the Reagan era. Adapted by the Oscar-nominated “Philadelphia” screenwriter Ron Nyswaner from a Thomas Mallon novel, “Fellow Travelers” is dotted with real-life historical figures and explicitly erotic sex scenes, illustrating how basic human needs can be undone by political expediency.

Also arriving:

Oct. 5
“Bargain”
“Monster High 2”

Oct. 6
“Pet Sematary: Bloodlines”

Oct. 10
“Painkiller: The Tylenol Murders”

Oct. 16
“Vindicta”

Oct. 17
“Crush”

Oct. 24
“Milli Vanilli”

New to Peacock

‘John Carpenter’s Suburban Screams’
Starts streaming: Oct. 13

The influential genre filmmaker and composer John Carpenter lends his name, his music and — for one episode — his directing talents to this hybrid anthology series, which combines true crime and horror. Each episode is anchored by interviews with ordinary people who experienced something extraordinary, encountering real evil in the form of the creeps, the killers and the unexplained phenomena in their seemingly placid neighborhoods. The interviews provide the basic details for these tales; and then the bulk of each “Suburban Screams” episode consists of lengthy re-enactments that have the look and feel of an ’80s slasher movie, as though Carpenter’s “Halloween” were a documentary.

Also arriving:

Oct. 12
“Superbuns” Season 1

Oct. 19
“Wolf Like Me” Season 2

Oct. 20
“Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken”

Oct. 24
“Krishnas: Gurus. Karma. Murder.”

Oct. 27
“Five Nights at Freddy’s”
“L’il Stompers” Season 1