7 Must-Watch Movies Leaving Netflix in September

Image via TriStar Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection Published Aug 26, 2026, 6:05 AM EDT Laura is a born-and-raised Dominican creative with a deep passion for animation and an unhealthy obsession with Studio Ghibli. She has worked as Collider’s Social Media Coordinator since January 2021, where she oversees everything from day-to-day audience engagement to long-term growth strategies across all major social platforms. Working closely within the entertainment industry has allowed Laura to develop a more critical and informed perspective on the media she consumes, which led to her training as a Features Writer in 2023. Since then, she has been avidly writing whatever she is allowed to put her hands on. One of the highlights of Laura’s career has been the opportunity to interview several notable creatives behind the shows and films she loves. These include Dandadan Season 1 producer Hiroshi Kamei, voice actors Abby Trott, AJ Beckles, and Aleks Le, as well as Arcane showrunner Christian Linke, co-director Barthélemy Maunoury, and co-executive producer Amanda Overton. Sign in to your Collider account Just as the leaves begin to change and the days get a little shorter, Netflix's catalog does too. As the streamer makes room for new movies and shows this fall, some beloved classics, modern favorites, and critically acclaimed gems are getting ready to say goodbye. Luckily, there's still time to squeeze in a few last-minute watches before they're gone. Whether you're in the mood to watch a champion fight his way back to the top, cry your eyes out over a doomed love story, revisit a movie you grew up with, or discover a critically acclaimed drama you somehow missed, there should be something here for you. Without further ado, let's list the absolute best movies leaving the streaming giant this month. If any of these films have been sitting on your watchlist, or you're simply looking for an excuse to revisit an old favorite, now is the perfect time. 'Creed' (2015) Leaving September 1 Image via Warner Bros. Before Michael B. Jordan was starring in Marvel movies and giving the dual performance of a lifetime for Sinners, he stepped into one of cinema's most iconic franchises. Taking over the role of the new face of the Rocky universe, Jordan stars as Adonis Creed, the son of legendary boxer Apollo Creed, played by the late Carl Weathers. Across the Creed trilogy, Adonis follows in his father's footsteps while trying to build a legacy of his own, with Sylvester Stallone returning as Rocky Balboa to guide him along the way. The three movies have been available to stream on Netflix for most of the year, but their time on the platform is coming to an end. Netflix has confirmed that all three Creed movies will leave the streamer at the end of August, meaning August 31 will be the last day to watch the complete trilogy on Netflix. At the moment, it's unclear where the films will land next, so if you've been meaning to revisit Adonis' journey or haven't experienced the trilogy yet, now is the perfect time to settle in for one last Creed marathon. 'The Fault in Our Stars' (2014) Leaving September 1 Image via 20th Century Studios The Fault in Our Stars is the kind of movie that promises you'll need a box of tissues nearby. Based on John Green's bestselling 2012 novel, this romantic drama follows Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley), a 16-year-old living with cancer who is reluctantly convinced by her parents to attend a support group. There, she meets Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort), a charming cancer survivor who quickly turns her perspective on life upside down. What starts as a friendship between them soon develops into romance as Hazel and Augustus bond over their shared experiences, their fears about the future, and their love of books. Together, they try to make the most of the time they have, finding humor and happiness despite the difficult circumstances surrounding them. Directed by Josh Boone, The Fault in Our Stars became a major hit with audiences, particularly among fans of young adult romance. While the story tackles some undeniably heavy themes, it never forgets to give its characters moments of joy, humor, and connection. Plus, the movie is very popular for having a killer soundtrack. 'Matilda' (1996) Leaving September 1 Image via TriStar Pictures The '90s really were a golden age for family movies, and while the decade gave us plenty of timeless classics, few are as instantly recognizable as Matilda. Based on Roald Dahl's children's novel, this fantasy comedy film follows Matilda Wormwood (Mara Wilson), a brilliant girl who happens to be stuck with a family that doesn't appreciate just how special she is. Ignored and mistreated by her parents, Matilda finds some much-needed comfort at school, only to discover that the school's terrifying principal, Miss Trunchbull (Pam Ferris), is somehow even worse. But when Matilda realizes she has developed psychokinetic abilities, she begins standing up to the adults who make her life miserable. Matilda received positive reviews from critics, who praised its faithfulness to Dahl's novel and Danny DeVito's direction. It wasn't a massive box office hit, earning $47 million against a $36 million budget, but its reputation has only grown over the years. Nearly three decades later, Matilda remains one of those movies that feels just as magical as it did the first time you watched it. 'Rocky' (1976) Leaving September 1 Image via United Artists Creed isn't the only fighter making his way out of Netflix this month. Long before Michael B. Jordan stepped into the Rocky universe, Sylvester Stallone created one of cinema's most iconic underdog stories with Rocky. Written by and starring Stallone, the 1976 sports drama follows Rocky Balboa, a small-time Philadelphia boxer who gets the opportunity of a lifetime when he's chosen to fight Apollo Creed, the reigning world heavyweight champion. What makes Rocky so memorable isn't just the boxing; it's a story about self-respect, perseverance, and refusing to give up, themes that have kept it relevant for nearly 50 years. The movie was a massive success, earning more than $225 million worldwide on a budget of just $1 million and taking home three Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Widely considered one of the greatest sports movies ever made, Rocky remains an essential watch, and with the rest of the films in the franchise, plus the entire Creed trilogy also leaving Netflix, this is the perfect opportunity for one last boxing marathon. Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best PictureIs Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one. 🪜Parasite 🌀Everything Everywhere ☢️Oppenheimer 🐦Birdman 🪙No Country for Old Men FIND YOUR FILM → 01 What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don't just entertain — they leave something behind. ASomething that pulls the rug out — that makes me think I'm watching one kind of film and then reveals I'm watching another entirely. BSomething overwhelming — funny, sad, absurd, and genuinely moving, all at once. CSomething grand and weighty — a film that makes me feel the full scale of what I'm watching. DSomething formally daring — a film that pushes what cinema can even do. ESomething lean and relentless — pure tension with no wasted frame. NEXT QUESTION → 02 Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What's yours? AClass, inequality, and what people are willing to do when desperation meets opportunity. BIdentity, family, and the chaos of trying to hold your life together when everything is falling apart. CGenius, moral responsibility, and the catastrophic weight of a decision you can never take back. DEgo, legacy, and the terror of becoming irrelevant while you're still alive to watch it happen. EEvil, chance, and whether moral order actually exists or if we just tell ourselves it does. NEXT QUESTION → 03 How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means. AGenre-twisting — I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different. BMaximalist and genre-blending — comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, all in one ride. CEpic and non-linear — cutting between timelines, building a mosaic of cause and consequence. DA single unbroken flow — I want to feel like I'm living it in real time, no cuts to safety. ESpare and precise — every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more. NEXT QUESTION → 04 What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you? AA system — invisible, structural, and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face. BThe self — the ways we sabotage, abandon, and fail the people we love most. CHistory — the unstoppable momentum of events that no single person can stop or redirect. DThe industry — the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance. EPure, implacable evil — a force so certain of itself it becomes almost philosophical. NEXT QUESTION → 05 What do you want from a film's ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like? AShock and inevitability — a conclusion that recontextualises everything that came before it. BEarned emotion — I want to cry, laugh, and feel genuinely hopeful, even if the world is a mess. CDevastation and grandeur — an ending that makes me sit in silence for a few minutes after. DAmbiguity — something that leaves enough open that I'm still thinking about it days later. EBleakness — an honest refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it actually is. NEXT QUESTION → 06 Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what's even possible. AA gleaming modern city with a hidden underside — beauty masking rot, wealth masking desperation. BA collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite — the multiverse of a single ordinary person. CThe corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point — where decisions echo for decades. DThe grimy, alive chaos of New York and Hollywood — fame as both destination and trap. EVast, indifferent landscape — desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason. NEXT QUESTION → 07 What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable. AProduction design and mise-en-scène — every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface. BEditing and tonal control — the ability to move between registers without losing the audience. CScore and sound design — music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you're watching. DCinematography as performance — the camera not recording events but participating in them. ESilence and restraint — what's left unsaid and unshown doing more work than any dialogue could. NEXT QUESTION → 08 What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you. ASomeone smart and resourceful who makes increasingly dangerous decisions under pressure. BSomeone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary. CA brilliant, tortured figure whose gifts and flaws are inseparable from each other. DA self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing. EA quiet, principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense. NEXT QUESTION → 09 How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately. AI love a slow build when I know the payoff is going to be seismic — patience for a devastating reveal. BGive me relentless momentum — I want to feel breathless and emotionally spent by the end. CEpic runtime doesn't scare me — if the material demands three hours, give me three hours. DI want it to feel propulsive even when nothing is technically happening — restless energy throughout. EDeliberate and unhurried — I want dread to accumulate in the spaces between the action. NEXT QUESTION → 10 What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want? AUnsettled — like I've just seen something I can't fully explain but can't stop thinking about. BMoved and energised — like the film reminded me what actually matters and gave me something to hold onto. CHumbled — like I've been in the presence of something genuinely important and overwhelming. DExhilarated — like I've just seen cinema doing something it's never quite done before. EHaunted — like a cold, quiet dread that stays with me for days. REVEAL MY FILM → The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works. ParasiteYou are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it's ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image. Everything Everywhere All at OnceYou want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn't want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it's about. OppenheimerYou are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort. BirdmanYou are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it's about. Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor's ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn't be possible. Michael Keaton's performance and Emmanuel Lubezki's restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all. No Country for Old MenYou are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 'Scooby-Doo' (2002) Leaving September 1 Image via Warner Bros. If you're looking for a little nostalgia before Scooby-Doo leaves Netflix, the 2002 live-action movie is an easy choice. The film brings the Mystery Inc. gang to the big screen, with Freddie Prinze Jr. as Fred, Sarah Michelle Gellar as Daphne, Matthew Lillard as Shaggy, Linda Cardellini as Velma, and, of course, Scooby-Doo himself. The movie finds the gang reuniting two years after a falling-out to investigate a series of strange occurrences on Spooky Island, a tropical resort where something sinister seems to be going on. Directed by Raja Gosnell, Scooby-Doo doesn't take itself too seriously, embracing the colorful costumes, ridiculous mysteries, and goofy humor that made the original cartoon such a beloved part of many people's childhoods. The movie also became a solid box office success, earning more than $275 million worldwide despite mixed reviews from critics. While it may not have reinvented the wheel, its campy humor and committed performances have helped it become a nostalgic favorite over the years. If you grew up watching Scooby and the gang unmask villains on Saturday mornings, there's no better excuse for a little trip down memory lane before this one disappears from Netflix. 'Zombieland' (2009) Leaving September 1 Apocalypse and zombie films are aplenty in movie history, but there's one that stands out for being a perfect mix of horror, comedy, and ridiculous zombie-killing fun. Zombieland takes place after a zombie outbreak has turned most of the United States into a wasteland, following Columbus ( Jesse Eisenberg), a cautious college student who has managed to survive by sticking to a strict list of rules, until he meets the fearless Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), and the two eventually team up with sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). What follows is less of a traditional zombie survival story and more of a chaotic road trip, as the unlikely group makes its way across the country while trying to stay alive and not drive each other completely insane. The movie's mix of sharp comedy and surprisingly sweet moments helped it stand out in a genre that had already become pretty crowded. Zombieland was also a solid box office success, earning more than $100 million worldwide against a budget of around $23 million. Its popularity eventually led to a sequel, Zombieland: Double Tap, more than a decade later. 'Anatomy of a Fall' (2023) Leaving September 23 Image via NEON If you're going to watch one single movie from this list, make it this. Anatomy of a Fall is an incessant mystery that will have you questioning what really happened until the very end. The French courtroom drama follows Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller), a successful German writer whose life is turned upside down when her husband, Samuel (Samuel Theis), is found dead outside their remote home in the French Alps. What initially appears to be a tragic accident becomes a murder investigation, with Sandra becoming the prime suspect. As the case makes its way to court, the movie slowly peels back the layers of Sandra and Samuel's complicated marriage. Their arguments, personal struggles, and conflicting versions of their relationship are brought under intense scrutiny, leaving both the characters and the audience to wonder just how well we can ever know another person. The film also puts their visually impaired son, Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner), at the center of the story, forcing him to confront painful questions about his parents and what he believes happened to his father. Anatomy of a Fall became one of 2023's most acclaimed films, winning the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and earning five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. It ultimately won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. With its brilliant performances and fascinating approach to truth, guilt, and relationships, this is truly a must-watch before it leaves Netflix. Anatomy of a Fall Release Date May 22, 2023 Runtime 151 Minutes Director Justine Triet Writers Justine Triet, Arthur Harari Main Genre Drama Budget $6.6 Million Studio(s) Les Films Pelléas, Les Films de Pierre Distributor(s) Neon