October streaming highlights

Luca Fontana

1.10.2025

Translation: Elicia Payne

New month, new streaming recommendations. From Netflix to Disney+, Sky Show, Apple TV+ and Paramount+, these are our series and film picks on streaming services this October.

How do you defeat a werewolf with ease? You have to talk to it. Because speech is silver, silence is golden. But it’s still best to binge-watch. That’s exactly what my streaming highlights are for.

Showrunner, producer and author Ryan Murphy picks up where he left off with Dahmer and the Menendez brothers: he delves into the abysses of real American nightmares. Season 3 of Monster is about none other than Ed Gein, the notorious serial killer and grave robber from Wisconsin, whose deeds in the 1950s were so bizarre and gruesome that they shaped Hollywood horror forever.

This time it’s Charlie Hunnam who takes on the role of the guy who made furniture and clothes out of body parts that subsequently became the template for Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs. At his side, Laurie Metcalf plays the fanatical puritan mother Augusta Gein, who isolated her son from the world and thus inadvertently prepared the ground for his obsessions.

Monster: The Ed Gein Story doesn’t promise an easy binge-watch, but a disturbing look at one of the most influential killers in American criminal history. Tough, but hopefully good stuff.

Starts: 3 October

A House of Dynamite (movie)

There are movies that are loud, and there are movies that are controversial. A House of Dynamite is attempting to be both. Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) returns after an eight-year break – and she does so with a political thriller that catapults us right into the heart of nuclear paranoia.

The story is as simple as it is frightening: a single, unattributed missile attack on the USA triggers a global race to find out who’s responsible and how the world should react. Rebecca Ferguson, Idris Elba and half a dozen other stars fight for the future of the world in a web of mistrust, secret diplomacy and pure fear. Sounds exciting.

Bigelow herself wants to draw attention to a paradox with her film. Namely, that we’re constantly living in the shadow of total destruction, but hardly talk about it. The result is a thriller that tries to be both thought-provoking and a kick in the gut – or a matchstick in a fuel can.

Starts: 24 October

Ballad of a Small Player (Film)

Nighttime in Macau. Doyle straightens his suit, adjusts his tie, counts his rituals like others count their prayers. Then he throws himself back into it: baccarat, champagne, self-delusion. All Quiet on the Western Front director, Edward Berger, hasn’t turned it into a classic gambler drama, but a fever dream about escape and desire. And Colin Farrell is the heart that beats far too fast.

At least that was the initial reaction to the film’s premiere at the Telluride Film Festival at the end of August. Officially, the film will be released in cinemas on 15 October and on Netflix two weeks later. I’m excited to seewhether Berger’s trip into the abyss of a man who’s lost everything except his gambling addiction will again leave as lasting an impression as his World War I drama.

Starts: 29 October

John Candy was one of those actors who immediately exuded familiarity. Whether as a chaotic uncle in Uncle Buck or as a lovable pain in the neck in Planes, Trains & Automobiles. The new documentary John Candy: I Like Me, directed by Colin Hanks and produced by Ryan Reynolds, now tells his story.

Instead of simply stringing together the greatest hits, the film draws on private footage, family memories and conversations with companions such as Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd and Catherine O’Hara. The result creates a picture of Candy that shows him not only as a comedian, but also as a person – with all his warmth, but also with the challenges that his success brought with it.

Starts: 10 October

Hazbin Hotel, Season 2 (Series)

Yes, there’s a bit of irony in that. The concept is hellish slapstick with a heart: Charlie Morningstar, daughter of the devil, opens a hotel in which sinners are to be purified for a chance to finally get to heaven. Beneath brightly coloured musical numbers, dark humour and grotesque demonic figures, there’s a story about hope and second chances.

Season 2 builds on this crazy foundation. At the centre is a new character called Vox, the demonic media mogul who wants to take advantage of the power struggles in hell. But as always with Hazbin Hotel, there’s a surprisingly tragic note behind the cartoon façade.

Starts: 29 October

Visions was an experiment right from the start. And one that was allowed to fail. In 2021, seven Japanese studios gave the Star Wars universe new faces: there were Samurai jedi, lightsaber smiths and melancholy brides ... Sometimes they were great, sometimes weird, sometimes really bad – but always courageous. And that’s precisely what makes this format so appealing.

Volume 2 then took a slightly different approach: instead of Japanese studios, the whole world was suddenly allowed to go to the drawing board. From Spain to South Africa, the studios told their own cultural versions of Star Wars. That was also exciting and visually impressive, sure, but also more fragmented and, well, no longer an anime.

Starts: 29 October

Twisted-Wonderland: The Animation (Series)

What on earth is this Twisted Wonderland? In Japan, everyone knows exactly what it is. Originally launched as a mobile game, it’s already been downloaded tens of millions of times, spawned manga and novel adaptations and created its own merch universe. Now it’s become a pop culture giant. That’s why Disney’s taking the next step: anime.

The premise is fascinating: seven iconic Disney villains – from Maleficent to Ursula to Scar – form the basis for magical boarding houses at the elite school Night Raven College. Yuken, an ordinary schoolboy from Tokyo, stumbles into this world without knowing the magic or the rules. Instead of returning home, he faces the chaos, always accompanied by quirky companions and the constant danger of making an enemy of the wrong Disney villain.

Yep, I’m already in love.

Starts: 29 October

Derry, Maine. Fog, bicycles, red balloons in the gutter. Anyone who thought that Pennywise was history with IT: Chapter Two is mistaken. Six years after the last movie, HBO is returning to the cursed city – to where it all began: the 1960s.

Welcome to Derry tells the backstory, decades before the Losers Club, and delves deep into the historical tragedies that Stephen King described so eerily in the IT interludes. The focus lies on the catastrophic fire at the Black Spot, a nightclub that was burned down by a racist group – an event that foreshadowed Pennywise’s influence even then.

With that, the series is directly tied to King’s mythology: Derry as a city that’s not just a victim, but a breeding ground for an ancient, cosmic horror. Bill Skarsgård is back as Pennywise, the Muschietti siblings (director/producer of the films) keep it consistent, and the trailer leaves you wanting more.

Starts: 27 October

Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty) stumbles through the chaos as Remnick, while the film was actually shot in Alaska, including helicopter stunts and minute-long fights in the ice. All in all, a cinematic explosion in series format. And honestly, sometimes that’s exactly what you need.

Starts: 10 October

Down Cemetery Road (Series)

With Slow Horses, Apple has perhaps its best series to date: dirty, clever and British to the core. But now comes Down Cemetery Road, the next work from the brains of Slow Horses series creator Mick Herron, and the comparison is obvious.

This time, it all begins in a quiet suburban estate in Oxford. A house explodes, a girl disappears. Neighbour Sarah (Ruth Wilson) can’t let go and seeks help from private investigator Zoë Boehm (Emma Thompson). Together they stumble into a conspiracy so big that the dead suddenly seem to be alive – and the living are dying by the dozen.

Herron’s stories are known for merging espionage and politics with bitter humour and dangerously mysterious characters. However, Down Cemetery Road is less of a spy thriller than Slow Horses and more of a classic conspiracy story, carried by the same qualities: strong dialogue, edgy characters and a constant feeling that a bigger bomb is about to go off.

Starts: 29 October

Luca Fontana

Senior Editor

Luca.Fontana@digitecgalaxus.ch

I'm an outdoorsy guy and enjoy sports that push me to the limit – now that’s what I call comfort zone! But I'm also about curling up in an armchair with books about ugly intrigue and sinister kingkillers. Being an avid cinema-goer, I’ve been known to rave about film scores for hours on end. I’ve always wanted to say: «I am Groot.» more

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