New high-profile releases come every month to most major streaming platforms. Whether it’s highly anticipated new releases or classic films making their return, these movies attract audiences’ attention, ruling the streaming charts and remaining popular throughout the month and beyond. In October, you can check out the best new movies on Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, and more to find something to watch this spooky season.
However, several smaller, underrated, and often overlooked movies also make their way to streaming services, even if they don’t attract the same attention as the more conventional offerings. These unsung films are just as worthy of audiences’ attention, even if they lack the same name recognition as other, more popular pictures. Indeed, these movies are among the best underrated hidden gems to watch this October for fans of new and exciting films.
Maika Monroe stars in the 2014 horror movie It Follows. The plot centers on Jay, a young woman stalked by a supernatural entity after a sexual encounter. Keir Gilchrist and Olivia Luccardi also star in the film, written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, who remains one of the most promising and underrated writer-directors.
Although It Follows was a sleeper hit on its original release and received significant praise from critics, it remains an unfairly underappreciated horror gem. The highly competitive horror landscape makes several worthy films slip through the cracks, even if they enjoy a fair amount of success during their initial release. Still, It Follows deserves its followers, as it offers an even mix of thrills and thought-provoking chills that make it a memorable and refreshing entry into the horror genre and one of the best horror movies on Hulu.
It Follows is available on Hulu.
The Western genre has slowly made a comeback in recent years, largely thanks to ambitious and refreshing films like Bone Tomahawk. Kurt Russell leads an impressive cast that includes Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox, and Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins, in the story of a small-town sheriff leading a party to rescue three people from a band of cannibalistic cave-dwellers.
You would think a film about cowboys shooting cannibals would have been more popular. Alas, Bone Tomahawk remains a highly underrated effort from writer-director S. Craig Zahler. Elevated by Russell’s ever-reliable star power and an equally committed supporting cast, Bone Tomahawk is the perfect blend of gore, Western action, and thrills. Few films are more ideal to watch this October than this Western nightmare.
Bone Tomahawk is available on Tubi.
Video game adaptations are infamous for being bad, but Werewolves Within is the exception. Josh Ruben directs an ensemble cast that includes Sam Richardson, Cheyenne Jackson, and Harvey Guillén in a film about a group of small-town inhabitants trapped by a snowstorm who begin to suspect one of them is a werewolf.
Werewolves Within is among the all-time best video game movies. It expertly captures its source material’s essence, effortlessly balancing comedy and bloody chills while remaining compelling and entertaining. Despite the considerable critical acclaim, Werewolves Within remains underrated among mainstream audiences, but it’s high time we change that. The film is a riot deserving of every praise it’s gotten and more, and there is no better way to spend an October night than watching this hilarious and spooky horror-comedy.
Werewolves Within is available on Hulu.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.