Every month, Netflix adds 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.)
‘The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile’
Started streaming: Oct. 1
The country music singer Tanya Tucker was still a teenager when she recorded her first hit songs in the early 1970s; and hitting the top of the charts at a young age soon led to problems like substance abuse, bad relationships and stage fright. The director Kathlyn Horan’s documentary “The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile” uses the recording and release of a 2019 Tucker comeback album — spearheaded by the modern alt-country stars Carlile and Shooter Jennings — as the frame for a more comprehensive look at the musician’s tumultuous life. This is a touching movie about an artist trying to find her voice and purpose again, helped by two famous fans who sometimes struggle to convince Tucker that they know what they are doing.
‘Lupin’ Part 3
Starts streaming: Oct. 5
After a long layoff, the hit French adventure series “Lupin” is back for seven more episodes of high-stakes heists and sly social commentary. Omar Sy returns as Assane Diop, who has turned his disgust with the rich and powerful — and his love of the author Maurice Leblanc’s gentleman thief character Arsène Lupin — into a lucrative career as a criminal mastermind. The show’s twisty plotting jumps between thrilling caper sequences and scenes that explore Assane’s past as the son of a Senegalese immigrant. The previous set of episodes ended with the hero achieving one of his major goals: exacting revenge on his family’s greatest enemy. The new set begins with Assane on the run and plotting his next moves — which are complicated by his becoming something of a national folk hero.
‘Fair Play’
Starts streaming: Oct. 6
This edgy business-world drama was a sensation at Sundance earlier this year, stirring up audiences with its story of two ambitious young hedge fund analysts — Emily (Phoebe Dynevor from “Bridgerton”) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich from “Solo”) — whose passionate secret love affair starts going sour after Emily is promoted into a supervisory position at their firm. The writer-director Chloe Domont worked previously on “Billions” and “Ballers,” two TV series that examine how money and power complicate interpersonal relationships. With “Fair Play,” Domont also factors in gender roles, as the couple is pulled apart by the demands of an industry that values macho swagger. The film has the rhythm of a thriller, anchored by the question of whether Emily and Luke’s romance and careers can survive her sudden success.
‘The Fall of the House of Usher’
Starts streaming: Oct. 12
The third of the writer-director Mike Flanagan’s literary horror mini-series for Netflix (after “The Haunting of Hill House” and “The Haunting of Bly Manor”) uses the Edgar Allan Poe short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” as a jumping-off point for a social satire with gothic overtones. Bruce Greenwood plays Roderick Usher, the patriarch of a large and wealthy family that has made much of its fortune peddling dangerous pharmaceuticals. When all of his grown children begin dying, Roderick tells the crusading attorney C. Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly) the story of his tragedy scarred, supernaturally plagued life. Flanagan and his writers borrow names and ideas from other Poe books; but they have set their saga and its thematic concerns in the modern day, with a stellar cast that also includes Mark Hamill, Carla Gugino, Mary McDonnell and Henry Thomas.
‘Pain Hustlers’
Starts streaming: Oct. 27
Emily Blunt and Chris Evans play persuasive pharmaceutical salespeople in the drama “Pain Hustlers,” the latest in a recent string of films and TV series that dig into the roots of America’s opioid crisis. The movie is directed by David Yates, who has spent much of the past 15 years at the helm of the Harry Potter movie franchise; and it was scripted by Wells Tower, who has won acclaim as an author of short fiction. These two adapt Evan Hughes’s nonfiction book of the same name, turning it into a fast-paced and fact-filled big business exposé. It is similar to the likes of “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “The Big Short” in the way it uses documentary-style interludes and charismatic antiheroes to tell the story of how greed and lax ethics played a role in the systemic overprescribing of painkillers.
Also arriving:
Oct. 4
“Beckham”
“Race to the Summit”
Oct. 5
“Everything Now” Season 1
Oct. 6
“Ballerina”
“A Deadly Invitation”
Oct. 10
“Last One Standing” Season 2
Oct. 11
“Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul”
“Once Upon a Star”
“Pact of Silence” Season 1
Oct. 12
“Good Night World” Season 1
Oct. 13
“The Conference”
Oct. 17
“The Devil on Trial”
Oct. 19
“Bodies”
“Crypto Boy”
“Neon” Season 1
Oct. 20
“Creature”
“Doona!”
“Elite” Season 7
“Old Dads”
“Surviving Paradise”
“Vjeran Tomic: The Spider-Man of Paris”
Oct. 25
“Life on Our Planet” Season 1
Oct. 26
“Pluto” Season 1
Oct. 27
“Sister Death”
“Tore”
“Yellow Door: ’90s Lo-Fi Film Club”
