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Netflix
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East of Eden
TV, US, 2026 – out now
John Steinbeck’s long and sprawling novel East of Eden has been brought to the screen before, with James Dean starring in a classic 1955 film directed by the legendary Elia Kazan. Kazan’s granddaughter, Zoe Kazan created and wrote Netflix’s new seven-part series, which has a more accommodating run time and puts the famously complex character of Cathy Ames (Florence Pugh) at its centre.
Set in California’s Salinas Valley, this multigenerational narrative weaves together the stories of the Trask family and explores tangled bonds between parents and children, essentially reworking the story of Cain and Abel.
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Animals
Film, US, 2026 – out 8 October
We’ve always got time for a kidnapping story, right? This one was directed and co-written by Ben Affleck, who stars as Mark Kimball, a politician running for mayor of LA whose life is thrown into turmoil when his son is kidnapped. The supporting cast includes Gillian Anderson as a “mysterious fixer” who delivers awfully important-sounding dialogue such as, “Power creates leverage, and leverage dictates outcomes.”
Affleck has described the film as being essentially about marriage: “What it means to attach yourself to someone, the bargains and exchanges.”
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Memoir of a Snail
Film, Australia, 2024 – out 15 October
Few artists have a signature aesthetic as distinctive and recognisable as Adam Elliot, the great claymation auteur whose second feature (following Mary and Max) is a sublimely humane – albeit at times breathtakingly sad – work. The story follows Grace (voiced by Charlotte Belsey and Sarah Snook), an orphaned girl from the suburbs who’s separated from her twin brother and grows into a lonely, snail-obsessed woman, her life marked by a series of hardships.
The tone is one of melancholic whimsy; the animation adorably lo-fi and tactile. This was my favourite Australian film of 2024.
Honourable mentions: The Silence of the Lambs (film, out now), Schumacher ‘94 – The Birth of a Legend (film, 2 October), Ice Age (film, 4 October), Below (TV, 8 October), How to Train Your Dragon (film, 11 October), It 1 and 2 (film, 15 October), The Addams Family (film, 23 October), Lupin: Part 4 (TV, 23 October), Annabelle (film, 28 October), The Conjuring (film, 28 October).
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Stan
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Gnomes
TV, Australia, 2026 – out 8 October
Are you like me and sometimes walk past a garden gnome, wondering whether it might’ve moved? They certainly get up and about in this comedy-horror series set in a small, quiet town, disrupted by an ancient evil force that – no doubt for very scientific and logical reasons – results in a horde of evil garden gnomes attacking.
Poor old Luke McGregor gets minced in the trailer, and presumably he’ll be far from the only victim of a “Gnome-apocalypse”. Written by comedian Tegan Higginbotham and broadcaster Paul F Verhoeven, the tone has been pitched as “Gremlins meets Hot Fuzz”.
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The Butterfly Effect
Film, US, 2004 – out 6 October
Some scenes from this immensely bold and audacious sci-fi film have never left my head after I first saw it in the cinema a couple of decades ago. I revisited it two years ago and found it to be perhaps the most horrifically bleak time-travel movie of all time.
Ashton Kutcher stars as a man who uses his personal journals to traverse the temporal continuum. No, there’s no logic to this, but boy do you feel it, each of his attempts to correct a traumatic event producing another, often more terrible consequence, the script taking a tremendously grim perspective on chaos theory.
Honourable mentions: Seinfeld seasons 1-9 (TV, out now), Looking for Alibrandi (film, out now), Kill Jackie (TV, 2 October), My Girl (film, 2 October), The Order (film, 3 October), Seven (film, 12 October), A Quiet Place Part II (film, 15 October), The Town (film, 17 October), The Wild Robot (film, 18 October), Elysium (film, 20 October), Zodiac (film, 24 October), Hostel 1 and 2 (film, 27 October), Blue Lights season 3 (TV, 28 October), The Watchers (film, 30 October).
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SBS on Demand
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70 Up
TV, UK, 2026 – out 3 October
Official synopses for movies and TV shows are filled with self-aggrandising scuttlebutt – but it’s absolutely true that the 7 Up series constitutes unique, groundbreaking television. Kicking off in 1964, when its subjects were children, the series has checked back in on their lives every seven years, and now launches its final instalment.
The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan describes 70 Up as having “a more reflective and elegiac tone than in previous years”, as well as an additional, meta-ish layer, with the subjects commenting on the series and the approach undertaken by film-maker Michael Apted, who was its key creative force.
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The Holy Mountain
Film, Mexico, 1973 – out 15 October
If you’ve never taken LSD and are curious about what a bad trip feels like, you can procure something broadly comparable by watching Chilean French film-maker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s notorious cult classic, stuffed to the gills with moments that defy description. Surreal, deranged and steeped in creepy religious imagery, the film features Jodorowsky himself as a black-clad spiritual guru who leads a group on a pilgrimage to the titular location. Its reputation for being one of cinema’s wildest rides is well deserved; you don’t bat an eyelid when you hear lines like “Rub your clitoris against the mountain!”
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Dead End Drive-In
Film, Australia, 1986 – out 14 October
Dead End Drive-In, how I love thee. Brian Trenchard-Smith’s Ozploitation classic has a great and truly strange premise, set in a dystopian world where a drive-in cinema has become a kind of concentration camp, as well as a microcosm of society, with its own economy and political factions. A young fitness enthusiast, Jimmy (Ned Manning), finds himself stranded there with his girlfriend Carmen (Natalie McCurry) and is determined to bust out, culminating in a triumphantly explosive ending.
Honourable mentions: The Lowdown (TV, out now), Drag Me to Hell (film, out now), Kill Bill 1 & 2 (film, out now), Late Night with the Devil (film, out now), Talk to Me (film, out now), Every Little Thing (film, out now), Jackie Brown (film, 9 October), Razorback (film, 9 October), The Grudge 1 & 2 (film, 9 October), The Toxic Avenger (film, 9 October), El Topo (film, 12 October), Slumdog Millionaire (film, 14 October), Family Man (film, 15 October), Death Proof (film, 20 October), Black Sea (film, 23 October), The Old Man And The Gun (film, 24 October).
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ABC iView
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Dustfall
TV, Australia, 2026 – out 10 October
Billed as “tropic noir”, which I’m not sure is a thing, this six-part crime drama casts Anna Torv (so good in The Newsreader) as a detective who returns to her home town – as just about every Aussie screen detective does – to investigate a shocking sexual assault case. The plot thickens in terrible ways, Torv’s protagonist discovering a pattern of crimes and misogyny. Every episode was directed by Emma Freeman, whose impressive oeuvre includes Fake, Stateless and Love Me.
Honourable mentions: Lynley (TV, 10 October), The State of Man (TV, 13 October).
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HBO Max
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Leviticus
Film, Australia, 2026 – out 30 October
Kick-ass Aussie horror movies just keep coming! This one, the feature debut of director Adrian Chiarella, uses the genre to unpack the terrors of prejudice and bigotry. In a small, deeply conservative and religious town, two gay teenagers, Naim (Joe Bird) and Ryan (Stacy Clausen), confront not only homophobia but also an evil supernatural force that takes the form of the object of their desire: each other.
The actors play both their characters and their demonic doppelgangers – a clever way to raise emotional intensity and put the emphasis on the cast rather than special effects. Atmospherically it’s a class act, the performances pack a punch, and thematically it’s justifiably unsubtle.
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Obsession
Film, US, 2026 – out 22 October
Curry Barker’s phenomenally successful horror movie – produced for around US$1m and grossing more than half a billion dollars at the global box office – lock and loads the ol‘ “monkey’s paw” concept, whereby a wish is granted but comes at a hideous cost. Timid protagonist Bear (Michael Johnston) wishes upon a star – well, a weird magical curio from a dodgy shop – that the girl he has the hots for, Nikki (Inde Navarrette), will love him more than anybody else in the world.
There’s a great concept for a movie here: the idea that somebody can love a person so much their love becomes a nightmare. So I was rather disappointed to discover that this well-staged film settles into a rote possession-style movie, with Nikki reduced to a conventional horror creature rather than the more psychologically interesting nightmare promised by the premise.
Honourable mentions: Unmasking A Monster: Aileen Wuornos (TV, out now), War (TV, 2 October), Freddy vs Jason (film, 10 October), The Pet Cemetery Murders: A Ghost Story (TV, 12 October), Little Shop of Horrors (film, 17 October), Newlyweds (TV, 24 October), V For Vendetta (film, 24 October).
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Prime Video
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Carrie
TV, US, 2026 – out 7 October
Brian De Palma’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel Carrie remains one of cinema’s best and most mesmerisingly lurid portraits of adolescence. Showrunner and director Mike Flanagan has distanced his miniseries from De Palma’s vision, saying there’s “no reason whatsoever to try to follow in those footsteps” and that he’d rather “build something new”. The story will of course follow the eponymous teenager (Summer H Howell), who is relentlessly bullied at school and develops telekinetic powers, presumably culminating with another blood-and-fire-bathed finale.
Honourable mentions: I would Rather Die (film, 2 October), Red Queen season 2 (TV, 2 October), The Wolf of Wall Street (film, 6 October), A Simple Favour (film, 13 October), Love of Your Life (film, 14 October), Masterplan (film, 16 October), Love in Disguise (TV, 20 October), Muriel’s Wedding (film, 20 October), The Terminal List season 2 (TV, 21 October), Drive – The Pretenders (film, 28 October).
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Disney+
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VisionQuest
TV, US, 2026 – out 14 October
Urgh. I suppose I can muster enough enthusiasm to string a few words together about yet another MCU production. And VisionQuest, which sounds like the name of a VR headset, is the narrative successor to WandaVision, easily the most conceptually interesting Marvel TV show, recreating the different tones of sitcoms from over the years. Paul Bettany returns as Vision, an android trying to work out who – or what – he is, when Ultron (a grizzled James Spader) shows up. Expect the usual MCU fare: slabs of action, “oh look, shiny!” moments, and callbacks to plotlines that fewer and fewer people seem to care about.
Honourable mentions: Scrubs season 2 (TV, out now), Scooby-Doo (film, out now), Soulm8te (film, out now), Super Scam Me (TV, 18 October).
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Apple TV
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Tenzing
Film, Australia/US/UK/India/Nepal, 2026 – out 16 October
Australian film-maker Jennifer Peedom has helmed some fine documentaries, typically charting the might and majesty of the natural world and the people who explore it – for instance Sherpa, Mountain and River. Her narrative feature debut (written by Luke Davies, who adapted Lion) unpacks the life of the historically neglected Tenzing Norgay who, alongside Edmund Hillary, made history as one of the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
Honourable mentions: The Last First: Winter K2 (film, 2 October), Matchbox The Movie (film, 9 October), Nocturne (TV, 30 October).
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Binge
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Serpico
Film, US, 1973 – out 2 October
This classic Al Pacino-led undercover cop drama is one of several great films from Sidney Lumet (see also: 12 Angry Men, Network, Dog Day Afternoon). Pacino’s protagonist, Frank Serpico, is no ordinary cop: he grows a shaggy beard, takes ballet classes, lives in Greenwich Village and cannot be bought, refusing to take money from businesses, criminals and other vested interests.
This puts him at odds with most of the men in blue; his hatred of corruption and determination to root it out only escalates as the run time progresses. The film is both gritty – a drama that feels very much of the streets – and elegantly staged by Lumet, with Pacino in fine form.
Honourable mentions: Seinfeld seasons 1-9 (TV, out now), Ladder 49 (film, out now), Yaga (TV, 23 October).
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