The Best Movies and TV Shows New on Netflix Canada in October
Every month, Netflix Canada adds a new batch of TV shows and movies to its library. Here are the titles we think are most interesting for October, broken down by release date. Netflix occasionally changes schedules without giving notice.
Movies
‘In the Tall Grass’
Starts streaming: Oct. 4
In 2017, Netflix turned two Stephen King adaptations, “1922” and “Gerald’s Game,” into well-received and suitably grisly thrillers, and now it returns with “In the Tall Grass,” based on a novella by King and his son Joe Hill, who has made a name for himself with books like “NOS4A2” and “Heart-Shaped Box.” The premise suggests the scale of short-form fiction: Two college-age siblings, Becky (Laysla De Oliveira) and Cal (Avery Whitted) wander into a field of tall grass in Kansas after hearing the distressed voice of a young boy calling for help. They soon discover that a supernatural force has trapped them in the field and there may be no way out. The director, Vincenzo Natali, made the unforgettably nasty fantasy-horror film “Splice” a decade ago, so proceed with caution.
‘El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie’
Starts streaming: Oct. 11
Not many long-running series have the luxury and the creative stamina to stick the landing, but “Breaking Bad” ended so satisfactorily that a postscript didn’t seem necessary. Yet the showrunner Vince Gilligan deserves some benefit of the doubt after spinning off its crooked lawyer into the superb “Better Call Saul,” and he has gone to great lengths to turn “El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie” into a more theatrical experience, shooting it on large-format film stock. Of course, most will end up seeing it on Netflix anyway. Given the fate of Walter White (Bryan Cranston) at the end of “Breaking Bad,” the film will have to focus on Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), who survived a bloody melee but is still running from the authorities and shady figures from his past.
‘The Forest of Love’
Starts streaming: Oct. 11
Sion Sono is one of Japan’s most prolific and unpredictable directors, a gonzo genre stylist whose films including “Love Exposure,” a four-hour romantic epic that features (among many other things) a gang of martial-arts-trained up-skirt photographers, and “Why Don’t You Play in Hell?,” a tribute to filmmaking that has projectile vomit as its dramatic fulcrum. In other words, not for general audiences. No doubt “The Forest of Love,” a Netflix original production, will engage in some boundary-pushing, but Sono has drawn inspiration from a real-life multiple murder case, which will perhaps curtail his excesses a little. But most likely, it won’t.
‘Fractured’
Starts streaming: Oct. 11
The director Brad Anderson burst onto the independent film scene in 1998 with the romantic comedy “Next Stop Wonderland,” which was the subject of a bidding war at the Sundance Film Festival, but wasn’t much of a sensation with the public. In the years since, Anderson has switched gears completely, specializing in dark, modestly stylized thrillers and horror films like “The Machinist,” “Session 9” and “Transsiberian,” as well as frequent gun-for-hire work on television. Anderson’s latest, “Fractured,” returns him to comfortable Hitchcockian territory for a twisty thriller about a father (Sam Worthington) who checks his daughter into a hospital for testing and doesn’t get her back. Her disappearance leaves him to sort through a sinister conspiracy.
‘The Laundromat’
Starts streaming: Oct. 18
Steven Soderbergh’s second Netflix movie of the year isn’t as entertaining and persuasive as the first, “High Flying Bird,” but the two films are connected in their interest in the capitalist system and the rogues who try to either exploit it or bypass it altogether. “The Laundromat” basically does for the Panama Papers what “The Big Short” did for the 2008 housing market collapse, breaking down a complex economic swindle through accessible language and various seriocomic subplots. It starts with Meryl Streep as a retiree who loses her husband in a ferry accident, but has trouble collecting her claim on his life insurance policy. From there, it links up to stories of money launderers, narcotics traffickers, politicians, banking raiders and others behind this international scandal.
‘Tell Me Who I Am’
Starts streaming: Oct. 18
After premiering this year at the highly selective Telluride Film Festival, the documentary “Tell Me Who I Am” comes to Netflix in search of the same audience that made “Three Identical Strangers” a hit last year. In this stranger-than-fiction story, the identical twins Alex and Marcus Lewis are interviewed separately about how their lives changed when Alex got in a motorcycle accident when he was 18. Alex emerged from his coma with no memory other than his relationship with Marcus, whom he relies upon to help reconstruct his life before the accident, from minor domestic routines to more sensitive familial relationships, particularly to their mother and father. “Tell Me Who I Am” is about how Marcus bears the responsibility of reshaping his brother’s identity from scratch.
‘Dolemite Is My Name’
Starts streaming: Oct. 25
After debuting to widespread acclaim at the fall festivals, the Rudy Ray Moore biopic “Dolemite Is My Name” comes to Netflix touting Eddie Murphy’s rangiest dramatic role since “Dreamgirls,” though anyone who has seen a Rudy Ray Moore blaxploitation film can anticipate plenty of comedy, too. Scripted by the biopic specialists Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander, the team responsible for “Ed Wood,” “The People vs. Larry Flynt” and “Man on the Moon,” “Dolemite Is My Name” tells the story of a self-made cultural phenomenon who parlayed his stand-up pimp persona into the ultracheap hit “Dolemite” and two sequels. With a deep supporting cast that includes Keegan-Michael Key, Wesley Snipes, Craig Robinson and Snoop Dogg, the film is, like “Ed Wood,” an affectionate treatment of an outsider artist who never enjoyed much critical respect.
TV
‘Living Undocumented’
Starts streaming: Oct. 2
Selena Gomez is among the executive producers of this documentary series about undocumented immigrants in America, following eight families who have strong roots in their communities, but live at risk of deportation until the law allows them to come out of the shadows. Hostility toward immigrants, particularly those arriving at the United States border from Mexico, has been amplified by President Trump, who repealed DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama administration policy aimed at protecting those brought to the country as children of undocumented parents. “Living Undocumented” aims to put a human face on an often-hidden and demonized class of people, who call America home but are denied the security and protections of legal status.
‘Big Mouth’: Season 3
Starts streaming: Oct. 4
‘Raising Dion’
Starts streaming: Oct. 4
Superhero movies have saturated the market to such an extent that even the premise for a straight-up drama gets steered in that direction. Based on Dennis Liu’s comic book, “Raising Dion” is about a young mother (Alisha Wainwright) who has to raise her son (Ja’Siah Young) after his father (Michael B. Jordan) dies under mysterious circumstances. So is this a show about grief and single parenthood? Not really. It’s a show about a boy who develops special powers during a lightning storm and has to harness them as hostile figures seek to contain him. How much it balances the domestic drama between mother and son with special effects sequences remains to be seen.
‘Rhythm + Flow’
Starts streaming: Oct. 9
Given the runaway popularity of vocal talent shows like “American Idol” and “The Voice,” it’s hard to believe that a reality competition show built around unknown hip-hop talents hasn’t been produced until now. With the musical heavyweights Chance the Rapper, Cardi B and T.I. serving as hosts, “Rhythm + Flow” will unfold over three weeks, starting with a four-episode batch of auditions and continuing with the competition itself, also released in batches, over the two subsequent weeks. Drawing from Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City, the show looks to anoint the next big talent, and its presence on Netflix ensures that saltier lyrics won’t be subject to the bleep button.
‘Living With Yourself’
Starts streaming: Oct. 18
It’s a dilemma for many people who have drifted into middle age: How do you rediscover the energy and lust for life that the years have whittled away from you? Some guys would buy a sports car, but in Timothy Greenberg’s promising new series, “Living With Yourself,” Paul Rudd goes to a mysterious strip-mall spa that promises to rebuild his DNA and create a better version of himself. The procedure is a success, but it turns out the old version of himself still exists and feels as if he still has a claim on his life. Over eight episodes, the first season cross-pollinates science fiction, comedy and suspense as the two Rudds enter into a hostile yet delicate relationship with the highest of metaphysical stakes.
‘Jenny Slate: Stage Fright’
Starts streaming: Oct. 22
Not many comedians would have survived what happened to Jenny Slate on her one and only season on “Saturday Night Live”: In her debut sketch, Slate accidentally dropped an expletive on live TV, and while she finished out the 2009-10 run, she wasn’t asked back on the show. Slate has since thrived as a humorist, a voice artist on “Big Mouth” and an actress in films like “Obvious Child” and “Zootopia,” but she never got over her fear of the spotlight. Her first Netflix comedy special, “Jenny Slate: Stage Fright,” addresses those anxieties head-on, along with anecdotes about her upbringing and other observations.
‘Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner’
Starts streaming: Oct. 23
The affable chef, restaurateur and professional foodie David Chang follows up “Ugly Delicious” with another collaboration with the documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville (“Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”), which promises a little personal intimacy along with delectable cuisine. Each episode of “Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner” pairs Chang with a different celebrity guest, and the two explore the food and culture of a single city while getting to know each other better. The guests have yet to be announced, but Chang was able to attract Jimmy Kimmel, Aziz Ansari and Ali Wong for the first season of “Ugly Delicious,” so it’s likely some familiar faces will appear on the new show, too.
‘Daybreak’
Start streaming: Oct. 24
“The Breakfast Club” meets “The Warriors” meets “Mad Max” in this postapocalyptic comedy-drama series, which imagines what the cliques at a California high school would be like when the end of the world is nigh. Colin Ford stars as a 17-year-old outcast who enlists a 12-year-old pyromaniac (Alyvia Alyn Lind) and a former bully (Austin Crute) to help him find his missing girlfriend, but they are confronted by a series of roving jock gangs and undead monsters called Ghoulies. The one recognizable star in the cast is Matthew Broderick, whose role in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” three decades ago lends “Daybreak” some teen-comedy credibility.
Also of interest: “Contagion” (Oct. 1), “Girls Trip” (Oct. 1), “Seven” (Oct. 1), “Pride & Prejudice” (Oct. 2), “Peaky Blinders”: Season 5 (Oct. 3), “Insatiable”: Season 2 (Oct. 11), “The Awakenings of Motti Wolkenbruch” (Oct. 11), “Citizen Kane” (Oct. 15), “Eli” (Oct. 18), “Ant-Man” (Oct. 23), “The Kominsky Method”: Season 2 (Oct. 25), “Rattlesnake” (Oct. 25).
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