Coming to a Screen Near You: October's Film Picks

1. Resident Evil

Director: Zach Cregger — Written by: Zach Cregger and Shay Hatten — Cast: Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, Paul Walter Hauser

Zach Cregger, the filmmaker behind Barbarian (2022) and Weapons (2025), takes on the legendary video-game franchise with a new story centred on Bryan, a medical courier. A seemingly ordinary assignment plunges him into a night of mounting danger, giving Cregger room to combine brutal horror with the offbeat humour that distinguishes his filmmaking. Starring scream-king Austin Abrams, the film continues a trend seen in “Wolfs” (2024, directed by Jon Watts) and “Whalefall” — the latter also featured in this month’s picks — in which Abrams always seems to find himself in a somewhat nasty situation. Released on September 18, it is a fitting pre-Halloween pick, making audiences laugh right before bracing themselves for the next scare.

 2. You Can See Everything 

Directors: Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim — Featuring: Elizabeth Holmes, Billy Evans, Nathan Fielder

As Elizabeth Holmes prepares to enter prison, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim gain access to the disgraced Theranos founder’s private world, where her carefully maintained public persona meets the realities of domestic life. What emerges is an unsettling portrait of reputation management and the blurred boundaries between documenting reality and shaping it. Arriving in cinemas on October 16, the film raises timely questions about self-mythologising, media spectacle and the ethics of (voyeuristic) observation.

3.Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

Director-writer: Jane Schoenbrun — Cast: Gillian Anderson, Hannah Einbinder, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Eva Victor

A fading slasher series becomes the starting point for I Saw the TV Glow filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun’s latest dive into the darker corners of genre cinema. When a young queer filmmaker crosses paths with the franchise’s elusive original star, their meeting sets off a hallucinatory spiral in which fear and desire begin to merge.

Blending queer horror with a fascination for cult-film mythology, the film explores how fandom can shape — and distort — our sense of self. Anchored by the unfathomable

chemistry between Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder, it opened in UK cinemas on August 21 before arriving on MUBI on October 2.

4. Primetime

Director: Lance Oppenheim — Written by: Ajon Singh — Cast: Robert Pattinson, Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers

Set in 2006, the film follows the host of “To Catch a Predator”,Chris Hansen, as he pursues a television story that will make history, exploring the machinery of reality TV and the spectacle of public humiliation. With Robert Pattinson as Hansen, this darkly comic docudrama makes an intriguing companion to “You Can See Everything”: both are directed by Lance Oppenheim, and both invite reflection on the media’s appetite for real-life scandal. “Primetime” is set to be released on October 30.

5. NAZA

Directors and writers: Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor — Featuring: Yuval Abraham and anonymous Israeli soldiers and intelligence personnel

Filmed at night from rooftops across Tel Aviv, this investigative documentary examines Israel’s military surveillance and targeting systems during the war in Gaza, drawing on testimonies from military and intelligence personnel. After premiering at Venice, where it received the Special Jury Prize, “NAZA” arrives on October 16 as an urgent work of documentary filmmaking, probing how technological systems can obscure the human cost of warfare.

6. Hope

Director-writer: Na Hong-jin — Cast: Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Hoyeon, Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Taylor Russell

An isolated community finds its fragile sense of security shattered by an inexplicable presence, drawing local police and villagers into a confrontation that defies their understanding of reality. After years away from feature filmmaking, Na Hong-jin returns with an ambitious 160-minute blend of science fiction, thriller and action, featuring an international cast. Released on September 25, “Hope” is a striking option for viewers who like their genre cinema to venture into unfamiliar territory.

7. Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother

Director-writer: Bassam Tariq — Cast: Mahershala Ali, John Cho, Giancarlo Esposito, Abubakr Ali

Academy award-winning Mahershala Ali stars as Latif, a devoutly religious hitman whose life unravels after his wife’s death, sending him on a desperate journey across Houston to protect his children while confronting the tensions between faith, violence

and fatherhood. About to be released in UK cinemas on November 20, Bassam Tariq’s action drama offers a more intimate and morally conflicted alternative to conventional hitman cinema, making it an intriguing addition to October’s genre releases.

8. 7 Miles Out

Director-writer: Carol Morley — Cast: Lucy Halliday, Aidan Gillen, Gemma Whelan

Set in Stockport in the 1970s and 1980s, Carol Morley’s film follows Anne as she navigates the aftermath of her father’s suicide and finds a sense of belonging in the burgeoning punk scene. Blending adolescent grief with music and the search for identity in northern England, the film offers a distinctive take on British youth culture. It is set to premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on October 20, ahead of its anticipated UK release.

9. Extra Geography

Director: Molly Manners — Written by: Miriam Battye, adapted from a short story by Rose Tremain — Cast: Marni Duggan, Galaxie Clear, Alice Englert

At an English girls’ boarding school, two inseparable friends decide that academic achievement alone will not prepare them for the wider world. Their plan to acquire some romantic experience soon complicates the close-knit universe they have built together. In her feature debut, Manners captures the awkwardness of adolescence with a sharp comic eye and a keen sense of how friendship changes as growing up begins. Released in UK cinemas on October 2, the film is a timely introduction to BAFTA-winning British filmmaker Molly Manners.

10. Whalefall

Director: Brian Duffield — Written by: Brian Duffield and Daniel Kraus — Cast: Austin Abrams, Josh Brolin, Elisabeth Shue, John Ortiz, Jane Levy, Emily Rudd

A dive off California’s central coast turns into a fight against an almost unimaginable predicament for Jay Gardiner (Austin Abrams, again!): trapped inside the stomach of a sperm whale, he has just an hour to find a way back to the surface. Brian Duffield adapts Pulitzer-prize-laureate Daniel Kraus’s novel into a claustrophobic survival thriller in which Jay’s struggle becomes inseparable from the unresolved grief left by his father, embodied by Oscar nominee Josh Brolin. “Whalefall” arrives in UK cinemas on October 16.