It’s time once again for the inevitable content churn at the beginning of each new month, and these must-watch movies are leaving Netflix very soon. It’s hard enough as it is to keep up with all the new things coming to streaming services every month, but it’s even harder when movies and shows are leaving just as quickly as they are added.

Netflix is dumping a ton of movies at the start of September, many of which are actually worth watching before they disappear. There’s no telling where some of these movies will go next, so it’s best to see them in case they end up in streaming limbo for a while. The departures don’t conform to any particular pattern, and movies new and old are getting the boot.

Whole franchises are getting axed on September 1st, as well as many of the best standalone films on Netflix’s rather extensive roster. Though the new things coming on the first of the month are exciting, a lot of the outgoing flicks are downright irreplaceable. Some are award-winning classics while others are simply crowd pleasers that bring a lot of value to subscribers.

This list assembles eight of those movies, though it isn’t an exhaustive assembly of all the things getting dropped from Netflix soon. It highlights the movies most deserving of immediate attention, and the ones that can’t be easily replaced by whatever Netflix has coming in the next few weeks. With the month of August quickly coming to a close, time is running out to check these movies off of your must-watch list.

8

Zombieland (2009)

Released during the zombie craze of the 2000s and 2010s, Zombieland was one of the first movies to take an irreverent approach to the undead. It follows a group of survivors during a zombie apocalypse who travel across the country while doing their best to not get eaten. The movie’s world-building is strong, and the rules sequences are a clever subversion of the genre’s tropes.

Zombieland has been one of the funniest movies on Netflix since it joined the streamer’s catalog, and it’s leaving in September alongside its 2019 sequel. Even if it’s just for nostalgia’s sake, the 2009 blockbuster is worth a revisit. The jokes still hold up, and the character work is surprisingly strong. Zombieland actually puts less funny zombie movies to shame, and does the horror subgenre justice.

7

Rocky (1976)

It’s bad enough that Netflix is dropping Rocky in September, but the rest of the boxing movie franchise is going with it too. Sylvester Stallone’s passion project helped to define sports cinema in the 1970s, and it remains one of the crown jewels in the boxing category. Stallone stars as the title character, a poor young man from Philadelphia whose dreams come true when he’s given a boxing match against the champ.

The film won Best Picture at the Oscars, and easily ranks toward the top of any sports movie list. It’s radically different from the rest of the Rocky movies, but the franchise as a whole is pretty strong. Netflix subscribers have access to some real gems, but Rocky is in a class all of its own. It’s a heartfelt and surprising drama that hasn’t lost a single shred of its power 50 years after its premiere.

6

​​​​​​​Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Riding the wave of indie movie momentum in the 2000s, Little Miss Sunshine broke through to the mainstream and showed other films how it’s done. The quirky dramedy best represents the genre’s sensibilities at the time, and nearly every oddball flick made since owes it a small debt of gratitude. A dysfunctional family comes together in order to get the youngest member of their clan to California so she can compete in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant.

The Oscar winner shows that there’s beauty in the broken parts within us all, and there are just as many tear-jerking moments as there are uproarious belly laughs. A lot of comedy from the 2000s has aged poorly, but Little Miss Sunshine has only gotten brighter. It’s leaving in September, which will definitely knock Netflix down a few pegs as a go-to spot for the best comedy movies on streaming.

5

The Breakfast Club (1985)

The films of John Hughes helped to put the 1980s experience in sharper focus, and The Breakfast Club might be his greatest achievement. The movie tackles stereotypes head on, and dramatizes the very real pressures that many teens were feeling at the midway point of the decade. In the film, a group of disparate high schoolers attend detention on Saturday, and they form an unlikely bond that defies the social hierarchy.

The jock, the prep, the nerd, and the weird girl, are all archetypal characters in stories about teens, but only The Breakfast Club so succinctly captures the essence of those almost mythic stereotypes. It’s very much grounded in the ’80s, but has a timeless quality that makes it must-see viewing for anyone coming of age today. With the school year beginning across the country, The Breakfast Club will be sorely missed.

4

​​​​​​​The Big Lebowski (1998)

Jumping from one of the defining comedies of the ’80s to one of the 1990s, The Big Lebowski is going to leave a pretty big hole in Netflix’s catalog when it leaves in September. The Coen brothers’ comedy masterpiece is a hilarious send-up to the meandering detective movies of the ’70s, but it’s so much more than a tribute to cinema’s past. When a hippie slacker is mistaken for a wealthy businessman, The Dude finds himself entangled in a complex web of conspiracies that goes way over his head.

It’s almost impossible to overstate the importance of The Big Lebowski, and it’s one of the few movies to spawn its own honest-to-god philosophical movement. It intentionally spoofs genre tropes by replacing hard-boiled detectives with a lazy burnout. There are layers upon layers of irony that are often hidden by the movie’s intentionally juvenile humor. The Big Lebowski works as a surface-level comedy, and as a brilliant takedown of the Baby Boomer generation.

3

American Graffiti (1973)

A few years before he revolutionized blockbuster cinema with Star Wars, George Lucas delivered what is arguably the best movie he ever directed. American Graffiti is a loving tribute to Lucas’ youth, and is an early example of mid-century nostalgia that would eventually come to dominate the 1980s. With summer drawing to a close, a group of young friends spend a wild night cruising the strip before they have to enter adulthood.

There’s a playful innocence to American Graffiti that casts a rosy light on the past. The movie intentionally flows without much rhyme or reason, and it puts the audience in the back seat as they too cruise through a summer night in 1962. The music is catchy and the characters endearing, and the coming-of-age gem has now earned nostalgic status itself. The blast from the past is going to be missed when it leaves Netflix’s catalog soon.

2

Schindler’s List (1993)

Steven Spielberg is known for making larger-than-life films that redefine what a blockbuster can be, but he was on another level when he directed Schindler’s List. The Oscar-winning war movie is one of the most powerful mainstream films in history, and the scope and scale of the story is done justice by Spielberg’s eye for the dramatic. It tells the real-life tale of industrialist Oskar Schindler, who used his businesses to help save more than a thousand Jews from the Holocaust.

So much more than merely a portrait of a man, Schindler’s List firmly establishes the world in which Schindler lives, and the consequences of his selfless act. Despite tackling one of the darkest chapters in human history, the film has notes of hope, and highlights the best of humanity during the worst of times. Netflix is lucky to have such an important movie in its catalog, and subscribers can’t miss it before it goes away.

1

Pitch Black (2000)

Before Vin Diesel picked up the car keys and raced his way into the hearts of fans in the Fast & Furious franchise, he launched another iconic series in 2000. Pitch Black is a truly unique piece of Aughts sci-fi horror cinema, that not only made Diesel a star, but spawned a small army of copycats along the way. A spaceship crashes on a desolate planet, and the survivors must put aside their differences to fight off the world’s monstrous inhabitants.

Diesel’s Riddick is clearly the star of the show, and the superhuman mystery man makes for a pretty compelling anti-hero. Pitch Black isn’t just a sci-fi film, or a horror, but is instead a mix of the two with a lot of action thrown in as well. It has a bit of early 2000s cheese, but is mostly a strong fright-fest with a lot to offer. The series has gone in a more fantastical direction since, but Pitch Black has yet to be topped. The Riddick franchise will be leaving Netflix soon, but the first movie is the one that can’t be missed.

founded

January 16, 2007

founders

Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph