Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu October 2026 Releases: Full Schedule

Netflix, HBO Max and Hulu are all loading their October slates with new originals and deep catalogue drops, from a seven-part Steinbeck adaptation to the last chapter of Marvel's Scarlet Witch trilogy.

Florence Pugh's seven-part adaptation of John Steinbeck's East of Eden premieres on Netflix Thursday, October 1, and it sets the tone for a month where three of the biggest American streamers are all loading up at once. Zoe Kazan created the series, and the cast around Pugh includes Mike Faist, Christopher Abbott, Ciarán Hinds and Hoon Lee.

Netflix isn't stopping there. Josh Hartnett, Mackenzie Davis and Charlie Heaton front the thriller Below on October 8, and a week later Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell return as Kate and Hal Wyler for The Diplomat's fourth season. The same day, October 15, also brings a flood of catalogue titles, but the real binge comes October 1, when Netflix quietly drops the entire Bourne quadrilogy, both 21 Jump Street films and all five Twilight movies on the same morning. Gladiator and Gladiator II land October 21, Nobody Wants This returns for a third season on October 22, and Lupin's fourth part arrives October 23.

Over at HBO Max, the month opens with War, a British legal drama starring Sienna Miller and Dominic West as rival lawyers caught in the divorce of a tech billionaire and his movie-star spouse. HBO has already renewed it for a second season before the first has even aired, which tells you how much confidence the network has in it. Paul Feig's The Housemaid, with Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney, streams from October 9, A24's The Death of Robin Hood follows on October 16, and Olivia Wilde's ensemble comedy The Invite closes out the month's film additions on October 23. True crime watchers get The Pet Cemetery Murders: A Ghost Story on October 11, a three-part docuseries digging back into a 1985 Louisiana cold case.

Hulu and Disney+ are saving their biggest swing for the middle of the month. VisionQuest, starring Paul Bettany, wraps up the trilogy that began with WandaVision and continued through Agatha All Along. It's less a Halloween play than a long-promised payoff for anyone who's been tracking Vision's story since 2021. For viewers who do want scares, Hereditary and Midsommar are both streaming on Hulu, and the Neon horror title Hokum finally gets its streaming debut after a theatrical run.

The pattern across all three services is the same. New prestige drama up front in the first week, then a slow drip of catalogue fillers and genre titles through the middle of the month, building to a late-October cluster timed for Halloween. Netflix's dump of five Twilight films and the full Bourne series on day one suggests the streamer is betting on nostalgia rewatches to hold attention until its bigger swings, East of Eden and The Diplomat, have had time to land.

What's missing so far from any of the three slates is a firm date for awards-season prestige drops in November. That announcement, when it comes, will tell us how seriously each platform is taking the next Emmy cycle.