Five Netflix releases to keep an eye out for this week
Netflix is not short on recognisable faces this week, which is a bigger help than you think because the schedule is doing that wee awkward thing where brand-new Originals are sharing space with older titles. Ben Affleck, Gillian Anderson, Josh Hartnett, Jeremy Renner and Patton Oswalt are all going to appear on your Netflix home screen, so be prepared accordingly.
Before we let you interact with the new releases, take a look at the returning favourites. October is incomplete without some Stephen King horror, so we have The Boogeyman in the room. Rumours has Cate Blanchett entering into political absurdity and Mayor of Kingstown gives Jeremy Renner fans several seasons to get hooked.
So this is not one of those weeks where Netflix needs a single giant release to drag everything else along behind it.
There is enough here for everyone, but the following five still feel like the ones most likely to earn their place in the Netflix charts next week.
Five Netflix releases to keep an eye out for this week
Animals (Ben Affleck, 2026)
Probably the most anticipated release of this week, and October, Animals gets the first spot in the list; sadly, the last spot in the release calendar. Ben Affleck and Gillian Anderson play a mayoral candidate and his wife, whose son is kidnapped, so whatever campaign plan they had mapped out can be binned almost immediately.
The couple are dragged into the mess themselves, and once powerful people start making choices with panic breathing down their necks, good judgement tends to go missing rather quickly. That is the hook here. Kidnapping thrillers can get awfully familiar if everyone sticks to the expected script, but throw political ambition into the middle of it, and now saving your child may come with a price that reaches far beyond the family.
So what gives first: the campaign, the conscience, or something worse? Animals looks ready to make that choice difficult.
Below (Jesse McKeown, 2026)
If Animals has already put you through parents making bad choices under pressure, Below is where things get colder and a good deal less human, because Josh Hartnett ends up in a remote coastal town where something in the water has people keeping one eye on the shore and the other on whatever might be moving beneath it.
And you know what makes that worse? You cannot see the bloody thing. In short, it is a pure horror show which most of you might be expecting from Netflix in October. And it’s a good thing it’s six episodes because that gives the story time to let suspicion spread through the town before anybody gets a look at what they are dealing with.
Once people start avoiding the water and wondering whether the next disappearance is connected, you are already halfway trapped with them. Water horror has always had that advantage of the surface not telling you anything and your imagination doing most of the work.
Take Charge of My Heart (Park Soo-won and Song You-chae, 2026)
It’s K-drama time now, and we have not one, but two on the list for you, starting with Take Charge of My Heart. A cold-blooded corporate heir is living with a failing artificial heart when he meets a struggling screenwriter whose body has carried an electrical charge since she was struck by lightning as a child. We know, a little too weird.
The couple strike a contract relationship because, of course, they do, in which he helps her understand romance for her writing, while she becomes, in rather literal fashion, the thing keeping his heart going. At that point, you either throw your hands up or go along for the ride.
Honestly, this is one of the less weird K-drama setups because K-dramas have pulled stranger rabbits out of their hats, and it’s okay; sometimes sense can take a break.
100 Days of Deception (Yoo In-sik, Rheu Bo-ri and Kim Youn-jin, 2026)
Another K-drama in line is 100 Days of Deception, which brings the mood back down to earth, although “earth” here means a pickpocket sneaking into the Japanese colonial government and trying not to get herself killed.
She dreams of freedom, but the job she takes sends her into a world of stealing important secrets, and that is what gives the premise some bite. She is not walking through the door with years of spy training behind her. All this poor lady has is nerve and street sense. Don’t forget being impromptu when required.
And that makes every deception a risk, because one wrong-flu-judged answer can leave the next lie with nowhere to stand.
Inside the Circle (Alejandro Lozano, 2026)
100 Days of Deception will certainly have you suspicious of everybody in the room, and that’s why, to make things worse, we have Inside the Circle, which is quite happy to make that paranoia personal. A popular actress is murdered, leaving four childhood friends behind, and before long her death reveals old secrets; the people who once thought they knew one another begin wondering what else has been kept from them.
You see, the murder gets everyone through the door, but the friendships give the story something even crazier to work with, because betrayal from a stranger is one thing, but finding out someone beside you who you trusted with your life does the same feels like a punch in the gut.
Oh, and it’s not just the murder or secrets; espionage is adding its own colour to this story, giving it a sharper edge.