Netflix
From new adaptations of the beloved John Steinbeck and Stephen King novels to a Newfoundland-set monster horror with Josh Hartnett – these are the best series to watch and stream.
HBO
1. War
In this deliciously twisty legal melodrama, Dominic West plays a tech billionaire, Morgan Henderson, and Sienna Miller an actress, Carla Duval, who were in love when they married a decade ago but are now at odds in a vicious, big-money, headline-making divorce. Representing them are duelling firms of scheming lawyers, his one of the most prestigious in London and hers an upstart created by a married couple who once worked for that established firm. There are betrayals, leaks to the press, dirty tricks and a lawyer going undercover at one firm to spy for the other, with events all taking place in luxurious settings around the city. George Kay, who created the Idris Elba thriller Hijack and the recent drama Gone, told EW that he got the idea for War when he overheard a woman “screaming from the rooftops” when her husband finally signed divorce papers after four years of wrangling. For the series, “We wanted to have wealth. We wanted to have glamour,” he said. “We wanted to show London off at its most aspirational.”
War premieres 1 October on HBO in the US and 2 October on Sky and Now in the UK
Netflix
2. East of Eden
In this new miniseries adaptation of John Steinbeck’s 1952 family saga, Florence Pugh has the juiciest role and gives a dynamic performance as Cathy, the manipulative, lethal woman at the centre of the conflict between two brothers: Adam Trask (Christopher Abbott), who marries her, and Charles (Mike Faist), who warns him against her. A few years after publication, the novel was famously made into a film starring James Dean, directed by Elia Kazan. His granddaughter, the actress and director Zoe Kazan, has created and written this series but with a different approach, bringing Cathy to the fore. And where the film is based on a slice of the book, the series covers its full timeline, ranging from the post-Civil War years in New England to California during World War One. Tracy Letts plays the Trask brothers’ father, Ciaran Hinds is the head of a neighbouring family, and Hoon Lee is the Trasks’ servant. Pugh told Vanity Fair about playing the antiheroine: “It was really important to me not to warm her up or make excuses for her,” but to find “tenderness and humanity without changing the primary DNA of the person.”
East of Eden is released on 1 October on Netflix internationally
Amazon
3. Kill Jackie
Catherine Zeta-Jones stars in this action-fuelled revenge thriller as Jackie Price, a one-time international drug dealer, who after 20 quiet but very affluent years selling fine art, becomes the target of assassins. She suspects hitmen from a group known as the Seven Demons, but there are plenty of vengeful people from her past who could be after her. As Jackie tries to outsmart her enemies, the action is infused with some mordant humour. “I think I have to kill them all,” she says, sounding very much as if she relishes a return to her exciting, dangerous old life. The winning cast includes Daniel Ings, Bill Paterson, Ron Perlman and Sidse Babett Knudsen (Borgen). Zeta-Jones has already been praised for using her native Welsh accent in the show, which was shot partly in Swansea, Wales.
Kill Jackie premieres 2 October on AMC+ in the US and Prime Video in the UK
Amazon Prime Video
4. Carrie
Based on the Stephen King novel, the classic 1976 horror film Carrie is best remembered for the iconic image of Sissy Spacek as a prom queen covered in pig’s blood. Since then there has been a sequel, two remakes and a stage musical – and now comes this series from Mike Flanagan, the mastermind behind popular horror shows including The Haunting of Hill House. This updated version brings Carrie, the bullied high-school student, into the era of social media and cell phones, which makes bullying easier than ever. Summer H Howell plays Carrie, and Samantha Sloyan is her overbearing mother, whose home-schooling left her daughter unprepared for both today’s high-tech world and the wilds of adolescence, much less her own telekinetic powers. King himself recently weighed in on the show and its new take on his classic book, writing on Threads: “Mike Flanagan’s version of Carrie is brilliant. What it has to say about social media is shocking and true.”
Carrie premieres 7 October on Prime Video internationally
5. Small Prophets
Mackenzie Crook, creator and star of The Detectorists and forever known as Gareth from the original British version of The Office, created this imaginative show, which was a hit in the UK when it premiered on the BBC in February. Michael (Pearce Quigley) is a shambles of a man because his partner, Clea, disappeared seven years before, with no word from her then or since. His father Brian (Michael Palin) has a journal with a recipe for creating homunculi, creatures able to reveal the truth. Despite having doubts – Brian is in a care home and his memory is unreliable – Michael gives it a try. In the more down-to-Earth part of the story, he forms a friendship with Kacey (Lauren Patel), his co-worker at a DIY store, where they loathe their boss, played by Crook. The Australian paper The Age captured the enthusiasm for the show and its unique tone, calling it “A gentle, jewel-like, unhurried masterpiece that is funny, profound and manages to break and mend your heart in equal measure.” No wonder it has been renewed for a second season.
Small Prophets is streaming on BBC iPlayer in the UK and premieres 7 October on Apple TV internationally
CBS
6. Cupertino
Robert and Michelle King, who created this series, are also behind two of the best television legal dramas of all time, The Good Wife and The Good Fight. Their new show comes with a Silicon Valley-centred premise that couldn’t be timelier or more likely to have viewers rooting for the heroes. Mike Colter (who was in the Kings’ long-running Evil) plays Mike Price, a lawyer cheated out of stock options by his partner in a tech start-up. Rachel Keller plays Olivia Siffre, a lawyer fired after resisting her sexually predatory boss. Together they start a firm representing clients wronged by major tech companies, fighting despite the lopsided power dynamic. Renée Elise Goldsberry (Hamilton and Girls5eva) plays Mike’s ex-wife and former colleague who spars with him in court. Busy Philipps is the former wife of an AI tycoon who uses her fortune to fund the new law firm. Amid recent news headlines about the potential dangers of AI for humanity’s future, Cupertino is landing at just the right moment.
Cupertino premieres 8 October on CBS and Paramount+ in the US
Netflix
7. Below
The shadow of Jaws looms over this horror series set and shot in Newfoundland, which stars Josh Hartnett as Calvin Penney, a local fisherman in a challenging economy. A poor catch and financial struggles become the least of his and the town’s problems when fish start disappearing, tourists go missing and the ice harvested from icebergs, a local industry, starts to stink. It seems there is something evil under the sea, a threat that Mackenzie Davis, as a marine biologist, sets out to investigate. Charlie Heaton (Stranger Things) plays Calvin’s rebellious son, Wade, whose two siblings return from the mainland for a family reunion at the worst possible time. The Toronto Star wrote of the show: “It’s a tale about the pain of change and the dangers of climate foolishness but at the end of the day it’s also just another simple yarn: man v monster.”
Below is released on 8 October on Netflix internationally
Disney
8. The Lowdown
The latest series from filmmaker and showrunner Sterlin Harjo (Reservoir Dogs) was one of the best of 2025, with Ethan Hawke as the muckraking journalist and bookstore owner Lee Raybon, whose truth-seeking gets him into personal scrapes. But the characters’ interactions and the texture of their lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma elevated The Lowdown beyond a typical mystery series, and now in this second season, some new characters promise to make the show even stronger. Betty Gilpin plays a public defender who reluctantly teams up with Lee when her client somehow vanishes while in prison. And in inspired casting, Tommy Lee Jones plays Lee’s father, who abruptly turns up in town. That’s not great, because Lee, who self-styles himself as a “truthstorian”, has told his young daughter, Frances (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), that her grandfather is dead.
The Lowdown premieres 14 October on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK
Disney
9. Vision Quest
As part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Paul Bettany has always brought humanity to his android character, Vision. Now Vision has his own series, a spinoff of WandaVision, which is among the best MCU television shows. Wanda is gone and Vision is left with memories but no emotions attached to them, so he tries to locate those feelings by communicating with the AI personas embedded within him. The most important is Ultron, a father-figure who in human form is played by James Spader with a giant beard and a reckless attitude. Bettany has described Ultron as “this psychopath that [Vision] is keeping locked away upstairs in the attic”. Meanwhile, there is a bounty on Vision’s head, and he goes on the run with the teenage Thomas Shepherd – who is actually the reincarnation of his and Wanda’s son, Tommy Maximoff. As Spader’s Ultron says drolly in the trailer: “Nothing bonds a family together more than mortal jeopardy.”
Vision Quest premieres 14 October on Disney+ internationally
Apple TV+
10. Nocturne
Liev Schreiber stars in this crime drama based on two novels by Lars Kepler, the pen name of the Swedish husband-and-wife team behind a string of international best sellers. The action has been transplanted from Scandinavia to the US and Schreiber plays Jonah Lynn – called Joona Linna in the books – a former soldier and homicide detective who moves from urban Philadelphia to a small, quiet town. There would be no story if the town stayed quiet, of course. Instead, a supposed victim of a serial killer named Jurek Walter, played by the ever-versatile Stephen Graham, turns up alive, and Lynn races to find another missing person before it’s too late. Zazie Beetz plays FBI agent Saga Bauer, Lynn’s protege, who goes undercover to question Walter, a plot device that makes the show sound chillingly like The Silence of the Lambs.
Nocturne premieres 30 October in Apple TV internationally
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