October has arrived, which means darker nights, Halloween decorations appearing absolutely everywhere and a perfectly reasonable excuse to spend considerably more time watching movies and TV.
Luckily, October 2026 movies and TV series aren’t exactly giving us much opportunity to leave the sofa.
Marvel is bringing back Vision.
DC is giving one of Batman’s strangest villains his own movie.
Street Fighter is heading back to cinemas.
John Cena is playing with Matchbox cars — admittedly on a considerably larger budget than we did as kids.
And because it’s October, horror fans haven’t been forgotten either.
Here are the movies and series we’re most excited to watch this month.
Carrie – October 7
October couldn’t arrive without something terrifying.
This time it’s another adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie, but rather than squeezing the story into another movie, Prime Video is turning it into an eight-episode series.
Mike Flanagan — the man behind The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass — serves as showrunner, writer and director, with Summer H. Howell taking on the role of Carrie White.
All eight episodes arrive on Prime Video on October 7.
We’ve seen Carrie’s story adapted several times, but giving Flanagan eight episodes to explore the characters could make this version something genuinely different.
Just maybe don’t annoy the quiet girl at prom.
It historically doesn’t end well.
Matchbox: The Movie – October 9
Yep.
Matchbox cars have a movie.
And actually… we’re completely on board.
John Cena stars as undercover CIA agent Sean, who reunites with his childhood friends and accidentally drags them into an international mission to save the world.
The cast also includes Jessica Biel, Sam Richardson, Teyonah Parris, Danai Gurira and Corey Stoll, with Extraction director Sam Hargrave behind the camera.
Inspired by Mattel’s Matchbox toys, the movie premieres globally on Apple TV on October 9.
After Barbie and Masters of the Universe, Mattel clearly isn’t afraid to dig through the toy box looking for the next movie franchise.
And as people who absolutely had a ridiculous number of Matchbox cars growing up, we’ll be watching.
VisionQuest – October 14
This is probably our most anticipated series of October.
Paul Bettany finally returns as Vision in Marvel Studios’ VisionQuest, continuing a story that began all the way back in WandaVision.
More specifically, we’re dealing with White Vision.
The original Vision’s memories were restored during WandaVision, but he then disappeared, leaving us waiting years to discover exactly where he went and what he became.
Now we’re finally getting some answers.
Perhaps even more exciting is the return of James Spader as Ultron.
Ultron created Vision, Vision helped destroy Ultron and now both characters are somehow back in the MCU.
That’s not going to be awkward at all.
With Avengers: Doomsday arriving in December, we’ll also be watching very closely for anything that could connect Vision’s story to the MCU’s upcoming multiversal chaos.
VisionQuest premieres on Disney+ on October 14.
Crystal Lake – October 15
Jason Voorhees fans have been waiting a very long time for this one.
Crystal Lake takes us back into the world of Friday the 13th, this time exploring events before the original movie.
Linda Cardellini plays Pamela Voorhees, Jason’s mother and the character responsible for beginning one of horror cinema’s most famous blood-soaked franchises.
The A24 and Peacock series consists of eight episodes, all arriving on October 15.
Rather than simply giving us another masked Jason chasing teenagers around a lake, Crystal Lake has the opportunity to explore how everything began.
And considering it’s arriving right in the middle of October, the timing couldn’t really be better.
Street Fighter – October 16
Street Fighter is coming back to the big screen.
Video game adaptations have finally escaped the curse that seemed to follow them for decades, so we’re cautiously excited about this one.
Street Fighter has everything required for an entertaining movie.
- Ryu.
- Ken.
- Chun-Li.
- Guile.
- Blanka.
- M. Bison.
Ridiculous special moves.
And presumably several people solving disagreements by punching each other through furniture.
Exactly what we want.
The new Street Fighter arrives in cinemas on October 16, and we’ll be particularly interested to see whether it can continue the recent run of successful game-to-screen adaptations.
Clayface – October 23
Then comes arguably October’s biggest comic book wildcard.
Clayface.
Of all the Batman characters DC Studios could have given a standalone movie, we can’t imagine many people predicted Clayface would get there this quickly.
And that’s exactly why we’re excited.
Rather than another conventional superhero movie, Clayface gives DC the opportunity to lean into body horror, psychological horror and tragedy.
Clayface has always been one of Batman’s most visually interesting villains, but there’s also a surprisingly emotional character underneath all that mud.
Well…
Technically quite a lot of mud.
With the new DC Universe still establishing itself, Clayface could demonstrate just how different its projects are allowed to become.
It arrives in cinemas on October 23, just in time for Halloween.
October 2026 Is A Brilliant Month For Geek Culture
There’s something we really like about October’s schedule.
None of these projects feel particularly similar.
VisionQuest gives us strange MCU sci-fi.
Clayface takes DC into darker territory.
Street Fighter brings gaming back to cinemas.
Matchbox continues Hollywood’s current fascination with turning the toys we grew up with into huge movies.
Then Carrie and Crystal Lake handle the Halloween side of things.
That’s a pretty decent month.
And there’s another reason October is important for Marvel fans.
We’re now only a couple of months away from Avengers: Doomsday.
That means every Marvel episode, trailer and post-credit scene is about to be examined like we’re trying to crack the Da Vinci Code.
Does VisionQuest connect to Doom?
Will we get another Doomsday trailer?
Could October finally reveal more about the multiverse heading into December?
We’ll be watching.
Probably far too closely.
What are you watching this October? Is VisionQuest your most anticipated release, are you heading to the cinema for Clayface or Street Fighter, or are you spending Halloween back at Crystal Lake? Let us know.
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