Gone by Wednesday: Ten terrific movies leaving Netflix this week

While there are daily drops of new material on Netflix, everything from crazy reality shows to classic rom-coms, there’s also a constant churn of content dropping off the global streaming service.

So although you might think a movie or TV show will be available to watch on there forever, the truth is that’s very much not the case, some only available for a few months at a time.

In order to assist those keen to get the most out of their subscription, and in order to help with your viewing priorities, Stuff to Watch has come up with a list of seven super movies that won’t be around come Wednesday morning – so catch them while you can.

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Bone Tomahawk (2015)

Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox and Richard Jenkins star in this 2015 western horror about four who men set out to rescue a group of captives from cannibalistic cave dwellers.

“You’ll be watching – at least, I was – with your hand clamped over a mouth in various states of aghast-ness. But the film’s bloodiest moments, in a real turn-up for the books, are also its saddest,” wrote The Daily Telegraph’s Tim Robey.

The Bourne Identity

Matt Damon stars in the 2002 actioner that not only gave the cinematic world author Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne, but also gave James Bond the hurry up he clearly needed. The impressive cast also includes Franka Potente, Julia Stiles, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen and Brian Cox.

“One of those rare thrillers where the cops aren’t fools, villains don’t turn stupid at crucial moments, and career assassins seldom miss targets,” wrote Charlotte Observer’s Lawrence Toppman.

Brooklyn (2015)

Based on Colm Toibin’s acclaimed 2009 novel, this is a charming and compelling drama, anchored by a simply superb performance from Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones, Atonement).

Luminous yet under-stated, she perfectly captures the nervousness and slow-blossoming of someone getting used to unfamiliar surroundings.

Fans of costume dramas will love the attention to detail on display in the recreations of early 1950s rural Ireland and New York, from the department store Lamson tubes to the form-fitting fashions.

Casino (1995)

Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone and Joe Persci star in Martin Scorsese’s lavish adaptation of Nicholas Pileggi’s book Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas.

It’s a crime drama full of greed, deception, money, power and murder, as two best friends – a mafia enforcer and a casino executive – compete against one another over a gambling empire and a fast-living, fast-loving socialite.

“It may not be Scorsese’s greatest work, but this guy feeling a little off-colour is still far, far better than most people on fighting-fit form. It only gets more impressive as times goes on,” wrote Empire magazine’s Philip Thomas.

Changeling (2008)

Clint Eastwood’s most under-rated movie and Angelina Jolie’s finest hours.

This based-on-fact mystery crime drama focuses on Christine Collins, a Los Angeles single mother who discovers her nine-year-old son Walter has gone missing. Having given up all hope of ever seeing him again, she is overjoyed when, months later, the police inform her that he has been found.

However, while the cops and the boy claim he is Walter, Christine is convinced the young man returned to her is not her son. What follows is haunting, harrowing and powerful film-making.

Colossal (2016)

Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudekis star in this 2017 sci-fi-tinged comedy about an out- of-work party girl forced to leave her life in New York City and move back home. When reports surface that a giant creature is destroying Seoul, she gradually comes to the realisation that she is somehow connected to this phenomenon.

“For better and worse, you won’t have seen a movie like Colossal before, and you won’t again,” wrote Time Out London’s Tom Huddleston.

Mary Magdalene (2018)

Eschewing the carnality controversy of Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation or the visceral vitality of Mel Gibson’s Passion, Garth Davis’ look at the final days of Jesus Christ offers an intriguing, alternative view of biblical events.

It’s the one of Mary Magdalene (Rooney Mara), here portrayed as a young woman from a small lakeside settlement who yearns for something more from life.

A female perspective isn’t the only innovation in this take on the rise, fall and rise of “the Messiah”. Where Davis’ interpretation of Helen Edmundson and Philippa Goslett’s screenplay really scores points is in its decision to keep the usually one-dimensional “evil” Romans pretty much out of the picture and don’t even mention Jesus’ by name until well into proceedings.

My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997)

Australian director PJ Hogan followed up the magnificent Muriel’s Wedding with another crowdpleasing music-infused rom-com.

Roberts is Julianne Potter, a New York food critic who discovers that she has much deeper feelings for her old friend Michael (Dermot Mulroney) than she realised, just days before he’s about to be married to someone else. Cameron Diaz and Rupert Everett also feature.

“Any actress who can, in the same film, carry off slapstick, femme fatale-ism, nail-spitting cynicism and sweet vulnerability has something special going for her,” wrote Austin Chronicle’s Russell Smith.

Out of Sight (1998)

Some would say neither George Clooney or Jennifer Lopez have ever been better than in Stephen Soderbergh’s magnificent crime-comedy.

While the terrific ensemble in this Elmore Leonard adaptation also includes Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, Ving Rhames and Albert Brooks, it’s the chemistry (and heat) generated between Clooney’s bank robber Jack Foley and Lopez’s US Marshal Karen Sisco that really compels.

Rightly nominated for an Oscar for both the screenplay and the editing.

Seven (1995)

It was the film that shocked cinemagoers, helped transform Kevin Spacey into a star and made David Fincher the hottest director in Hollywood.

A searing, smart, very adult crime thriller, built not around Snow White’s mining mates or Steve McQueen’s western pals, but rather the biblical “seven deadly sins”.

Screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, who has never hit the same heights again, delivers a taut, blackly tart tale focused around two detectives (Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman) on the trail of a mass murderer who leaves his victims in a representative state of one of those transgressions.