The best movies leaving Netflix, Prime Video, and Criterion Channel at the end of February 2025

As we close to the top of one other month, it’s as soon as once more a good time to make a watchlist of films which might be leaving streaming companies within the subsequent few days. To assist ensure you don’t miss something, we’ve put collectively an inventory of among the greatest choices to think about.This month’s choice features a film that deserves a second likelihood, an underrated thriller starring Chadwick Boseman, an all-time traditional that simply retains getting higher with age, and a very good sci-fi cult hit.Listed here are all one of the best motion pictures leaving streaming in February.Editor’s decide: The Final SamuraiImage: Warner Bros. through Everett CollectionDirector: Edward ZwickStars: Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Hiroyuki SanadaLeaving Prime Video: Feb. 28I suppose the time has come for a little bit of a rebound on The Final Samurai. Regardless of its position as a cultural punchline for years, the flicks is definitely fairly nice. The movie follows Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), a Westerner employed to coach the Imperial Japanese military earlier than finally defecting to assist a gaggle of rebellious samurai led by Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe). Fittingly, the film now feels just like the final of a sure technology of battle-filled historic epics — a style that has felt practically extinct for the final twenty years in Hollywood since this film got here out, though a number of essential personnel went on to work on Shōgun. Director Edward Zwick’s imaginative and prescient of a Japan on the verge of modernity is beautiful and tragic, and whereas it’s not his greatest film (that might be Glory) or Cruise’s greatest (take your decide), it’s a fascinating cultural artifact, and a type of attention-grabbing, mature, and well-made film that we nonetheless see too not often now. —Austen GoslinBest motion pictures leaving Netflix21 BRIDGES, (aka TWENTY ONE BRIDGES), from left: J.Ok. Simmons, Chadwick Boseman, Sienna Miller, 2019. ph: Matt Kennedy / © STXfilms / courtesy Everett Assortment Picture: STX Movies through Everett CollectionDirector: Brian KirkStars: Chadwick Boseman, Sienna Miller, J.Ok. SimmonsLeaving Netflix: Feb. 28Few police thrillers have ever had a premise as nice as 21 Bridges. The movie follows an NYPD detective Andre Davis (Chadwick Boseman) chasing two criminals who killed a number of officers in a shootout from Brooklyn to Manhattan. In hopes of catching the pair, Andre makes the daring name to close down each bridge off of Manhattan, shutting the island off from the remainder of the world. It offers the entire film a palpable depth, and Boseman’s efficiency matches the gravity of the scenario completely. The entire film has a tense cat-and-mouse vibe, and whereas it by no means fairly makes it to the lofty tier of cops-versus-criminals traditional, it’s an underrated thriller that’s undoubtedly price a watch. —AGBest motion pictures leaving Prime VideoPhoto: Columbia PicturesDirector: David FincherStars: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin TimberlakeLeaving Prime Video: Feb. 28David Fincher’s biographical drama is a movie that’s taken on placing significance within the time because it was launched. The general public consensus surrounding Meta, the guardian firm of Fb, and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, couldn’t be extra completely different in 2025 when in comparison with 2010. The Social Community delves into the psychology behind the social media platform and its creator, demystifying each to strike on the root of their pathologies. The movie’s tagline, “You don’t get to 500 million associates with out making a number of enemies,” is apt, particularly contemplating anthropologist Robin Dunbar’s assertion that any variety of relationships in extra of 150 inevitably deteriorate. With “associates” like Zuckerberg, who wants enemies? —Toussaint EganBest motion pictures leaving Criterion ChannelImage: Columbia PicturesDirector: Andrew NiccolStars: Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Jude LawLeaving Criterion Channel: Feb. 28It’s fairly an uncanny expertise trying again on 1997’s Gattaca within the yr 2025. Andrew Niccol’s characteristic debut augured a not-so-distant future the place humanity has colonized the photo voltaic system, although at the price of a society stratified right into a eugenic caste system. Ethan Hawke stars as Vincent Anton Freeman, a natural-born man who, regardless of a congenital coronary heart situation, yearns to appreciate his dream of changing into an astronaut. With assistance from Jerome Morrow (Jude Legislation), Vincent is ready to sneak his approach into the Gattaca Aerospace Company, the place he should deflect any and all suspicion of his genetic origin so as to succeed. With excellent performances, together with none apart from legendary writer Gore Vidal, Niccol has not made a greater film since. That’s all proper, although; what number of different filmmakers can confidently say their first movie was a masterpiece? —TE



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