We’re almost to the end of the month, and that means a lot of coming and going on every major streaming platform. And while plenty of exciting movies are on the way in September, we’re here to make sure you don’t miss the gems leaving at the end of August.
To help you close out summer with the best movies possible, we’ve put together a list of the very best movies leaving streaming services at the end of the month, including a unique coming-of-age movie, two dark fantasy trips, and two vibes masterpieces from the great Michael Mann.
Here are the best movies leaving streaming at the end of August.
Editor’s pick: The Edge of Seventeen
Director: Kelly Fremon Craig
Cast: Hailee Steinfeld, Haley Lu Richardson, Blake Jenner
Leaving Netflix: Aug. 31
Teenagers aren’t all movies make them out to be. Sure, they have their moments of pluckiness or compassionate understanding, and most will turn out all right in a few years, but there’s a lot of selfishness to get through first. And very few movies have ever portrayed that selfishness as well as The Edge of Seventeen.
The movie follows Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld), a young girl struggling through life with her brother (Blake Jenner) and mom (Kyra Sedgwick) after the unexpected death of her dad. In her grief, Nadine is mean, angry, and seemingly blind to the grief of everyone around her, all problems that only get worse when her best friend (Haley Lu Richardson) starts dating her brother.
All of this may sound like a bit of a drag, but among the movie’s many strengths is how wonderfully funny it manages to stay from front to back. This is thanks in large part to Steinfeld’s incredible performance, which walks a perfect line, constantly keeping Nadine thoroughly mean and undeniably charming. It’s the rare movie where you spend the whole time not rooting for the main character to succeed but for her to realize that she is being a jerk. There aren’t enough movies like this, about likable characters who are totally wrong, but that’s probably because it’s not nearly as easy as The Edge of Seventeen makes it look. —Austen Goslin
Movies leaving Prime Video
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast: Gary Oldman, Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder
Leaving Prime Video: Aug. 31
When you think of actors who exude the unearthly sex appeal and monstrous inclination one would expect from the iconic Count Dracula, Gary Oldman isn’t exactly the first name that would leap to most folks’ minds. That’s what makes his performance in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 horror fantasy so remarkable, as Oldman’s out-of-character portrayal of the sullen, blood-sucking libertine opposite Keanu Reeves’ performance as the heroic Jonathan Harker makes for one of the most memorable incarnations of the Count to ever be put on screen.
Combined with the film’s gorgeous practical set designs, elaborate costumes courtesy of designer Eiko Ishioka, and some notable supporting performances by Anthony Hopkins and Tom Waits, Bram Stoker’s Dracula is one of the most unique films in Coppola’s highly celebrated body of work. And with Megalopolis around the corner, the time is right to revisit one of his classics. —Toussaint Egan
Movies leaving Netflix
Miami Vice
Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx, Naomie Harris
Leaving Netflix: Aug. 31
Michael Mann has made a number of certified cinematic bangers across his long and illustrious career, like his 1995 symphonic crime drama Heat, one of my all-time favorite movies. But no other film in his oeuvre is more quintessentially “Mann-core” than Miami Vice, the feature-length adaptation of the 1984 crime drama series Mann produced that starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas.
The plot couldn’t be any further from the point. Here’s the real heart of Miami Vice’s enduring appeal: It simply doesn’t look or feel like any other crime drama of its era. Mann’s experiment with digital photography yields a level of uncanny realism through its landscape of crushed brown and black textures and bleached white beach vistas. It’s a crime drama that oozes a sense of cool entirely on its own terms, a grand experiment that has yielded a cult following and reappraisal as one of the director’s best. In short, Miami Vice is a vibe. —TE
Movies leaving Max
The Green Knight
Director: David Lowery
Cast: Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Ralph Ineson
Leaving Max: Aug. 31
The Green Knight is one of the most beautiful movies of the last decade. Director David Lowery’s film retells the poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” in which the knight Sir Gawain (Dev Patel) decapitates a mysterious Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) and travels to receive “an equal blow” one year later. While Lowery’s film technically tells the whole story, its main focus is the odd events that befall Gawain in his travels to the Green Chapel.
Watching this movie feels like being trapped in a dream, a flood of gorgeous images loosely connected by an outstanding performance from Patel as the ne’er-do-well knight who isn’t sure whether he’s on a march to the gallows. In each progressively more strange scene, Patel sells Gawain’s wonderful incredulousness, somehow simultaneously rooted in the weirdness of his present moment, and drifting mentally to his appointment with a deity that might wish him dead. It’s bizarre, poetic, and tremendously affecting in ways that make it a more than worthy adaptation of the classic Arthurian tale. —AG
Movies leaving Criterion Channel
Thief
Director: Michael Mann
Cast: James Caan, Willie Nelson, Tuesday Weld
Leaving Criterion Channel: Aug. 31
The late, great James Caan (The Godfather) stars in Michael Mann’s 1981 neo-noir heist thriller Thief as Frank, an ex-con and professional safecracker looking to go straight and start a family. Unfortunately for him, Frank is denied his share of his latest heist, forcing him to accept an assignment from the Mob in order to break even. With a beautiful synth score by Tangerine Dream, dazzling nighttime cinematography by Donald Thorin, and an iconic and emotionally nuanced performance by Caan, Thief is a stone-cold stunner and a gem in the crown of one of the finest directors working today. End of blurb. —TE
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