In October, finding warmness is a necessity.
What's the expression again – March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, right? You could say that September comes in like a lion, then kicks off October like one, too. It is now officially the season for enjoying the outdoors in that not-too-cold/not-too-hot environment, for snuggling indoors, for pumpkin and apple harvesting, and a season where finding warmness is a necessity. These seven films out on Hulu this month all have one thing in common: journeys where each step is intrinsically connected to both what came before and what is to follow.
Available: October 1 | Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Cast: Penélope Cruz, Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Candela Peña
Mothers are one of Pedro Almodóvar’s favorite themes. In this 1999 film, a son wants to explore a connection with his second mother, who is also a trans woman. The story develops between the son and his birth mother, and their social and love circles. All About My Mother (Spanish: Todo sobre mi madre) is a creation of human and heart investigation, expanding the definition of what family is.
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Available: October 1 | Director: Ang Lee
Cast: Michelle Yeoh, Ziyi Zhang, Chow Yun-Fat
Beautiful cinematography fills this fast-paced narrative from Ang Lee, along with a compelling plot. A female warrior, after stealing a sword, becomes involved with a male warrior and an outlaw who complicates things further. Feelings, and gorgeously orchestrated fight sequences, lead the way. Lee co-collaborates with screenwriter James Schamus here, whom he would work with again on Brokeback Mountain.
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Available: October 1 | Director: Robert Rodriguez
Cast: Salma Hayek, Joaquim de Almeida, Antonio Banderas
Desperado centers around El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas), a musician-cum-gunslinger wielding weapons in a creative way, and the havoc that breaks out in a border town in Mexico when he arrives. There is a local drug gang he clashes with and a romance he forms with Carolina (Salma Hayek). Action sequences are cut with sly dialogue and electric chemistry between the two leads.
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Available: October 1 | Director: Andrew Davis
Cast: Sela Ward, Tommy Lee Jones, Harrison Ford
The Fugitive remains a great 90s study in the assumed-bad guy character and the ways in which they do and don’t redeem themselves. The fugitive (Harrison Ford) may be the only one who knows he’s not guilty, and the film follows his panic as he tries to solve the case on the run. Ford and Tommy Lee Jones, playing the U.S. Marshall, are delightful and engrossing to watch.
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Available: October 1 | Director: Matt Reeves
Cast: Chloë Grace Moretz, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Cara Buono
A soulfully entertaining take on the vampire genre, two teenagers befriend each other in Let Me In. One is a human, who is bullied, and the other is a friend to him and also a vampire. The film is clever at interpolating personal drama with fantasy, meaning be prepared for emotional feels about adolescent cruelty and plenty of scares because the vampire means business.
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Available: October 1 | Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Cast: Carmen Maura, Julieta Serrano, Penelope Cruz
One of Almodóvar’s more widely known films from his 80s work, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Spanish: Mujeres al borde de un ataque de "nervios") tells you everything from its title. That is, the film sets you up for an ensemble cast romp that is also serious and thoroughly emotional. Nerves are, let’s be real, about emotional responsiveness – and sensitivity – and the film doesn’t hide the journey.
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Available: October 15 | Director: John Singleton
Cast: Regina King, Janet Jackson, Tupac Shakur
Featuring poetry by Maya Angelou, Poetic Justice centers around grief, friendship, and finding a new, eventual light in our lives – love – after we think we’ve lost all capacity to find joy again. With an excellent ensemble cast, Angelou’s poems in voiceover, and music by Stanley Clarke, the film is a meditative drama on art, social unrest, and violence.
Dina Paulson is a Film and TV Feature Writer for Collider. Her writing also appears in Cine Suffragette, FanFare, her blog, walk the line, and two poetry chapbooks, Parts of Love, and TOUCH / breaks (forthcoming, akinoga press, 2023/4). When she is not writing, she is walking, exploring, reading, (watching a lot of film and TV), and doing the best life things with her four-year old son.
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