24 Best New Movies to Streaming in September: ‘Lilo & Stitch,’ ‘Highest 2 Lowest,’ ‘Friendship, ‘Warfare’ and More

Disney’s live-action “Lilo & Stitch” is Hollywood’s biggest movie of 2025 so far with $1 billion at the worldwide box office. In fact, it’s America’s only billion dollar grosser of the year as the summer movie season ends. Expect the remake to be just as much of a behemoth when it arrives on Disney+ this month for family audiences to watch from home. From Variety’s review: “Making a huge step up from ‘Marcel the Shell With Shoes On,’ director Dean Fleischer Camp delivers the same laughs and heart as the 2002 cartoon, though his leads were more appealing in animated form.”

Spike Lee and Denzel Washington’s “Highest 2 Lowest” marks their fifth on-screen collaboration. The film, a New York City-spin on Akira Kurosawa’s kidnapping drama “High and Low,” world premiered to strong reviews at Cannes and arrives on Apple TV+ this month after a limited theatrical release in August. From Variety’s review: “Washington plays a music mogul who faces a series of big moral choices in a film whose sensational third act more than justifies what might have seemed an unnecessary update.”

A24’s black comedy “Friendship,” starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd, was a spring hit at the indie box office with $16 million domestically. Robinson plays a socially awkward husband whose infatuation with a charismatic new neighbor (Rudd) leads to unexpected consequences. Kate Mara and Jack Dylan Grazer also star. From Variety’s review: “While we may think, at first, that we’re watching a comedy about a sad-sack geek who’s drawn out of his shell, the film always makes sure that Craig, as inhabited by Robinson, is a notch weirder and more off-putting than we expect.”

Alex Garland’s real-time combat thriller “Warfare” could not reach the box office heights of his last A24 outing, “Civil War,” but it’s sure to attract viewers to HBO Max when it makes it streaming debut this month. Featuring an ensemble cast that includes D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Kit Connor, Finn Bennett, Joseph Quinn and Charles Melton, the film is based on co-director Ray Mendoza’s real experience during the Iraq War.

Jai Courtney is a shark-obsessed serial killer in Shudder’s white-knuckle horror movie “Dangerous Animals,” which earned rave reviews out of the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Courtney plays a deranged Australian tour guide who steers you out to sea and lets you swim with the sharks. Then he feeds you to them. From Variety’s review: “We have screenwriter Nick Lepard to thank for these vivid new nightmares, presented with such conviction by ‘The Devil’s Candy’ director Sean Byrne that the efficient and highly effective thriller scarcely allows a calm moment in which to question how deranged its premise truly is.”

Andrew Ahn’s “The Wedding Banquet” is a thoroughly enjoyable dramedy based on Ang Lee’s 1993 original of the same name. The film follows Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) and her girlfriend, Lee (Lily Gladstone), who are trying to have a baby through IVF but can’t afford to pay for another round of fertility treatment. Their closeted friend Min (Han Gi-chan), who is also the heir of a multinational empire, has a student visa that’s about to expire. When his boyfriend Chris (Bowen Yang) rejects his marriage proposal for various reasons, he pops the question to Angela instead. From there, a wedding plot is hatched that quickly spins out of control.

“Ted Lasso” Emmy winner Brett Goldstein and Imogen Poots headline director William Bridges’ romance “All of You,” which Goldstein also co-wrote. The film centers on two best friends whose relationship is tested when a new matchmaking service that partners soulmates drives a wedge between them. They clearly belong together, but can they disrupt their lives to make it happen? 

HBO Max and GKIDS announced last month a continuation of their streaming partnership. The streamer was already the exclusive home of Studio Ghibli movies in the United States, but now it will add more Japanese animated favorites such as Makoto Shinkai’s blockbuster anime “Your Name” and the North American streaming premieres of “Lonely Castle in the Mirror,” “Children Who Chase Lost Voices,” “Ghost Cat Anzu” and more.

Former “Wednesday” co-stars Jenna Ortega and Percy Hynes White headline the long-delayed coming-of-age romance “Winter Spring Summer Fall,” directed by Tiffany Paulsen. The film centers on two very different teenagers who unexpectedly meet in the winter of their senior year and proceed to spend four days together across the seasons.

Netflix’s two-part documentary “aka Charlie Sheen” chronicles the star’s struggle with fame — leading to his infamous 2011 firing from “Two and a Half Men” — followed by his path to sobriety. Sheen personally opens up in the documentary, which also includes interviews with his family, friends and cast members including Denise Richards, Heidi Fleiss, Jon Cryer, Sean Penn, Ramon Estevez, Brooke Mueller, Chris Tucker and even Sheen’s drug dealer Marco. Andrew Renzi, whose “Pepsi, Where’s My Jet?” was a hit for Netflix in 2022, is the director and producer on “aka Charlie Sheen.”

“The Man in My Basement” premieres exclusively on Hulu this month after screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. Adapted from Walter Mosley’s bestselling novel and directed by Nadia Latif in her feature debut, the film centers on Charles Blakey (Corey Hawkins), a man who is “out of work, out of luck and on the verge of foreclosure on his ancestral home” after his mother’s death. Then, a knock on the door from a mysterious businessman, Anniston Bennet (Willem Dafoe), brings a bizarre and lucrative proposition.

Miranda Cosgrove gets to headline another Netflix romantic comedy after “Mother of the Bride” with the upcoming “The Wrong Paris,” co-starring Pierson Fodé, Madison Pettis, Madeleine Arthur, Frances Fisher and Yvonne Orji. The official synopsis from Netflix reads: “A young woman (Cosgrove) joins a dating show thinking it’s in Paris, France, but it’s actually in Paris, Texas. She plots a way to get eliminated until her unexpected feelings for the bachelor (Fodé) complicate her plans.”

Liam Neeson movies always find their way to the top of the Netflix charts, and “Ice Road: Vengeance” should be no exception when it makes its debut on the streamer this month. Starring Neeson opposite Fan Bingbing and Marcus Thomas, the film follows ice road driver Mike McCann (Neeson) as he travels to Nepal to scatter his late brother’s ashes on Mt. Everest. While on a packed tour bus traversing the deadly 12,000 ft. terrain of the infamous Road to the Sky, McCann and his mountain guide (Bingbing) encounter a group of Nepali mercenaries and must fight to save themselves, the busload of innocent travelers and the local villagers’ homeland.

“French Lover” is a sexy romantic comedy starring Omar Sy, the beloved French star of Netflix’s blockbuster heist show “Lupin,” and Sara Giraudeau (“Bernadette”). Sy stars as Abel Camara, a jaded actor who crosses paths with a down-on-her-luck waitress named Marion (Giraudeau). Can their love survive the tabloid spotlight? 

Tyler Perry produces Netflix’s faith-based original “Ruth & Boaz,” directed by Alanna Brown and starring Serayah McNeill, Tyler Lepley, Phylicia Rashad, Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, Walnette Santiago and more. The official synopsis from Netflix reads: “Rising Atlanta hip-hop artist Ruth Moably gives up the glamorous life to start anew in rural Tennessee, where she cares for Naomi, the mother of her boyfriend who died in a tragic incident, and meets the man of her dreams.”

“The Surfer,” a psychological thriller starring Nicolas Cage, premiered at Cannes last year and arrives on streaming this month after a summer theatrical release. Directed by Lorcan Finnegan, the movie centers on a man who returns to the idyllic beach of his childhood to surf with his son. But, according to the official logline, “he is humiliated by a group of powerful locals and drawn into a conflict that rises with the punishing heat of the summer and pushes him right to his breaking point.”

David Joseph Craig and Brian Crano’s “I Don’t Understand You” stars Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells as Dom and Cole, a couple struggling to adopt a daughter, a process that paralleled the directing duo’s real life. When Dom and Cole finally match with a mother eager to choose them as parents, they take an anniversary trip to Italy, where a series of miscommunications turn their conduct from clumsy to deadly.

Per HBO Max: “Going behind the scenes of her administration and her private life, ‘Prime Minister’ follows Jacinda Arden, New Zealand’s 40th Prime Minister, over seven years as she is catapulted to the top of New Zealand politics, becomes a global political icon, resigns from office, and continues to champion the fight against isolationism, fear, and the distortion of truth. Intimate home footage shot by her husband and audio interviews from her time in office give viewers unparalleled access and an unfiltered window into her years in power.”

Horror fans get an early Halloween treat with the Shudder original “Night of the Reaper.” The official synopsis reads: “In the wake of the brutal murder of a teenaged babysitter, college student Deena returns home for the weekend and is roped into a babysitting gig of her own. When the local sheriff is mailed a piece of evidence that proves the murder may not have been an isolated incident, he is led on a scavenger hunt to reveal the killer may be planning a sequel.”

Steven Soderberg’s excellent thriller “Black Bag” arrives on Prime Video this month at no extra cost to subscribers after making its streaming debut in May on Peacock. A sturdy caper dealing in espionage thrills, the film stars Michael Fassbender as an insect-like spy, bugging out as he carefully probes his peers, including his wife (Cate Blanchett, perfect as the femme fatale), to discover a traitor among the ranks.

Jason Statham’s action thriller “A Working Man” topped the box office with $15.2 million in a surprise late May win, and now the David Ayer-directed action movie arrives on Prime Video. Statham and Ayer reunite after “The Beekeeper” for the story of a decorated military veteran who emerges from retirement after human traffickers kidnap his boss’ daughter. 

Jack Quaid’s action-comedy “Novocaine” had a slow box office run, but it’s bound to pick up eyeballs when it debuts at no extra cost to subscribers on Prime Video this month. In “Novocaine,” Quaid plays an introverted everyman with the inability to feel pain, which he uses to his advantage after his dream girl is taken hostage in a bank robbery.

“Love Hurts,” led by Oscar winners Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose, centers on a mild-mannered realtor whose past as a violent hitman comes back to haunt him after he finds out his left-for-dead former partner-in-crime is very much alive. Stunt coordinator Jonathan Eusebio, whose credits include such action blockbusters as “Black Panther,” “The Avengers” and “John Wick,” directed the R-rated film in his feature debut. 

Judd Apatow and Steve Carell’s R-rated comedy breakthrough “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” celebrated its 20^th anniversary in late August and now arrives on Hulu at the perfect time to re-live all the raunchy and heartfelt hijinks. From Variety’s review: “Carell’s first star turn has plenty in common with ‘Wedding Crashers.’ Crude but frequently funny, the pic overstays its welcome a bit but delivers enough belly laughs that it should score pretty consistently.”