Everything Leaving Netflix This Month (and the 9 You Need to See)

It's your last chance to see some of the best movies now streaming, before Netflix takes them away between now and Sept. 1. Here's the entire list of what's about to vanish, with our critic's special picks of which movies you can't afford to miss (plus capsule reviews) before they're gone. (And be on the lookout for AARP's guide to the best new films and shows coming to Netflix in September!)

Leaving 8/21

• Just Go With It

Leaving 8/23

• Fanatic

Leaving 8/25

Critic's Pick: Blue Is the Warmest Color

Lea Seydoux and Adele Exarchopoulos won wide acclaim (and the Cannes Palme d'Or Award) in this achingly sad, sexually steamy, deeply heartfelt saga of star-crossed young lovers.

Leaving 8/28

• Bring It On: Worldwide Showdown
• The Wicker Man

Leaving 8/31

• Bad Boys
• Bad Boys II
• Candyman
• Child's Play
• Failure to Launch
• He's Just Not That Into You
• The Karate Kid
• The Karate Kid Part II
• The Karate Kid Part III
• The Lake House
• Life as We Know It
• Murder Party
• Observe and Report
• One Day
• Rugrats Go Wild
• V for Vendetta
• Valentine's Day

Critic's Pick: Clueless

Pretty much every adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma is terrific, but none is more cleverly fresh than the one starring Alicia Silverstone as a modern Beverly Hills 10th-grader who meddles in a friend's love life. By the director of Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Critic's Pick: Get Him to the Greek

It's crude and messy, but no question, Jonah Hill and Russell Brand are funny as an under-qualified music exec and the out-of-control rock star he must get under control and onstage at LA's Greek Theater, or else.

Critic's Pick: Groundhog Day

In the era of COVID confinement, Bill Murray's immortal comedy about the same day replayed day after day has never been more relevant. And after you see it, see the same concept done brilliantly in Netflix's Russian Doll and Hulu's new Palm Springs.

Critic's Pick: Jerry Maguire

Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger have never been better than they are in their Cameron Crowe classic about a rebel sports agent and the girl he had at “Hello."

Critic's Pick: Public Enemies

Johnny Depp's bank robber John Dillinger is pretty much the good guy pursued by much-less-good guys J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) and G-man Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) in a Depression-era saga by gangster-film auteur Michael Mann (Manhunter, Heat). A bit familiar, but worth a look.

Critic's Pick: School Daze

Disorganized even by Spike Lee standards, it's still an extremely watchable semi-comedy, semi-musical about an all-Black college (inspired by Lee's own undergrad experience) and the cultural clash between its students — for once, not defined with reference to whites. Lee is good as a kid yearning to pledge at a frat, Laurence Fishburne better as his highbrow activist cousin.

Critic's Pick: Tootsie

Dustin Hoffman was never a greater man than when he played a desperate actor impersonating a woman to get a soap opera job. But he's nearly upstaged by the superb comic cast: Bill Murray, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman, Geena Davis, and its director, Sydney Pollack, as Hoffman's bewildered agent.

Critic's Pick: United 93

What was it like to be aboard a jet hijacked by terrorists on 9/11 and resisting them heroically? Or to be the air traffic controllers on the ground struggling to cope with the crisis? This movie plays like you're there as events unfold in real time.