As we near the end of another month, it’s once again a great time to make a watchlist of movies that are leaving streaming services in the next few days. To help make sure you don’t miss anything, we’ve put together a list of some of the best options to consider.
This month’s selection includes a movie that deserves a second chance, an underrated thriller starring Chadwick Boseman, an all-time classic that just keeps getting better with age, and an excellent sci-fi cult hit.
Here are all the best movies leaving streaming in February.
Editor’s pick: The Last Samurai
Image: Warner Bros. via Everett Collection
Director: Edward Zwick
Stars: Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Hiroyuki Sanada
Leaving Prime Video: Feb. 28
I think the time has come for a bit of a rebound on The Last Samurai. Despite its role as a cultural punchline for years, the movies is actually pretty great. The film follows Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), a Westerner hired to train the Imperial Japanese army before eventually defecting to help a group of rebellious samurai led by Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe). Fittingly, the movie now feels like the last of a certain generation of battle-filled historical epics — a genre that has felt nearly extinct for the last two decades in Hollywood since this movie came out, although multiple important personnel went on to work on Shōgun. Director Edward Zwick’s vision of a Japan on the verge of modernity is gorgeous and tragic, and while it’s not his best movie (that would be Glory) or Cruise’s best (take your pick), it is a fascinating cultural artifact, and a kind of interesting, mature, and well-made movie that we still see too rarely now. —Austen Goslin
Best movies leaving Netflix
Director: Brian Kirk
Stars: Chadwick Boseman, Sienna Miller, J.K. Simmons
Leaving Netflix: Feb. 28
Few police thrillers have ever had a premise as great as 21 Bridges. The film follows an NYPD detective Andre Davis (Chadwick Boseman) chasing two criminals who killed several officers in a shootout from Brooklyn to Manhattan. In hopes of catching the pair, Andre makes the bold call to shut down every bridge off of Manhattan, shutting the island off from the rest of the world. It gives the whole movie a palpable intensity, and Boseman’s performance matches the gravity of the situation perfectly. The whole movie has a tense cat-and-mouse vibe, and while it never quite makes it to the lofty tier of cops-versus-criminals classic, it is an underrated thriller that’s definitely worth a watch. —AG
Best movies leaving Prime Video
Photo: Columbia Pictures
Director: David Fincher
Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake
Leaving Prime Video: Feb. 28
David Fincher’s biographical drama is a film that’s taken on striking significance in the time since it was released. The public consensus surrounding Meta, the parent company of Facebook, and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, could not be more different in 2025 when compared to 2010. The Social Network delves into the psychology behind the social media platform and its creator, demystifying both to strike at the root of their pathologies. The film’s tagline, “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies,” is apt, especially considering anthropologist Robin Dunbar’s assertion that any number of relationships in excess of 150 inevitably deteriorate. With “friends” like Zuckerberg, who needs enemies? —Toussaint Egan
Best movies leaving Criterion Channel
Image: Columbia Pictures
Director: Andrew Niccol
Stars: Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Jude Law
Leaving Criterion Channel: Feb. 28
It’s quite an uncanny experience looking back on 1997’s Gattaca in the year 2025. Andrew Niccol’s feature debut augured a not-so-distant future where humanity has colonized the solar system, though at the cost of a society stratified into a eugenic caste system. Ethan Hawke stars as Vincent Anton Freeman, a natural-born man who, despite a congenital heart condition, yearns to realize his dream of becoming an astronaut. With the aid of Jerome Morrow (Jude Law), Vincent is able to sneak his way into the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation, where he must deflect any and all suspicion of his genetic origin in order to succeed. With superb performances, including none other than legendary author Gore Vidal, Niccol has not made a better movie since. That’s all right, though; how many other filmmakers can confidently say their first film was a masterpiece? —TE