11 titles to watch this month

Have you ever added a movie to your watchlist only to find it gone from a streaming service’s library when you were ready to watch it? Movies come and go on streamers like Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max, and it’s hard to keep track. Each month, we compile a list of the best movies leaving streaming services. Hopefully, this will help you make the most of your streaming subscriptions and catch some great films before they’re gone.

Below, you’ll find 11 of our top picks for February 2022. They’re all leaving their respective services in the second half of the month, so hopefully you’ll have enough time to watch all of the titles that appeal to you most.

Related: The best streaming original movies on every major platform

Best movies leaving streaming services in February

Editor’s note: We’ll be updating this list of the best movies leaving streaming services every month to keep you up to date on what not to miss.

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

HBO Max — Leaving February 25

It’s hard to imagine that a classic as iconic, original, and genre-defining as Blade Runner could spawn a sequel that does justice to the original. And yet Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve pulled it off brilliantly in 2017’s Blade Runner 2049. Visually stunning and featuring some top-tier performances, Villeneuve’s “legasequel” has even been hailed by many as better than the original (but I wouldn’t go quite that far, personally).

When an LAPD blade runner finds the remains of a replicant who was pregnant, he takes off on a quest to find former blade runner Rick Deckard. The elder robot hunter may have answers about the nature of the replicants, machines who may be more human than previously believed.

A teen girl travels into a magical world when her baby brother is taken by the mysterious Goblin King. While she wished to be rid of him, she now realizes she needs him back. First, she has to travel through a maze to find him and get him back with the help of new friends she meets along the way.

With incredible puppetry by director Jim Henson, an iconic performance by David Bowie, and dark imagery, it’s no wonder Labyrinth has become a cult classic, despite a tepid reception when it came out. Don’t miss this brilliant film while it’s still available to stream on Netflix.

It’s hard to resist the charms of 13 Going on 30, a romantic comedy with a fantasy twist reminiscent of 1988’s Tom Hanks-starring Big. When Jenna Rink’s 13th birthday party is a bust, she wants to leave childhood behind once and for all. She wishes she was “thirty, flirty, and thriving.” Little does she know the magic wish dust her friend Matt gifted her actually works, and she suddenly finds herself, well, thirty, flirty, and thriving. Jenna is now a successful fashion media editor who has it all. Or rather, she seems to. Jenna soon realizes she’s become the kind of bully she always loathed and tracks down Matt so he can help her fix everything.

If like me, you enjoy returning to 13 Going on 30 as a solid comfort movie, you’ll want to catch it before it leaves HBO Max. It’s one of the best movies leaving streaming services in February.

An Eddie Murphy classic, Beverly Hills Cop is a buddy cop comedy that has aged beautifully and remains a delight to watch nearly 40 years on. It’s truly one of the best movies leaving streaming services in February.

When his childhood friend is killed, a Detroit cop takes matters into his own hands. Axel Foley wants answers, and he heads to Beverly Hills to find them — against his captain’s direct orders. Once there, Foley teams up with local cops, who are reluctant to accept Foley’s help. Together, hopefully they can put their differences aside and find some justice.

Birds of Prey is one of the best DCEU movies and one of the best movies leaving streaming services this month. Despite being a Warner Bros. release, it’s sadly leaving HBO Max in February, so make sure to watch it before it’s gone.

Following the events of Suicide Squad (though mostly ignoring its events) Birds of Prey focuses in on Harley Quinn and the unlikely team of (anti)heroes she assembles to take on the terrifying crime boss Black Mask. The problem is, now that she doesn’t have protection from her ex the Joker, it’s open season on Harley, and all the criminals in Gotham City want a piece.

Alexander Payne’s 1999 comedy remains as smart and relevant as ever, and it’s well worth watching before it leaves Hulu.

Election follows a popular high-school civics teacher who becomes obsessed with one of his students, an overachiever running for class president. Convinced that she’s the wrong choice for the student body, he schemes to stop her. To that end, he enlists the help of a well-liked jock in his bid to knock her down a peg. The film is dark, hilarious, and whip-smart in its depiction of power relations and American politics through the lens of education and student affairs.

Fight Club has earned a bit of a reputation as a toxic bro film over the years, bolstered by posters in dorm rooms everywhere. It’s a brilliant bit of satire, though, and it’s not totally fair to judge a film by its worst fans and those who misunderstand its core message. David Fincher does a brilliant job of unpacking machismo and empty male rebellion in his 1999 adaptation of the Chuck Palahniuk novel, one of the best movies leaving streaming services this month.

Fight Club follows a disaffected and depressed man who strikes up a friendship with an enigmatic soap salesman. Together, they form an underground fight club for men looking for an outlet from their mundane lives. The club grows and the stakes rise fast, and soon it’s on an unstoppable path towards social chaos.

David Fincher fans may be sad to learn that a second of his films is leaving Hulu in February. Gone Girl has been earning a cult following since it came out, with viewers picking apart its narrative twists and disturbing implications. Gillian Flynn does a terrific job adapting her own hit novel, with Fincher directing one of his best outings.

Nick and Amy Dunne are the perfect portrait of marital bliss. Or they are until Amy goes missing. As Nick rises to the top of the police suspect list, we watch as the image of their fairytale marriage unravels. As we learn what happened to Amy, our perception of relationships, of gender dynamics, and of the truths we can’t always recognize are challenged right up until the film’s brilliant final moments.

Before his megahit Pirates of the Caribbean and even before his chilling J-horror remake The Ring, Gore Verbinski directed an unassuming little adventure comedy. The Mexican stars Brad Pitt as a down-on-his-luck crook on one final job for his mob boss. Finally ready to go straight, he has to transport a rare gun back to America over the Mexican border. Trouble is, his girlfriend has had it with his criminal ways. His last job may spell the end of their relationship.

Scenes pairing up Julia Roberts and the late James Gandolfini especially stand out in this woefully underrated relic of 2000s mid-budget Hollywood filmmaking. Check it out while it’s still streaming on Hulu.

Following the bloody, action-packed events of 2011’s The Raid, The Raid 2 sees Rama go undercover in the hopes of protecting his family from the target on his back. He goes to prison and soon finds himself climbing the ranks of a criminal empire. The stakes keep rising as he fights his way to the top. He’ll take down as many bad guys as he can on the way.

The Raid 2 is one of the best movies leaving streaming services. It’s also one of the best action movies of the 21st century, full stop. Don’t miss this gem of Indonesian action cinema.

Writer-director Scott Derickson and screenwriter C. Robert Cargill made a knockout horror film on a tiny budget in 2012 before teaming up again on Doctor Strange for Marvel Studios. Sinister, starring Ethan Hawke, is a bone-chilling story of a man obsessed with the dark history of his new home.

True-crime writer Ellison Oswald is trying to get his career back on track. As such, he moves his family into a home where a gruesome crime was committed. Soon, he discovers film of the incident and others like it. As he investigates, he realizes there may be a supernatural force behind the deaths. And it may not have left.