What to Watch in October 2026

October’s slate leans towards prestige drama and stylish returns.

The Gentlemen: Season 2

Where to watch: Netflix, streaming now

Guy Ritchie back behind the camera, Theo James and Kaya Scodelario back as Eddie and Susie a year into running Bobby Glass’s empire – only now his decisions are looking shakier by the episode. Ray Winstone returns, Hugh Bonneville and Maya Jama join for season two, and the whole thing expands out to the Italian lakes.

Digger

Where to watch: cinemas, 2 October

Tom Cruise and director Alejandro González Iñárritu, together for the first time, on a story about a powerful man convinced he’s meant to save everyone. It’s a drama rather than his usual action fare, and marks Cruise’s first collaboration with Iñárritu behind the camera.

The Social Reckoning

Where to watch: cinemas, 9 October

Aaron Sorkin’s script, Mikey Madison as Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. Adapted from the real story of Haugen’s 2021 leak of internal Facebook documents, and the fallout that followed inside the company and out.

Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger

Where to watch: Disney+, expected 9 October

The reunion documentary, following Liam and Noel through rehearsals, backstage and the stage itself – with their first joint interviews in over twenty years. Had its cinema run in September; this is the wider streaming release.

Sense and Sensibility

Where to watch: cinemas, 16 October

A new Austen adaptation with Daisy Edgar-Jones leading, set in Georgian England – the Dashwood sisters navigating love and money after their father’s death leaves them with very little of either.

Lupin: Part 4

Where to watch: Netflix, 23 October

The French heist thriller returns. Omar Sy is back as Assane Diop, still working his way through an elaborate, long-running plot with the same style and misdirection that made the first three parts such a hit.

More Journals

Exhibitions to catch before they close

London’s summer exhibition season is on its final straight, worth trying to catch the below before they close.

Dulwich Picture Gallery, until 4 October

What to see: Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography

A hundred years of American street life told through the camera, from Alfred Stieglitz and Berenice Abbott through to Garry Winogrand and William Eggleston. The show is organised around people rather than architecture, tracing everything from Depression-era breadlines to Helen Levitt’s photographs of children playing in Harlem. Critics have called it one of the strongest photography shows London has seen this year – a reminder that many of its photographers were themselves immigrants, looking at their adopted country with real sympathy.

Design Museum, until 4 October

What to see: NIGO: From Japan with Love

The first museum retrospective outside Japan for NIGO, the designer who built A Bathing Ape and now runs Kenzo. Over 700 objects trace thirty years of work, from a recreation of his teenage Harajuku bedroom to a custom glass tea house built with the team behind Not A Hotel. The through-line is his gift for turning niche obsessions – vintage Americana, Japanese ceramics, sneaker culture – into ideas the rest of the industry eventually copies.

Hayward Gallery, until 18 October

What to see: Anish Kapoor

Kapoor’s second show at the Hayward since 1998, and a genuinely surprising one. A vast red inflatable blocks the entrance; an inverted mountain hangs from the ceiling; a floor piece resembles a coral reef seen from above. It sits alongside the 1992 Vantablack void “Descent into Limbo,” so the show reads as a conversation between the artist at 30 and at 70. Reviewers have described it as anarchic and funny in a way his recent work hasn’t always managed.

Royal Academy, until 25 October

What to see: Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam

Dadd killed his father in 1843 and spent the rest of his life in psychiatric institutions – and kept painting throughout. This is the fullest account yet of that work, including “The Fairy-Feller’s Master Stroke,” a canvas so densely detailed that the RA hands out magnifying glasses. The case the show makes is that institutional life gave Dadd the calm to paint with extraordinary control, complicating the usual “mad genius” story told about him.

V&A

What to see: Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art

The first UK retrospective for Elsa Schiaparelli, with over 200 pieces spanning the 1920s to the present, including her collaborations with Salvador Dali and Jean Cocteau. The case the exhibition makes is that Schiaparelli got to surrealism in fashion three years before the movement’s own landmark London show in 1936 – her Mayfair store was arguably Britain’s first surrealist space. Daniel Roseberry, the house’s current creative director, has spoken about her as more cerebral than her reputation for shock value suggests.