What’s Streaming On MUBI In September: Get Ready To Journey To Megalopolis!
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Carl Roberts 
Uncover the charm of MUBI and why it is a must-have streaming service for avid movie watchers and cinephiles.
September is shaping up to be another great month on MUBI. Highlights include Francis Ford Coppola’s unapologetically ambitious Megalopolis, led by Adam Driver, who also shines in the Performers We Love collection alongside Paterson. Frances Ha and Annette. The Back in the Game collection celebrates the career renaissance of stars Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl, and Demi Moore in The Substance. Two essential works from Oscar-winning filmmaker Rob Epstein – The Times of Harvey Milk and The Celluloid Closet headline Queer Histories, Reclaimed.
Fans of David Lynch will be treated to the dreamlike brilliance of Mulholland Drive. At the same time, Youn Yuh-jung’s Academy Award®-winning performance in Minari returns to the screen. Elsewhere, Takashi Miike’s First Love delivers his signature mix of extreme violence and slapstick comedy. Giulia Grandinetti’s Majonezë and Sophie Hyde’s Animals offer powerful voices to close out the month.
LATEST & GREATEST: MEGALOPOLIS
As determined by its protagonist’s vision, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis (2024) unfurls in New Rome. A grandiose and futuristic version of New York City devised by architect Caesar Catilina (Adam Driver). As Caesar dreams of further developing New Rome to its utopian potential with the mysterious material Megalon, his bold vision begins clashing with the city’s entrenched institutional figures.
Brimming with ambition, Megalopolis’ unapologetic reach is visualised through its towering, cathedral-like architecture. And references to antiquity offer a scale born from Coppola’s sheer creative faith, which devises to tell an allegorical tale of his own relationship to the industry he has become legendary within.
Megalopolis (Coppola, 2024) – September 5
PERFORMERS WE LOVE: ADAM DRIVER
The quietly magnetic Adam Driver is celebrated in our Performers We Love: Adam Driver collection. From Frances Ha (2012) to Megalopolis (2024), in just a decade, he has collaborated with several heralded auteurs. Headed in this collection by a signature performance in Jim Jarmusch’s gentle Paterson (2016), in which he plays New Jersey bus driver Paterson, who moonlights as a poet. By observing the rhythms of his daily routine with delicate precision, Jarmusch is able to reveal something quite revelatory about the human condition. Amplified even further by Driver’s ability to convey emotions of deep significance with even the smallest of gestures.
Paterson (Jarmusch, 2016) – September 5
Megalopolis (Coppola, 2024) – September 5
Frances Ha (Baumbach, 2012) – Now Streaming
Annette (Carax, 2021) – Now Streaming
BACK IN THE GAME
Before Pamela Anderson reminded us last year of why she’s a household name with her phenomenal performance in The Last Showgirl (2024), 80s icon and former boxer Mickey Rourke exploded onto screens again in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler (2008) as Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a washed-up pro grappler clinging to faded glory. Rourke delivers a performance of raw, bruised vulnerability, less an act than a lived-in excavation of his own scars, regrets, and stubborn pride.
The Wrestler (Aronofsky, 2008) – September 17
The Substance (Fargeat, 2024) – Now Streaming
The Last Showgirl (Coppola, 2024) – Now Streaming
QUEER HISTORIES, RECLAIMED: TWO BY ROB EPSTEIN
Bringing together two landmark documentaries from the Oscar-winning filmmaker Rob Epstein, our Queer Histories, Reclaimed: Two by Rob Epstein begins with The Times of Harvey Milk (1984), a powerful chronicle on the legacy of America’s first openly gay elected official, while The Celluloid Closet (1995) traces Hollywood’s fraught, often hidden history of queer representation. Together, they stand as essential acts of remembrance and reclamation.
The Times of Harvey Milk (Epstein, 1984) – September 21
The Celluloid Closet (Epstein, 1995) – September 21
MULHOLLAND DRIVE
The late great David Lynch’s labyrinthine Mulholland Drive (2001) is a hypnotic descent into a Los Angeles defined by dreams and yearning, where identities blur and desires twist reality. Upon arriving in Los Angeles to chase her dream, aspiring actress Betty (Naomi Watts) meets amnesiac Rita (Laura Elena Harring) and the two join forces to solve the mystery of Rita’s lost memory, moving through a world where streets, conversations, and even identities shift unpredictably.
While Hollywood glamour and surrealism paint its surface, underneath this dreamscape lies one of cinema’s most moving portraits of longing, ambition, and heartbreak, elevated by a divine Angelo Badalamenti score and two career-defining performances from its female leads.
Mulholland Drive (Lynch, 2001) – September 1
MINARI
Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari (2020) follows the Yi family as they move from California to rural Arkansas in the 1980s. Hoping to build a small farm. Jacob (Steven Yeun) pursues his dream with determination, while Monica (Yeri Han) adjusts to the challenges of country life. Their young son David (Alan Kim) forms a special bond with his grandmother Soonja (Youn Yuh-jung). She teaches him about minari, a resilient herb that becomes a quiet symbol of growth and perseverance.
A love letter to family and the resilience of diasporic communities, Chung’s film went on to earn several accolades for actress Youn Yuh-jung in her role as the grandmother, including winning the Academy Award and BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress.
Minari (Chung, 2020) – September 10
FIRST LOVE
In usual Takashi Miike-style, First Love (2019) shuffles fluidly between violence and slapstick as a botched drug deal entangles a web of yakuza, Chinese gangsters, crooked cops, and wronged women into a series of boisterous and near self-contained storylines. However, as the threads begin to merge, a darker threat is unveiled between the threaded narratives, and the film’s kinetic and darkly comic tone makes way to reveal an unexpectedly poignant take on crime and obsession.
First Love (Miike, 2019) – September 20
MAJONEZË
Giulia Grandinetti’s Majonezë (2024) follows Elyria, a young woman who, upon feeling constrained by her father’s strict rules, begins to harbour a strong desire for rebellion. For her portrayal of personal revolution against patriarchal standards, Grandinetti won Best Italian Short Film at Alice nella Città and the Canal+ Award at Cinemed.
Majonezë (Grandinetti, 2024) – September 20
ANIMALS
In Sophie Hyde’s Animals (2019), aspiring writer Laura (Holliday Grainger) and her best friend Tyler (Alia Shawkat) live for late nights out in Dublin and borrowed glamour, but when Laura falls for a disciplined pianist, their once-symbiotic bond begins to strain, pushing her towards making forced choices on the type of life and art she wants to pursue.
Animals (Hyde, 2019) – September 26
MUBI UK & IRELAND SEPTEMBER 2025
01/09/2025 | Mulholland Drive | David Lynch
05/09/2025 | Megalopolis | Francis Ford Coppola | Latest & Greatest
05/09/2025 | Paterson | Jim Jarmusch | Performers we Love: Adam Driver
10/09/2025 | Minari | Lee Isaac Chung
17/09/2025 | The Wrestler | Darren Aronofsky | Back in the Game
20/09/2025 | Majonezë | Giulia Grandinetti
20/09/2025 | First Love | Takashi Miike
21/09/2025 | The Times of Harvey Milk | Rob Epstein | Queer Histories, Reclaimed: Two by Rob Epstein
21/09/2025 | The Celluloid Closet | Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman | Queer Histories, Reclaimed: Two by Rob Epstein
26/09/2025 | Animals | Sophie Hyde
There’s plenty to entertain the most ardent cinephile in September on MUBI. So, what’s stopping you? Sign up today!
Introducing Carl! As the News Editor at Future of the Force, Carl has been an invaluable member of our team since early 2016. His expertise and dedication have made him an integral part of our editorial staff. Beyond his professional role, Carl is a fervent supporter of Liverpool F.C. and an avid follower of pop culture. He has a deep passion for Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the iconic movie franchises Star Wars and Star Trek.
He can be found either at his neighborhood cinema, enjoying the latest releases on the big screen, or at home streaming the newest blockbuster movies.
