The summer season and great movies are a classic combination. Yes, it’s a little paradoxical. Better weather should mean less time spent indoors watching films. But there’s a reason that major studios typically drop their biggest blockbusters over the summer (and summer movie season 2026 is looking pretty great). Netflix is no different, offering its own seasonal slate.
The world’s biggest streaming service drops new movies (and TV shows) all year long, but it seems to always save a few big-hitters for the summer months. In 2026, there will be a strong handful of new Netflix originals that will encourage you to shun the sun and instead spend your vacation time glued to your television.
I’ve combed through Netflix’s confirmed slate of new movies for the summer months ahead and found a trio of movies that look so enticing that I’ve already added them to my streaming watchlist.
‘Enola Holmes 3’
Netflix’s “Enola Holmes” franchise makes its return this month, and I’ve got a gut feeling that it could be the plucky young detective’s best outing yet. The Millie Bobby Brown-fronted mysteries have always been enjoyable, but “Enola Holmes 3” sees director Philip Barantini step into the mix, with Jack Thorne again handling the screenplay. Barantini’s involvement is significant as he’s the filmmaker behind “Adolescence” and the excellent, and criminally overlooked “Boiling Point” (think “The Bear” set in Britain).
The third flick will see the “Stranger Things” star once again play the younger sibling of detective Sherlock Holmes (played in this adaptation by Henry Cavill). After two adventures, she’s an established sleuth herself, and this time she’s jetting off to Malta to tackle a case “more tangled and treacherous than any she has faced before.” Alongside Brown and Cavill, Helena Bonham Carter, Himesh Patel and Louis Partridge all return, too.
Watch “Enola Holmes 3” on Netflix starting July 1
‘The Last House’
Any movie that pairs Greta Lee (“Past Lives”) and Wagner Moura (“The Secret Agent”) is going to be on my radar. But when you also factor in that “The Last House” is a sci-fi horror with a pretty compelling hook, consider me sold. However, somewhat tempering my expectations is that it comes from director Louis Leterrier, who’s got a mixed filmography. Yes, he helmed one of my guilty pleasures, “Now You See Me,” but he also directed “Fast X” and 2010’s “Clash of the Titans,” which are shoddy blockbusters.
The movie revolves around a family (Lee and Moura are presumably playing husband and wife), who find themselves trapped in their home with no way out. Facing rapidly dwindling resources and a looming threat responsible for their imprisonment, the family has to band together to survive the ordeal. Here’s hoping it’s a little better than the last Netflix movie about a group of people trapped within a building, 2025’s very lackluster “Brick.”
Watch “The Last House” on Netflix starting August 7
‘The Whisper Man’
Netflix subscribers love a good crime thriller, and I’m right there with them; it’s among my favorite genres, so when the streamer has a new twist-filled watch on the horizon, I’m paying attention. “The Whisper Man’s” cast is what really draws me in. Not only do you have Robert De Niro, but also Michelle Monaghan, Adam Scott and Michael Keaton. If the cast list doesn’t convince you to keep an eye out for “The Whisper Man,” the initial setup seems ripe for a crime thriller that will keep you guessing till the end.
Based on Alex North’s best-seller of the same name, Scott plays a widowed crime fiction author who is thrown into a very real nightmare when his young son is abducted. He seeks help from his estranged father (De Niro), a retired police detective. But when a connection between this shocking disappearance and a decades-old serial killer case is unearthed, the situation becomes even bleaker, and long-buried secrets surface.
Watch “The Whisper Man” on Netflix starting August 28
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