There’s no doubt that the 2020s are one of the best decades for horror since the 1980s. From high-quality, genre-defining hits to critically acclaimed indie films, movies like Sinners, Barbarian, and Smile have helped push horror into a new golden age. There have also been plenty of horror films that have largely flown under the radar, and fans are quickly running out of time to discover a criminally underrated 2022 horror movie on Netflix.
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Chloe Okuno’s feature directorial debut, Watcher, is about to tap out of Netflix’s streaming catalog. The Maika Monroe-starring psychological thriller, which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, is scheduled to leave Netflix on February 25th, meaning subscribers have just five days left to stream it. The film centers around a young woman who deals with isolation after moving with her husband to Bucharest. With a serial killer at large in the city, she begins to suspect that a stranger who watches her from an apartment window could be the culprit.
Watcher Is a Genuinely Creepy Psychological Thriller
2022 was a major year for horror, defined by high-profile movies like Barbarian, X/Pearl, The Black Phone, and Scream, so Watcher largely flew under the radar. But if you haven’t yet watched it since its 2022 release, you need to change that before it leaves Netflix. The movie is a modern, Hitchcockian masterpiece that serves as a slow-burn, thematic exploration of feminist rage, centered on voyeurism, isolation, gaslighting, and the systemic failure to believe women, as Julia becomes convinced a man is stalking her, only to be dismissed by her husband and authorities as paranoid.
Watcher takes a more suspenseful and quieter approach to horror, utilizing the cold and unfamiliar setting of Romania to heighten the film’s sense of isolation and Julia’s paranoia and vulnerability. Okuno, meanwhile, uses long takes, shadowy cinematography, and expert sound design to create a moody, tense, and immersive experience that keeps viewers on the edges of their seats with subtle scares and an increasingly tense atmosphere. Monroe also deserves plenty of praise, as she delivers a career-best performance as Julia, carrying the film with a largely nonverbal, reactive performance that perfectly captures the isolation and fear of her character. The film is really one of the best, most tense thrillers of the last few years, and it even earned a “Certified Fresh” distinction on Rotten Tomatoes with an 86% critic score and an honorable 67% audience rating.
Where to Stream Watcher After It Leaves Netflix?
If you miss Watcher before it leaves Netflix, you won’t be out of luck. The movie is available on AMC+ and also included in Tubi’s free streaming library. Additionally, Watcher can be rented or purchased online. There’s also the possibility that the movie will reappear on one of the major streaming platforms in the coming weeks, but most streamers haven’t yet released their March 2026 newsletters.
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Official art by Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme -
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