With hundreds of movies hitting the big screen every year, it’s no surprise that some fly under the radar. Despite having great casts and captivating storylines, some movies don’t achieve mainstream success and instead become underrated films that deserve more love. Netflix’s streaming library is filled with hidden gems, and one fantasy film that you probably haven’t seen just joined the catalog.
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As of October 7th, director Stacie Passon’s 2018 adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s final novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, is available to stream on Netflix. The movie stars Taissa Farmiga, Alexandra Daddario, Crispin Glover, and Sebastian Stan in a fantasy thriller about the surviving members of the Blackwood family. Living a secluded life six years after tragedy struck, sisters Merricat and Constance’s lives are shaken when their charming cousin arrives with sinister plans. An absolute gem of a fantasy movie, We Have Always Lived in the Castle holds an 84% critic and 71% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle Is a Compelling Character Study Masked as a Gothic Horror
At its core, We Have Always Lived in the Castle isn’t about the mystery of who poisoned the Blackwood family, but rather about the characters at the center of the story. An incredibly faithful and well-executed adaptation of Jackson’s work, the movie uses the secluded and decaying Blackwood Manor and the whodunit mystery as a façade as it explores the psychological impacts of isolation and trauma on Merricat and Constance through an unsettling and engrossing narrative that makes it hard to look away.
Six years after the family tragedy struck, Merricat is left coping with the trauma through rituals and superstitious behavior, burying “lucky” items to ward off evil and slipping deeper into paranoia, while Constance hides her trauma through passivity and a refusal to enter the outside world. Their fragile existence and deep bond drive the plot and are destabilized with the arrival of Charles, perfectly portrayed by Stan as charming and manipulative, who brings a patriarchal order back into the sisters’ lives and threatens to disrupt their peace and bond, ultimately leading to growing tension and the devastating climax.
New Movies Streaming on Netflix
October is a great month for streaming on Netflix. Subscribers looking for new titles to add to their watchlists have no shortage of options after dozens of movies started streaming on Netflix as part of the streamer’s October 2025 lineup. Some of the biggest titles now available to watch include Dirty Dancing, The Goonies, The Mask, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Those looking for spookier fare to celebrate Halloween can stream freshly added titles such as Casper, Dracula, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, and The Strangers.
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