Ashley Hurst is tracking 12 new Netflix movies in October 2026, and the month’s documentary slate is weighted toward comedy figures and sports names. Netflix has 12 documentaries coming our way in October 2026, with releases spread through the month.
Lorne and the comedy slate
Five documentaries in the October 2026 lineup chronicle the lives and legacies of comedy figures, making that the clearest lane in the batch. One of them is Lorne, which focuses on Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels and comes from Academy Award-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville.
Lorne uses interviews and behind-the-scenes stories from Tina Fey, Conan O’Brien, Maya Rudolph, and Chris Rock. That gives the title a built-in industry footprint: one subject, one filmmaker, and four on-camera voices tied to Saturday Night Live.
Martin Mull and The Schumacher
Who Is Martin Mull? centers on Martin Mull, who died in 2024 at the age of 81. The film traces his reinvention from smoky folk clubs to primetime sitcoms to gallery walls, and it adds testimonials from Steve Martin, Tom Waits, and David Alan Grier.
The Schumacher documentary looks back at the 1994 Formula 1 season and includes an interview with Corinna Schumacher, along with David Coulthard, Willi Weber, and Kai Ebel. It also uses rare archival footage from the season, giving the title a more archival build than the comedy entries.
China: Through the Looking Glass
A licensed title in the October 2026 batch covers the 2015 art exhibition China: Through the Looking Glass, curated by Andrew Bolton at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. That mix matters because the month’s documentary slate is broad on paper, but the excerpt only names a few titles rather than the full 12.
The practical takeaway is simple: Netflix is using October 2026 to seed a documentary-heavy stretch across comedy, sports, and art, but the public list still leaves gaps. Readers who want the complete schedule will still be watching for which specific 12 documentary titles land in the library.
