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Best Movies Streaming in August 2025: ‘Final Destination Bloodlines’
The Halloween season is still a couple months away, but some of the year’s buzziest horror movies of 2025 aren’t waiting to make their streaming debuts. “Final Destination Bloodlines,” which became the long-running horror franchise’s highest-grossing entry yet with $285 million this summer, debuts on Max this August, while Neon’s “The Monkey,” the latest horror endeavor from “Longlegs” filmmaker Osgood Perkins, heads to Hulu. Shudder is also debuting its twist-filled, indie horror favorite “Clown in a Cornfield” on streaming this month.

For non-horror lovers, Netflix has Sofia Carson’s latest original romance (“My Oxford Years”), Max has A24’s family fantasy adventure “The Legend of Ochi,” and Prime Video has an original comedy that pairs Eddie Murphy and Pete Davidson (“The Pickup”).

Check out a full rundown below of the biggest movies new to streaming platforms in August.

Final Destination Bloodlines (Aug. 1 on HBO Max)

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“Final Destination Bloodlines” brought the death-obsessed horror franchise roaring back to life on the big screen this summer with $285 million at the worldwide box office, making it the highest-grossing entry yet. Now the ingenious and over-the-top kills of this sixth “Final Destination” movie come to HBO Max. “Bloodlines” follows college student Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), who begins to receive visions about an averted disaster from 1968. After being plagued by recurring nightmares, she begins to embark on a journey to track down who may be able to help her break the cycle and save her family from their deaths.

The Monkey (Aug. 7 on Hulu)

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Osgood Perkins follows up “Longlegs” with “The Monkey,” adapted from the Stephen King short story of the same name. The horror comedy was another box office hit for Neon this year with nearly $70 million at the worldwide box office. Theo James headlines the film as twin brothers whose lives are turned upside down by a cursed toy monkey that causes horrific deaths. Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, Colin O’Brien, Rohan Campbell, Sarah Levy, Adam Scott and Elijah Wood co-star.

The Pickup (Aug. 6 on Prime Video)

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Eddie Murphy, Pete Davidson, Eva Longoria and Keke Palmer star in the Prime Video original crime comedy “The Pickup,” directed by Tim Story. The official synopsis reads: “A routine cash pickup takes a wild turn when two mismatched armored truck drivers, Russell (Murphy) and Travis (Davidson), are ambushed by ruthless criminals led by a savvy mastermind, Zoe (Palmer), with plans that go way beyond the cash cargo. As chaos unfolds around them, the unlikely duo must navigate high-risk danger, clashing personalities, and one very bad day that keeps getting worse.”

Freaky Tales (Aug. 8 on HBO Max)

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Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s “Freaky Tales” makes its streaming debut on HBO Max this month. The movie, which premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, features an ensemble cast of Pedro Pascal, Ben Mendelsohn, Jay Ellis, Normani, Dominique Thorne, Jack Champion, Ji-young Yoo, Angus Cloud and Tom Hanks. The synopsis reads: “Set in 1987 Oakland, ‘Freaky Tales’ is a multi-track mixtape of colorful characters – an NBA star, a corrupt cop, a female rap duo, teen punks, neo-Nazis, and a debt collector – on a collision course in a fever dream of showdowns and battles.”

Clown in a Cornfield (Aug. 8 on Shudder)

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Eli Craig’s “Corn in a Cornfield” is a horror favorite this year and makes its streaming debut on Shudder. Based on Adam Cesare’s 2020 novel of the same name, the movie centers on a father and daughter whose move to a quiet small town is upended by the killer Frendo the clown and rising local tensions over the destruction of a syrup factory. Variety said the movie unleashes the biggest horror movie twist since “The Cabin in the Woods.”

The Legend of Ochi (Aug. 15 on HBO Max)

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A24 makes a play for family entertainment with “The Legend of Ochi,” a fantasy adventure starring Helena Zengel as a young girl in an isolated village who befriends a reclusive creature her town has been warned to stay away from. Finn Wolfhard, Emily Watson and Willem Dafoe co-star. From Variety’s review: “Known for his striking music videos, writer-director Isaiah Saxon flexes his blissful visual combination of tactile and digital elements in a fable about a girl connecting with a big-eyed forest creature.”

The Thursday Murder Club (Aug. 28 on Netflix)

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Directed by Chris Columbus and based on the Richard Osman novel of the same name, “The Thursday Murder Club” should prove to be a popular Netflix original movie this month thanks to its murder plot and its cast headlined by Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan and Ben Kinglsey. The official synopsis reads: “The casual sleuthing of ex-spy Elizabeth (Mirren), ex-union activist Ron (Brosnan), ex-psychiatrist Ibrahim (Kingsley) and ex-nurse Joyce (Celia Imrie) takes a thrilling turn when an unexpected death occurs on their doorstep.”

My Oxford Year (Aug. 1 on Netflix)

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If there’s one guaranteed hit on Netflix this August, it’s the original movie “My Oxford Year,” a romance that pairs Sofia Caron (whose movies “The Life List,” “Carry On,” “Purple Hearts” and more have all delivered the streaming giant great viewership numbers) and Corey Mylchrees (who stole hearts in Netflix’s “Bridgerton” prequel series “Queen Charlotte”). The official synopsis reads: “When Anna, an ambitious young American woman, sets out for Oxford University to fulfill a childhood dream, she has her life completely on track until she meets a charming and clever local who profoundly alters both of their lives.”

Fixed (Aug. 13 on Netflix)

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Animation icon Genndy Tartakovsky is back with his R-rated passion project “Fixed,” an “adult animated comedy about Bull, an average, all-around good dog who discovers he’s going to be neutered in the morning. As the gravity of this life-altering event sets in, Bull realizes he needs one last adventure with his pack of best friends as these are the last 24 hours with his balls.” The voice cast includes Adam Devine, Idris Elba, Kathryn Hahn, Fred Armisen, Bobby Moynihan, Beck Bennett, Michelle Buteau and River Gallo.

Night Always Comes (Aug. 15 on Netflix)

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Vanessa Kirby already has one hit movie this summer thanks to her role as Sue Storm in Marvel’s “Fantastic Four: First Steps.” Can she get a second hit courtesy of Netflix? The streamer is debuting Kirby’s original drama “Night Always Comes” this month. From the official synopsis: “Based on the bestselling novel by Willy Vlautin, ‘Night Always Comes’ follows Lynette, a woman who risks everything to secure the house that represents a future for her family. On a dangerous odyssey through a single night, Lynette is forced to confront her dark past in order to finally break free.”

The Truth About Jussie Smollet? (Aug. 22 on Netflix)

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“The Truth About Jussie Smollett?” premieres this month on Netflix and takes a deep dive into the “Empire” star’s 2019 hate crime hoax. The documentary features interviews with police, lawyers, journalists and investigators who claim to have “new evidence about the case.” According to Netflix’s logline, the 90-minute doc tells the “shocking true story of an allegedly fake story that some now say might just be a true story.”

Bob Trevino Likes It (Aug. 5 on Hulu)

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“Euphoria” breakout Barbie Ferreira leads “Bob Trevino Likes It” as Lily Trevino, an aimless 25-year-old slacker whose life takes an unexpected turn when she becomes Facebook friends with an older man (John Leguizamo) who shares her father’s name. From Variety’s review: “As an actor, Ferreira has an instinct for comic shading. She makes Lily as charismatically blinkered in her surface sunniness as Jack Black. Yet the key to Ferreira’s performance is that she never uses comedy as a crutch. She shows us, at every turn, the woman who’s buried under the compulsive nice-girl trappings, the woman who Lily herself can’t even see.”

Borderline (Aug. 1 on Peacock)

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Written and directed by Jimmy Warden, “Borderline” stars Ray Nicholson as Duerson, an obsessive fan of ’90s pop star Sofia, played by scream queen Samira Weaving. Convinced the pair are destined to get married, the deluded Duerson breaks into Sofia’s house with hopes of sweeping her off her feet. As Sofia tries to escape, the cat-and-mouse game between the two actors includes dark humor and unexpected twists and turns.

The Friend (Aug. 25 on Paramount+)

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Naomi Watts headlines “The Friend,” a touching drama about a writer and editor whose literary mentor commits suicide and leaves her with his Great Dane to care for. The film is written and directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, the team behind “The Deep End” and “What Maisie Knew,” and co-stars Bill Murray, Sarah Pidgeon, Carla Gugino, Constance Wu, Noma Dumezweni and Ann Dowd. But the standout is Bing, the 145-pound Great Dane who steals every scene in which he appears.

Harvest (Aug. 8 on Mubi)

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Athina Rachel Tsangari’s folktale “Harvest” premieres on Mubi this month. The synopsis reads: “A townsman-turned-farmer, Walter Thirsk (Caleb Landry-Jones), and befuddled lord of the manor, Charles Kent (Harry Melling), are childhood friends facing an invasion from the outside world. The agrarian community, entirely dependent on the land, is disrupted by three breeds of outsiders: the mapmaker (Arinze Kene), the company man (Frank Dillane), and migrants from another place, all representing the trauma of impending modernity.”

The Infernal Machine (Aug. 1 on Paramount+)

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Guy Pearce headlines the Paramount+ original movie “The Infernal Machine,” starring as a reclusive and controversial author who is drawn out of hiding when he begins to receive endless letters from an obsessive fan. What ensues is a dangerous labyrinth as he searches for the person behind the cryptic messages.

Conclave (Aug. 9 on Prime Video)

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Oscar winner “Conclave” arrives on Prime Video this month at no extra cost to subscribers. Ralph Fiennes gives a quietly conflicted performance as a Catholic cardinal struggling between devotion and doubt. It’s Fiennes’ job to oversee the selection of a new pope in this thinking man’s thriller. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, “Conclave” lobs one of the most satisfying twists in years.

Flight Risk (Aug. 14 on Prime Video)

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Mel Gibson directed Mark Wahlberg in “Flight Risk,” which centers on an in-flight face-off between Wahlberg’s psycho killer and Michelle Dockery’s FBI agent. She’s been tasked with escorting a government witness (Topher Grace) to trial; the killer has got a contract to shoot the turncoat before he can sing. The two collide on a small plane that’s charting a course over the Alaskan wilderness.

Den of Thieves 2: Pantera (Aug. 15 on Prime Video)

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After making its streaming debut on Netflix earlier this year, the January box office hit “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” arrives on Prime Video this month at no extra cost to subscribers. The movie opened in the No. 1 spot at the North American box office and grossed more than $32 million. Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr. team up in the crime thriller as an LASD sheriff and a suspected thief who join forces to pull of a robbery in Europe. The movie is inspired by the real-life Antwerp diamond heist that took place in 2003. A third film in the “Den of Thieves” franchise is already in active development.

Eenie Meenie (Aug. 22 on Hulu)

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Samara Weaving and Karl Glusman star in Searchlight Pictures’ high-speed thriller “Eenie Meenie,” which skips theaters and premieres exclusively on Hulu this month. The official synopsis reads: “The original film follows a former teenage getaway driver who is dragged back into her unsavory past when a previous employer offers her the chance to save the life of her chronically unreliable ex-boyfriend.”
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August 1, 2025
Ready to Prescribe a GLP-1 Medication? Please Dive Deep Into the Patient’s History First, Advises John Bonnet, MD,

As the use of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1s) for management of overweight and obesity continues to grow, an increasingly bright light is revealing that pharmacotherapy alone is not sufficient to achieve long-term weight loss success. The incretin-based antiobesity medications don’t work in a vacuum and without the support of individualized and intentional lifestyle strategies, patients may not realize the full benefits of treatment, could experience avoidable adverse effects, or even abandon treatment altogether.

Jonathan Bonnet, MD, MPH, is coauthor of a new joint advisory titled “Nutritional Priorities to Support GLP-1 Therapy for Obesity,” a collaboration among members of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, the American Society for Nutrition, the Obesity Medicine Association, and The Obesity Society. The multidisciplinary guidance for clinicians managing patients on GLP-1s for obesity covers a wide range of therapeutic considerations, including how to manage the ubiquitous GI side effects, how to protect against muscle loss, and the importance of monitored protein intake and resistance training as standard parts of the treatment plan.

In a recent interview with Patient Care^©, Bonnet focused specifically on the critical role of a thorough, detailed initial patient history for a successful weight loss outcome. Before even considering a GLP-1 medication prescription, a clinician must understand the patient’s history with weight loss and weight gain, dieting, emotional relationship with food, impact of life events on body weight, exercise preferences, and so much more. In the short video above, Bonnet details the elements of a comprehensive history and explains why each is essential to creating an individualized weight management program with the greatest opportunity for success.

Jonathan Bonnet, MD, MPH, is the program director of medical weight loss at the Clinical Resource Hub Weight Management Center at Palo Alto Veteran’s Affairs in Palo Alto, California. He is also an associate professor (affiliate) at Stanford University School of Medicine, and serves on the board of the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine. Bonnet is board-certified in family, sports, obesity, and lifestyle medicine.

The following transcript has been lightly edited for style and flow.

Patient Care: So an essential starting point, the advisory says, before you begin prescribing a GLP-1 is to do a really thorough baseline nutritional assessment and screening. Is this an element of clinical management that you think could be overlooked before GLP-1s are started?

Johnathan Bonnet, MD, MPH: It’s challenging because I do obesity medicine as a specialty, so I have more time to focus on patients and really dive into their history. But there are really critical pearls that you would want to get, even if you’re a primary care doctor. So understanding what a person’s weight loss or weight gain journey has been is essential, and includes understanding key triggering events or times in life, or if starting a medication caused a weight change.

If people have a history of eating disorders and honestly, it’s not overly difficult to develop a disordered eating pattern if people are trying to do very extreme things. That can lead to nutrient deficiencies. So a lot of it is really understanding the history of the patient and what has gotten them to the state that they are in.

You also have to understand what is driving their obesity? Is it sleep deprivation? Is it overconsumption of ultra-processed foods? Lack of activity? Is it medications? Is there a mental health problem, like underlying depression, anxiety, something else, that’s really driving a lot of the increased food intake and weight gain? And if you don’t take the time to understand those things, you’re just throwing out a drug that’s going to reduce appetite without necessarily addressing some of the foundational problems that could be causing this in the first place.

[Without this history] I think you’re also missing the point. We’re here to help improve the health of patients, right? And weight is one thing, and obesity is a chronic condition, but there’s also so much more wrapped into what good health is. And again, addressing all those other factors, the lifestyle factors, is, I would say, equally important to make sure we get it right.

So again, just to give somebody a drug just because you see an elevated BMI would really be a mistake. There are also some contraindications and things to using the drugs as well. There are a few medication interactions. So you could easily miss those if you’re not being thoughtful. All those are part of a comprehensive history you want to take with a patient before you prescribe an antiobesity drug for them.

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August 1, 2025
Insecticide resistance status and high frequency of kdr mutations in Aedes aegypti in Tegucigalpa, Honduras | Parasites & Vectors
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Leopard seal opens it mouth for a photograph while laying out on the ice. (Photo by Tarpan on Shutterstock)

In A Nutshell

Male leopard seals sing underwater during mating season, producing complex sequences using five distinct call types.
Their songs show statistical patterns that are more structured than random noise but more random than nursery rhymes.
Compared to other animals, the seals’ songs are less predictable than humpback whale songs but more organized than dolphin and monkey vocalizations.
The vocal sequences are consistent across days, suggesting the songs may help identify individual seals across vast Antarctic distances.

SYDNEY — Beneath Antarctic ice, one of the ocean’s most fearsome predators is belting out underwater ballads that follow recognizable patterns, and scientists say they carry a statistical structure not unlike a nursery rhyme. Male leopard seals, solitary marine mammals known for hunting penguins, spend hours each day during breeding season performing elaborate vocal sequences that show more order than randomness.

New research published in Scientific Reports shows that these apex predators create underwater vocalizations with statistical patterns that are comparable to nursery rhymes in their predictability, but with more randomness. Scientists analyzed songs from 26 male leopard seals in Eastern Antarctica and found that their vocalizations are more structured than random noise, but less constrained than many forms of human music.

As the University of New South Wales researchers write, “The estimated information entropy of the leopard seal songs is comparable to nursery rhymes but unsurprisingly, lower than contemporary, classical and baroque music.”

A leopard seal in the wild resting on an ice floe in Antarctica. (Photo by Michelle Sole on Shutterstock)

How Do Leopard Seals Create Their Underwater Songs?

Leopard seals perform their songs using five distinct call types: high double trills, medium single trills, low descending trills, low double trills, and a hoot with a low single trill. Males arrange these into long underwater sequences, surfacing briefly to breathe before diving back down to continue their vocal routines.

“They’re like the songbirds of the Southern Ocean,” study co-author Tracey Rogers says in a statement. “During the breeding season, if you drop a hydrophone into the water anywhere in the region, you’ll hear them singing.”

To assess how structured these sequences are, the researchers used a mathematical tool called information entropy. In simple terms, a completely random sequence has high entropy, while a more predictable sequence has lower entropy.

Recordings from 1992 to 1998 revealed that leopard seal songs aren’t just random collections of sounds. Knowing one call made it statistically more likely to predict the next, though the songs were still more random than nursery rhymes.

How Do Leopard Seal Songs Compare to Other Animal Communication?

Compared to other animals, leopard seal vocalizations occupy a middle ground of complexity. The study found that their songs have less predictable temporal structure than those of humpback whales and bottlenose dolphins, including dolphin whistle sequences. Entropy estimates for squirrel monkeys were similar to those of leopard seals, suggesting comparable levels of vocal complexity, though the paper does not state a clear hierarchy between them. Importantly, all of these animal vocalizations were far more structured than random sequences, indicating meaningful patterning in how sounds are arranged.

Compared to human music, leopard seal songs were more predictable than compositions by the Beatles and far more so than classical works by composers like Bach or Mozart, which exhibit much higher variation and entropy. The seals’ vocalizations were statistically comparable to simple nursery rhymes, though slightly more random.

This distribution of vocal complexity appears to reflect the biological needs of each species. For leopard seals, which remain solitary and widely dispersed during mating season, structured songs may help individuals identify each other across long distances.

“The greater structure in their songs helps ensure that distant listeners can accurately receive the message and identify who is singing,” explains lead author Lucinda Chambers. “It’s like they’re saying, ‘I’m the biggest and the strongest, look how long and how loud I can sing’.”

Why Do Leopard Seals Use Predictable Song Patterns?

The study found that individual males repeat signature vocal patterns with strong consistency. According to the paper, “Individual leopard seals were observed to retain their particular sequences over three days which suggests that the sequences are stable and could encode information about the singer’s identity.”

Singing also demands significant energy. “Larger males maintain a more consistent call rate that does not vary throughout the breeding season,” the paper notes, while smaller seals often reduce their singing over time, likely due to fatigue.

The researchers conclude: “The greater structure of the leopard seal’s song improves the ability of distant listeners to accurately receive signals and identify singers, which is essential for this widely dispersed species”.

This study is part of a growing effort to understand how animals encode and transmit information. Rather than focusing on what the sounds mean, researchers used statistical methods to study how the sequences are built.

While leopard seal songs aren’t as tightly structured as human compositions or whale songs, they’re clearly not random. Their structure likely evolved to help communicate identity or fitness across the vast icy expanses of Antarctica, suggesting even solitary predators rely on remarkably intricate signals.

Paper Summary

Methodology

Researchers recorded leopard seal vocalizations in the Davis Sea, Eastern Antarctica, between 1992-1998 during the breeding season (November-January). They analyzed songs from 26 individual male seals, converting the acoustic sequences into symbolic codes using five distinct call types. The team applied information entropy analysis using three different mathematical models: independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.), first-order Markov models, and sliding window match length (SWML) estimation. They compared the entropy values to other animal communications and human music to determine relative complexity and predictability.

Results

Leopard seal songs showed entropy estimates ranging from 0.63-2.38 bits, with values comparable to nursery rhymes but lower than classical music. All songs demonstrated more sequential structure than random sequences, with knowing previous calls helping predict subsequent ones. However, 21 of 26 seals showed patterns too complex for simple first-order Markov models to fully capture. The songs were more predictable than contemporary classical music but less predictable than humpback whale songs, suggesting intermediate complexity in animal communication systems.

Limitations

The study used recordings from a single geographic region and time period (1990s), limiting generalizability across leopard seal populations. Sample sizes for some analyses were constrained by the need for sufficient sequence length. The SWML entropy estimator contained positive bias that couldn’t be analytically corrected. Comparisons with other species were limited by different methodological approaches and sample sizes in previous studies. The biological meaning of the statistical patterns remains unknown.

Funding and Disclosures

The authors declared no competing interests and stated no financial conflicts that could influence the research objectivity. No specific funding sources were mentioned in the paper. The study was conducted by researchers from the University of New South Wales Sydney, Australia, and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA.

Publication Information

“Leopard seal song patterns have similar predictability to nursery rhymes” by Lucinda E. H. Chambers, John R. Buck, and Tracey L. Rogers was published in Scientific Reports (2025), volume 15, article number 26099. The paper is available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-11008-8.

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