Insidious, Smile and Resident Evil Are All Landing on Netflix This November

Netflix is adding films from three different horror franchises this November: Insidious, Smile and Resident Evil. There's a particular kind of person who treats the first of November like someone's switched the horror off at the wall. I am not that person, and apparently neither is Netflix. The decorations come down, fine, but the watchlist doesn't care what month it is. Three very different flavours of frightened, all landing in the same few weeks.

What's actually coming, and when

The news came from Dread Central's rundown of Netflix's November 2026 horror lineup, which is where I'd point you if you want the full list beyond just these three, because there's more landing that month than I've got room for here.

For anyone who hasn't crossed paths with them yet: Insidious is the haunted-house franchise about a family whose son gets trapped somewhere called The Further, which is basically the afterlife's waiting room and considerably worse than it sounds. Smile is the one where a curse passes from person to person, each of them grinning in a way that should never be aimed at you. And Resident Evil is the zombie franchise that started life as a video game, about a pharmaceutical company's bioweapon turning everyone it touches into something that wants to eat you.

According to Dread Central's report, the lineup lands across November, so this isn't one single dump of films on the first of the month. If you're the sort who plans a week around a release date, it's worth checking their article directly for the exact day each title drops, because streaming services do love to stagger things.

Why three franchises landing together is worth noticing

I'll be honest, my first reaction wasn't "which is best", because that's not what this piece is about. It was more "right, that's my next few weeks of evenings sorted without me having to go digging." There's something satisfying about a platform doing the hard work of curating a stretch of horror for you, rather than you scrolling for twenty minutes before settling on something you've already seen four times.

It's also a reminder that these three franchises are still properly active, not relics someone's digging out of a vault. Resident Evil keeps getting new instalments because the games never stop giving it material, and it's had more outings than most horror franchises manage in twice the time. Insidious has quietly built itself into one of the more consistent haunted house series going, each entry adding another thread to the same family's bad luck. And Smile, the newest of the three, has already proven it can carry a sequel on dread alone, which is no small feat when the whole premise is one single, specific image.

What this means for a night in

If you're building a month of horror nights now that Halloween's behind us, this is useful groundwork. A franchise on the same streaming service means you can go from one film straight into the next without faffing about switching apps or hunting down a disc, which matters more than it should when you've already got your blanket arranged exactly right and don't want to move.

I'd suggest treating it as three separate nights rather than one marathon, mind, because they ask different things of you. Insidious wants you properly dark and properly focused, the kind of film where you notice yourself leaning forward. Smile wants you paying attention to faces, which sounds obvious until you realise how much it unsettles you once you start. And Resident Evil wants snacks within reach, because it's the one where you can relax slightly and just enjoy the chaos, the closest thing horror gets to a popcorn film with the lights off.

Check Dread Central's piece for the exact dates before you plan your week, since streaming additions do sometimes shift. But as it stands, November's looking like a proper month for people like me, the ones who never really stopped.