The strongest things to watch on OVID.tv right now are its October exclusives: *Agatha's Almanac*, a Hot Docs prize-winning portrait of a 90-year-old Canadian farmer, and *Treewashing: The Planting Illusion*, an investigation into corporate reforestation claims. Behind them sits a Halloween-week run of international horror and a batch of newly licensed Asian cinema, including Lav Diaz's *Batang West Side* and Nobuhiko Obayashi's *Beijing Watermelon*. OVID.tv is a subscription streaming service owned by the independent distributors who supply it — a co-op model rather than a studio platform — and its catalog runs to arthouse features and documentaries rather than mainstream releases. That shapes what "best right now" means here: the month's 21 new films are dated individually, several land in the final week, and four notable titles leave on October 31.
Table of Contents
- The two exclusives worth your first evening
- What the Kani Releasing deal brought in
- The Halloween-week horror still ahead
- Four films leaving October 31
- Cost, devices, and whether a month is enough
- Frequently Asked Questions
The two exclusives worth your first evening
Both are exclusives, which matters practically: you will not find either on a competing subscription service, so a trial month is the realistic way to see them.
- Agatha's Almanac* (2025) is the pick if you want something singular. Directed by Amalie Atkins, it is a documentary portrait of a 90-year-old Canadian farmer, and it won Best Canadian Feature Documentary at Hot Docs 2025 — the country's largest documentary festival. OVID lists it as an exclusive and an SVOD premiere on Friday, October 23, 2026, per OVID's October lineup announcement.
- Treewashing: The Planting Illusion* (2026), directed by François-Xavier Drouet, is the other exclusive premiere, dated Thursday, October 22. It investigates corporate reforestation claims across five countries — the tree-planting pledges companies attach to carbon offsetting. If you follow climate reporting, this is the month's most directly useful new title on the service.
What the Kani Releasing deal brought in
OVID's October slate is built partly around a new content partnership with Kani Releasing, a distributor specializing in Asian cinema. The headline arrival is Lav Diaz's *Batang West Side* (2001), a Filipino-American crime drama and the second Diaz film on the service, which landed October 8–9. Diaz is known for very long runtimes and slow, static compositions — go in expecting a film you settle into rather than one you squeeze between errands.
The partnership also delivered Nobuhiko Obayashi's *Beijing Watermelon* (1989) as an OVID exclusive on October 16. Obayashi is best known in the West for the delirious *House* (1977); *Beijing Watermelon* is a far gentler film, and seeing the same director in a different register is the argument for watching it. A new distributor partnership is a signal about the next several months, not just this one. OVID now lists 72 content partners on its content-partners page, up from the eight independent distributors — Icarus Films, Bullfrog Films, First Run Features, Grasshopper Film, KimStim and Women Make Movies among them — that launched the service in March 2019.
The Halloween-week horror still ahead
Most of the seasonal programming has not arrived yet, so there is no need to rush. Three titles are the core of it, all dated in the last week of the month: For something outside the horror label but in the same unsettled key, *Krakatit* (1948) premiered as an OVID exclusive on October 14.
Otakar Vávra's Czech film-noir follows a chemist haunted by a proto-nuclear explosive — made three years after Hiroshima, which is most of its charge. If you are building a Halloween-night slate, note that *Alraune* arrives on October 30 and the others only days before. A subscription started now covers all three.
- *Dead Mountaineer's Hotel* (October 28) — an Estonian giallo-noir, mixing the stylized Italian murder-mystery tradition with Soviet-era science fiction.
- *Videophobia* (October 29) — Daisuke Miyazaki's Osaka-set techno-thriller from 2019, about surveillance and a leaked recording.
- *Alraune* (October 30) — Weimar-era German horror starring Brigitte Helm, the lead of Fritz Lang's *Metropolis*.
Four films leaving October 31
Expirations are the real deadline on OVID, and four titles go at the end of the month. The most significant is *Ornette: Made in America* (1985), Shirley Clarke's 85-minute portrait of the jazz composer Ornette Coleman — Clarke's final film, and a landmark of American independent documentary. OVID's own film page for *Ornette* carries the October 31 notice.
Leaving alongside it are *A Reckoning in Boston*, *Ballets Russes* and *10 Billion: What's On Your Plate*, according to OVID's "Leaving October 31st" list. Those three departure dates come from that list rather than from each film's own page on the service, so the list is the thing to check if you are planning around them. Practical order of operations: watch the expiring titles first, the already-available Kani arrivals second, and leave the premieres for the final week when they actually appear.
Cost, devices, and whether a month is enough
OVID.tv costs $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year in the U.S. after a seven-day free trial, and it streams on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, iOS and Android, per the service's App Store listing. The seven-day trial is the awkward number here: it cannot span both the October 31 departures and the October 22–23 premieres with much room to spare, so a single paid month is the cleaner choice if you want the full slate.
The catalog's shape is worth understanding before you subscribe. OVID adds roughly 20–35 films a month against a library of a few thousand arthouse and documentary titles. That is a high churn rate relative to catalog size, which is why any "best right now" list — including this one — goes stale within weeks, and why the dated premiere and departure notices matter more than a general recommendation would on a larger service. One concrete check before you commit: *Agatha's Almanac* and *Treewashing* are both dated after this article's mid-month vantage point, so confirm they have gone live on their listed dates — October 23 and October 22 — before counting on them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is OVID.tv worth it just for one or two films?
At $6.99 a month with no contract, a single month to catch both October exclusives plus the expiring *Ornette: Made in America* is a reasonable trade. The seven-day free trial is too short to cover both the October 31 departures and the late-month premieres.
Why does OVID's catalog look so different from other streaming services?
It is owned by its suppliers. Eight independent distributors launched it in March 2019 as a co-op, and the library reflects their catalogs — documentary and international arthouse work — rather than studio licensing.
How do I know when something is about to leave?
Check OVID's own Letterboxd departure lists as well as the individual film pages. Some expirations, including *A Reckoning in Boston* and *Ballets Russes*, appear only on the list and not as a notice on the film's page.