October means a few different things for movie fans. It's Halloween season, making it a prime month for horror movie releases. It's also the month when studios begin to get serious with releasing potential awards contenders, building off the hype from the major film festivals in September (Venice, Telluride, Toronto, New York).

The combination of these factors makes for a particularly exciting line-up of independent, international and arthouse films coming to theaters this October. The following eight movies are ones to pay attention to.

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Titane

Alexia in Titane

Adventurous moviegoers can kickstart the Halloween season with Titane, the first full-blown horror movie to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. CBR's review of this twistedly original serial killer/home invasion/technosexual pregnancy movie reads, "Titane is a movie where describing its particular details can't quite tell you what it's like to experience it... [Julie] Ducournau always knows exactly how much to show to get a reaction but still makes everything feel purposeful -- even if it's hard to explain or understand what that purpose is."

Written and directed by Ducournau, Titane stars Agathe Rousselle, Vincent Lindon, Garance Marillier and Laïs Salameh and premieres in theaters on Oct. 1.

Lamb

Lamb A24

Another international horror film to earn positive reviews at the Cannes Film Festival, Lamb follows a childless farmer couple in Iceland who find themselves raising a half-sheep, half-human child. The trailer, set to the tune of The Beach Boys' classic "God Only Knows," would almost look adorable if it weren't also so utterly creepy and disturbing. Fans of A24's other art-horror films like The Witch and Midsommar will likely want to check out this Icelandic-Swedish-Polish co-production.

Directed by  Valdimar Jóhannsson, who co-wrote the script with Sjón, Lamb stars Noomi Rapace, Hilmir Snaer Gudnason, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson and Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson and is slated to debut in select U.S. theaters on Oct. 8.

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Mass

Mass

One of the most talked-about dramas from this year's Sundance Independent Film Festival, Mass centers around a confrontation between the parents of a school shooting victim and the parents of the shooter. It's not the story you might expect for the directorial debut of Fran Kranz, the actor best known for playing the scientist on Dollhouse and the stoner in Cabin in the Woods. If Bleeker Street plays its cards right, this heavy, critically-acclaimed movie could end up an awards contender.

Written and directed by Fran Kranz, Mass stars Reed Birney, Ann Dowd, Jason Isaacs and Martha Plimpton and premieres in theaters on Oct. 8.

The Rescue

The Rescue

If the Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo took your breath away, directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin promise to amaze you again with their new National Geographic documentary The Rescue. The film tells the true story of the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue, combining unseen archival footage with reenactments and interviews. The Rescue has been blowing away audiences at every film festival it plays at, winning the People's Choice Award for Documentaries at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, The Rescue premieres in theaters on Oct. 8.

Bergman Island

Bergman Island

If you can't get enough of the new Scenes from a Marriage miniseries on HBO, Bergman Island offers another modern tribute to the work of Ingmar Bergman. This internationally-produced English-language drama follows two married filmmakers who take a vacation to the island that inspired Bergman. Fiction and reality start to blend as they struggle for artistic inspiration. The movie earned mostly positive reviews at the Cannes Film Festival.

Written and directed by Mia Hansen-Løve, Bergman Island stars Vicky Krieps, Tim Roth, Mia Wasikowska and Anders Danielsen Lie and premieres in theaters on Oct. 15.

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The French Dispatch

Timothee Chalamet in The French Dispatch

Once one of the most anticipated arthouse movies of 2020, Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun is finally coming to theaters after extended delays. The anthology feature is structured around a fictional New Yorker-esque magazine in 1960s France, with multiple short stories corresponding to magazine articles. The enormous cast includes Benicio Del Toro, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Timothée Chalamet, Frances McDormand, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton and too many other stars to list the full cast here.

Written and directed by Wes Anderson, The French Dispatch premieres in theaters on Oct. 22.

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain

Louis Wain

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the real-life schizophrenic artist, boxer, composer and mad scientist who popularized having cats as pets in Victorian England. An offbeat biopic befitting its unique subject, CBR's review of the film from the Toronto International Film Festival reads, "Fans of [Tim] Burton and other such mainstream-yet-offbeat auteurs like Wes Anderson will find a lot to love about The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, as will anyone who ever enjoyed a good cat video."

Directed by Will Sharpe, who co-wrote the script with Simon Stephenson, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Claire Foy, Andrea Riseborough, Toby Jones and Sharon Rooney. It premieres in select theaters on Oct. 22 and on Amazon Prime Video on Nov. 5.

Last Night in Soho

Anya Taylor-Joy bathed in a red light in Last Night in Soho

Last Night in Soho might not truly belong on an "indie" list. It's by far the most expensive movie here, and in every part of the world except the United States, it's being treated as an ordinary big Universal Pictures release. In the States, however, it's being handled by Universal's "arthouse" label Focus Features. The darkest and least comedic of Edgar Wright's films thus far, Last Night in Soho is part time travel drama, part violent ghost story. Its mix of nostalgia and terror, with great performances, stylized visuals and a killer twist ending, will surely get people talking.

Directed by Edgar Wright and co-written by Wright and Krysty Wilson-Cairns, Last Night in Soho stars Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, Terence Stamp and Diana Rigg. The film arrives in theaters on Oct. 29.

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