The first live-action Junji Ito series hits Netflix today

A 10-episode Taiwanese horror series built from Junji Ito's manga leads a Tuesday drop that also brings Mary Beth Barone's first Netflix special and Russell Crowe's panned 2024 possession thriller, while Tallulah leaves tomorrow.

The pick of the day: Bloody Smart

Bloody Smart is a 10-episode Taiwanese horror series premiering all at once today, adapted from the work of Junji Ito, the manga author whose spiraling bodies and creeping dread made him a global horror icon. It's billed as the first live-action series built from his stories (CTS News, July 28), weaving characters and images from several of his classics, Tomie, The Hanging Balloons, Slug Girl, and Lovesick Dead, into one new story set in a pressure-cooker school town where a "Bloodfruit Tree" feeds on suppressed desire.

What it is: Hong Kong actor-singer Gigi Leung plays a controlling mother opposite Buffy Chen and Jerry Yu, directed by Hsieh Chun-yi and produced under Ito's own supervision as part of Netflix's Chinese-language slate (Deadline, January). A Netflix Original, rated 16+, about 45 minutes an episode.
Who it's for: Ito devotees and slow-burn horror fans. Taiwanese coverage highlights faithful recreations of the double-headed Tomie and the slug-girl tongue, built by local VFX and practical-effects teams, as the draw for manga readers (Vogue Taiwan, June 18).
The catch: No critic reviews are out yet, and it's absent from Netflix's own US new-release calendar, though it's live in the US today (per JustWatch and episode trackers). The source material is beloved; the execution is the open question.

Mary Beth Barone: Galaxy Brain

Mary Beth Barone: Galaxy Brain is the comedian's first Netflix special, an hour of deadpan social commentary taped at NYU's Skirball Center in March and directed by Ky Newman (Deadline, June). Barone, who broke out on Benito Skinner's Amazon series Overcompensating and co-hosts the Ride podcast, works through ex-best friends, dating apps, NYPD merch, and reproductive rights with surgical precision (Vulture, July 27). TV-MA, no critic consensus yet. For viewers who like their comedy political, referential, and dry.

The Exorcism

The Exorcism is the 2024 Russell Crowe horror film now streaming, a catalog add rather than a Netflix Original. Crowe plays a troubled actor unraveling while shooting a supernatural film, with Ryan Simpkins as the daughter who can't tell relapse from possession; it's directed by Joshua John Miller, son of Jason Miller, who played Father Karras in the 1973 Exorcist (Variety, June 2024). Reviews were poor, 27% on Rotten Tomatoes with the consensus that it "falls back on clichés," and it grossed just $12.6 million worldwide (Wikipedia)). For Crowe completists and meta-horror curiosity seekers; the pedigree is more interesting than the movie.

New episodes today

Better Late Than Single wraps its second season today with episodes 9 and 10, the finale (TheFutonCritic). The Korean dating-reality show follows lifelong "eternal singles" through makeovers and nine days together at a resort; the finale is the last day, who leaves with first love and who walks away still searching.
Winx Club: The Magic Is Back drops Part 2, six new episodes of the CGI reboot of the 2004 fairy franchise, produced by Rainbow (Animation Magazine, July 23). For the under-10s and nostalgic millennials; seven more episodes arrive in the fall.

Leaving soon

Tallulah (2016) leaves tomorrow, July 29. It's a Netflix Original removal, Sian Heder's feature debut before CODA, starring Elliot Page, Allison Janney, and Tammy Blanchard as a drifter who takes a neglected toddler. Today is your last full day to stream it (What's on Netflix).
Here (2024), Robert Zemeckis's Forrest Gump reunion with Tom Hanks and Robin Wright shot from one fixed camera angle, leaves July 30, along with DreamWorks' Dog Man (2025). Both are Sony first-window exits (Collider).
End-of-month purge: roughly 50 licensed films leave August 1 (last full day July 31), including Ex Machina, Atonement, Hacksaw Ridge, Pretty Woman, There's Something About Mary, Tootsie, American Gangster, and Lucy. The full list is at What's on Netflix.