Happy Endings, the Hangout Comedy That's Better Than Friends, Is Leaving Netflix Soon

Every month, Netflix drops a whole bunch of shows and movies from the service like a basketball team cutting a veteran player whose skills aren't up to snuff anymore. "Your services are no longer needed," Netflix says. In May 2022, one of the expiring titles is particularly painful. Happy Endings, the cult favorite comedy that did the Friends model of being a show about a group of funny, attractive friends even better than Friends did, is leaving the service on May 31. 

Happy Endings isn't the only great show leaving Netflix in May, either. All six seasons of Downton Abbey, the beloved British period drama, are expiring less than two weeks after the release of Downton Abbey: A New Beginning, the latest Downton Abbey movie. 

On the movie side, notable titles leaving Netflix include fan-favorite films like The Blind Side, Top Gun, and Battleship. 

We've highlighted some recommendations for movies and shows to watch before they leave Netflix in May 2022. The full list of everything leaving is below.

Shot Caller (May 23)

This crime thriller has been one of my go-to picks for hidden gems on Netflix for a long time, but I'll have to find a new one to recommend, because Shot Caller is leaving. This 2017 indie stars Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, putting a break between Game of Thrones seasons to good use, as a stockbroker who accidentally kills his friend in a drunk driving crash. He gets sent to California state prison, and in order to survive, he joins a violent gang and becomes a hardened criminal. It's an authentically gritty movie with a great performance from Coster-Waldau.

Downton Abbey Seasons 1-6 (May 31) 

Everyone who watches this sprawling historical drama set in England in the 1910s and '20s loves it, even if they're generally not into this sort of thing. If you haven't experienced it yourself, you have about a month to find out what all the fuss is about. That's enough time to binge all six seasons before the new sequel movie Downton Abbey: A New Era hits theaters on May 18. The good news is that even though Downton Abbey is leaving Netflix, it's still available to stream many other places, most notably on Peacock, which also has the first Downton Abbey movie available to stream. 

Happy Endings Seasons 1-3 (May 31) 

Happy Endings has the same setup as Friends — six pals in their 20s and 30s hang out, fall in and out of love, fall in love again, and have silly adventures — but it packs more great jokes into an episode than Friends ever did. It has a dream team cast of Zachary Knighton, Elisha Cuthbert, Eliza Coupe, Damon Wayans Jr., Casey Wilson, and ultimate scene-stealer Adam Pally, and guest appearances from everyone who was funny during the peak years of Comedy Bang Bang. Some people are still salty the show was canceled after three seasons in 2013, but I say three seasons was more than enough time to establish Happy Endings as a show that not everyone loves, but if you know you know. 

Sucker Punch (May 31) 

To quote the podcast Chapo Trap House, superhero movie director Zack Snyder "is a visionary filmmaker, it's just that his vision is mostly pretty stupid." There's no Snyder film that's truer of that than Sucker Punch, his 2011 opus about a woman in a mental institution (Emily Browning) imagining multiple levels of superheroine fantasy to endure her horrible surroundings and plan her escape. It's one of those movies that's hard to describe, but once you've seen it, even if you hated it you will never forget it, because it's not like other movies. It's not a feminist movie, but it's not not a feminist movie. Only Zack Snyder could have made it, for better or worse. 

Everything Leaving Netflix in May

May 1
Colony: Seasons 1-3 
Hoarders: Season 11
WWII in HD: Season 1

May 3
StartUp: Seasons 1-3
The Clovehitch Killer

May 12
Eye in the Sky

May 19
Rosario Tijeras (Mexico): Seasons 1-2

May 23
Shot Caller

May 31
Battleship

Bill Burr: You People Are All the Same

Chloe

Closer

Coach Carter

Dennis the Menace

Downton Abbey: Series 1-6 

Final Destination 3

Final Destination 5

Free Willy

Hairspray

Happy Endings: Seasons 1-3 

Happy Feet

I Know What You Did Last Summer

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

New Year's Eve

Sniper: Legacy

Stardust

Sucker Punch

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie

The Blind Side

The Devil's Advocate

The Disaster Artist

The Final Destination

Top Gun

Wild Things

Zoolander