There’s nothing like a scary movie in October, and the additions of Bring Her Back and The Substance — two modern horror classics — to HBO Max certainly feel appropriate. But for something truly scary, check out the excellent documentary The Alabama Solution, which looks at the terrifying situation at Alabama prisons through the eyes of the prisoners themselves thanks to footage recorded on illegally smuggled cell phones that exposes a disgusting amount of corruption. They join other recent additions to our list of the best movies on HBO Max, including Friendship, Warfare, and Superman.
A note about how this list was made: In the interest of keeping it relevant, we’re emphasizing movies recently added to HBO Max and new releases, but we’ve also made sure to add other movies we think you’ll want to know about. We’ll be updating it regularly.
Last updated Oct. 21; newer additions are at the top.
More on HBO Max:
The Alabama Solution
The Alabama Solution is one of the best documentaries of the year, and one that’s sure to make noise when awards season rolls around. And let’s hope it makes enough noise to bring more attention to the corrupt correctional facility system in Alabama, as well as out-of-control prisons around the country. Directors Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman get firsthand accounts of what happens inside an Alabama prison from inmates who are interviewed using illegal mobile phones that were smuggled in, revealing an institution built on corruption, brutality, and inhumane treatment of its inmates. It’s a shock to the system, but one that echoes through the rest of our government, making it relevant to every American concerned about a growing authoritarian regime. -Tim Surette [Trailer]
The Substance
One of 2024’s best horror movies — it was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won the Oscar for Best Makeup — spent most of 2024 and 2025 on the small streaming service MUBI, but its arrival on HBO Max means you have no more excuses not to watch it. Demi Moore plays an aging Hollywood star looking to stay relevant after she’s passed over for roles in favor of younger actresses, so she takes an experimental drug to regain some youthful looks. Things get very gross from there. This isn’t for the squeamish, but it is for those looking for a sharp critique of modern-day beauty standards. Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid also star. -Tim Surette [Trailer]
Bring Her Back
From Danny and Michael Philippou, directors of the very scary movie Talk to Me, comes another very scary movie. Bring Her Back follows two orphaned step-siblings who are sent to live with Laura (Sally Hawkins, in a ferociously demented performance), a strange woman who is trying to resurrect her dead daughter using an occult ritual she needs her new charges to complete. It’s a dark, grief-choked tale with excellent performances and some of the most disturbing imagery there’s ever been in an A24 horror movie, which is really saying something. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Superman
James Gunn’s Superman reboot came into theaters with a tall order in front of it. It had to establish a new tone and creative direction for the moribund DC Universe, it had to reintroduce a character who isn’t as creatively or commercially reliable as Batman, it had to succeed at the box office, and it had to be good. It succeeded in every way. David Corenswet was born to play the Man of Steel, the supporting cast is genuinely funny (Edi Gathegi’s Mr. Terrific is the breakout character), and it presents a viable alternative to Marvel that isn’t grim n’ gritty like the prior incarnation of DC so often was. It feels good to watch. It’s a very impressive movie, and it makes it look easy. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Warfare
This Iraq War movie is something of a piece with Civil War, which you’ll find further down the list. Co-directed by Civil War‘s director Alex Garland and military advisor Ray Mendoza, Warfare approaches Civil War‘s interest in war journalism from a different angle. Mendoza is a Navy SEAL veteran, and the film attempts to recreate as accurately as possible a firefight Mendoza’s platoon was involved in in Iraq in 2006. The script is drawn from testimonies of the people who were there, and the filmmaking tries to recreate the event as it happened. The result is a harrowing, immersive experience that’s unlike any other war movie ever made. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Friendship
Tim Robinson, one of contemporary comedy’s most unique and brilliant voices, stars in this deranged comedy that’s one of the funniest movies of the year. He plays a strange man named Craig, whose budding friendship with his cool new neighbor Austin (Paul Rudd) curdles into self-destructive obsession after Austin decides to stop hanging out with him after Craig’s behavior gets too off-putting It takes the observational cringe comedy of Robinson’s sketch series I Think You Should Leave and molds it into a movie you will not forget anytime soon. There are lines in this movie you will be quoting and laughing about for months after, like you used to with Anchorman or Airplane or whatever. “I’ll leave you guys with this: we should still be in Afghanistan, and I don’t know why we pulled out the way we did…” -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Freaky Tales
This tribute to Oakland in the 1980s is hella Bay. It follows four intersecting action-comedy storylines about punks, rappers, Nazis, corrupt cops, desperate crooks, and Golden State Warriors point guard Sleepy Floyd (Jay Ellis), weaving a magical tale that could only take place in the Town. Hailing from Captain Marvel directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, the cast features Pedro Pascal, Normani, Ben Mendelsohn, and more, with cameos from East Bay icons including rapper Too $hort, punk rocker Tim Armstrong from Operation Ivy and Rancid, and Tom Hanks, who used to sell peanuts and popcorn in the stands at A’s games. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Final Destination: Bloodlines
This horror hit reboots the long-dormant Final Destination franchise. It does what a Final Destination movie is supposed to do: kills characters in elaborate, unexpected ways that will impress you with their cleverness and make you feel a little guilty about enjoying it so much. This one follows a new group of young people being hunted down by Death, but the twist is that they’re the descendants of someone who avoided dying in an accident decades ago, and so they’re not supposed to exist at all. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Sinners
Ryan Coogler’s blockbuster has everything: Irish step-dancing vampires! Two Michael B. Jordans! Hailee Steinfeld delivering outrageously dirty dialogue! Hallucinatory appearances by B-boys and funksters from the future! You’ll find all that and more in this ambitious and entertaining action-horror flick. Jordan plays Smoke and Stack, twin gangsters who open up a blues music venue in an old sawmill in 1932 Mississippi. They think their biggest adversary is going to be the local racists who don’t want to see Black men succeeding, but then the vampires show up. It’s a bloody, exciting survive-the-night action-horror flick peppered with thoughtful themes about Black ownership and American history. It’s the biggest original movie of the year so far, and likely to be the movie that people remember from 2025. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
A Minecraft Movie
If you have kids between the ages of 5 and 25, you know all about Minecraft, the sandbox game where players build stuff out of blocks. The massively popular video game is now a massively popular movie that grossed nearly a billion dollars worldwide. The movie follows a group of people — played by Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks, Sebastian Hansen, and Jason Momoa — who get sucked through a portal and get trapped in Minecraft world. They meet Steve (Jack Black), who’s been trapped there for decades but knows the way back, and go on an adventure to find their way home. It’s the second-biggest video game adaptation of all time, behind only The Super Mario Brothers Movie. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1
Kevin Costner infamously left Yellowstone to focus on his four-part Western film series Horizon, which will be lucky to make it to two parts after Part 1 bombed at the box office in 2024. Part 2 is complete and sitting on a shelf, and maybe if enough people watch Part 1, the second chapter will finally see the light of day. The craziest part is that Horizon is actually fairly good, a sweeping, old-fashioned tale about how the West was won, with beautiful cinematography and an impressive ensemble cast led by Costner, Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, and Abbey Lee. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
This prequel to action classic Mad Max: Fury Road is a pretty thrilling flick in its own right. Anya Taylor-Joy takes over from Charlize Theron as Furiosa, a post-apocalyptic big rig driver, for this origin story, as she seeks revenge on Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), a large-nosed wasteland warlord who killed her family. It’s not as good as its predecessor, but Fury Road is one of the best action movies of all time, so almost nothing compares. Furiosa is still worth watching to experience the unique, highly specific world director George Miller has built over the course of 45 years. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
The Brutalist
This powerful drama is epic in theme (the American Dream) and length (over three-and-a-half hours). Adrien Brody stars as Laszlo Toth, a Hungarian Jewish architect who comes to America after World War II to try to build a better life for himself and his family and faces many troubles along the way. The novelistic film won three Academy Awards — Best Actor for Brody, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Score — and was nominated for 10 total, including Best Picture and Best Director for Brady Corbet, who announces himself as a major filmmaker with this one. -Liam Mathews
Babygirl
Nicole Kidman stars in this erotic thriller about a high-powered CEO who embarks on a kinky affair with a much younger man (Harris Dickinson), risking it all for the feeling. The movie has one of the craziest, most memeworthy scenes of any movie from 2024, when Dickinson’s character, in a show of psychosexual dominance, orders Kidman’s character a glass of milk at a bar. You’ll have to see it to believe it. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Queer
Queer is one of two 2024 releases from Luca Guadagnino, a director as prolific as he is distinctive (his other movie, Challengers, is on Prime Video). Based on a novella by William S. Burroughs, Queer stars Daniel Craig as an American expat in 1950s Mexico City who falls in love with a much younger, drug-addicted army vet (Drew Starkey) who doesn’t identify as “queer.” It’s a sensual, dreamlike A24 drama that didn’t catch on during awards season the way Craig hoped, but maybe more people will be transfixed by it now that it’s on Max. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Sing Sing
In Sing Sing, Colman Domingo (nominated for Best Actor at the 2025 Academy Awards) plays an incarcerated man who participates in the prison’s Rehabilitation Through the Arts program, which allows prisoners to stage theater plays. It’s an intimate, inspiring drama that’s based on a true story and features some of the real people involved writing the script and acting. –Tim Surette and Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Heretic
Hugh Grant’s late-career turn into having a fun time playing evil characters reaches a high point in this A24 horror movie with a dark sense of humor (Grant was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy). He plays a man who welcomes two young Mormon missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) into his home when they knock on his door. At first he seems nice, but then he says he has figured out the one true religion, and things take a sinister turn. It’s a fun, twisty horror-thriller written and directed by A Quiet Place screenwriters Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Flow
Bill Hader’s favorite movie of 2024 has only gotten buzzier since it won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, but its limited theatrical release isn’t making it easy to watch for those of us late to the party. But now you can watch it how it was meant to be watched: with your cat in your lap (unless your local theater is really chill). The stunning Latvian film (the first Latvian film ever nominated for an Oscar) about a black cat who finds refuge on a boat with other animals after a flood destroys its home features no dialogue, letting the animation do the storytelling. And what a story it is. –Tim Surette [Trailer]
A Different Man
Sebastian Stan stars in this psychological thriller as Edward, a troubled aspiring actor who undergoes an experimental medical procedure to remove a facial deformity. He starts a new life, and everything is going well for him, landing a part in a play that he has a secret connection to and starting a relationship with the playwright, Ingrid (Renate Reinsve), who doesn’t know she used to be his neighbor. But then he meets a man named Oswald (Adam Pearson), who has the same deformity as he did but lives with confidence and charisma, and his mental state unravels in chilling, fascinating fashion. Stan is tremendous, and the film is twisty and darkly funny. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Juror #2
This legal thriller could end up being legendary filmmaker Clint Eastwood’s final film. Hopefully not, but it could be. Nicholas Hoult stars as a man facing a moral dilemma. He’s a juror on a murder trial, and he realizes that he accidentally killed the victim, thinking he hit a deer with his car. He has to decide what to do. Does he come clean and ruin the life of himself, his wife, and their unborn child? Or does he save his own skin and send an innocent man to jail? What would you do? That’s the question to ponder as you watch this entertaining courtroom drama. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Michael Keaton puts on his striped suit and teases his hair up like he stuck his finger in an electrical socket like he did in 1988 for this long-awaited sequel to Tim Burton’s classic supernatural comedy. This time around, Lydia (Winona Ryder) reluctantly enlists Betelgeuse’s help in order to rescue her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) from being trapped in the Afterlife. It’s a fun update on the original. Hopefully it doesn’t take another 36 years for us to get Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, aka Threetlejuice. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Trap
M. Night Shyamalan isn’t Hollywood’s most consistent filmmaker, but he’s one of the most distinctive, and that’s arguably more important. His latest stars Josh Hartnett as a dad who takes his daughter to a pop star’s arena concert. He’s also a serial killer, and he realizes the police know he’s there but not what he looks like. So he has to try to evade capture without his daughter finding out his secret. And it’s a Shyamalan movie, so you can be sure of two things: there will be twists, and it’s set in Philadelphia. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Civil War
There’s been tons of discourse about the meaning of Alex Garland’s disturbing war movie about war photographers attempting to document the final days of a fictional modern American civil war — it was a pretty incendiary movie to drop during this particular election year, to be sure. But while we can debate the meaning and intent of this story all day long, one thing we can mostly agree on is that as an experience, Civil War is visceral, upsetting, and constantly thought-provoking. A film I’m still pondering months after I initially saw it. –Phil Owen [Trailer]
I Saw the TV Glow
A teenager’s friend shows him a mysterious late-night TV show visible in static that shows a strange other world — and nothing about his life will ever be the same again. It’s a slow burn, but I Saw the TV Glow is the sort of movie that worms your way into your brain and stays there once it’s over. –Phil Owen [Trailer]
Love Lies Bleeding
Kristen Stewart in a romance-crime thriller about a lesbian bodybuilder? Say less. OK, fine, we can say a little more: Stewart stars as Lou, a depressed gym manager with a complicated family history who falls in love with Jackie, an ambitious bodybuilder (Katy O’Brian). When Jackie gets sucked into the criminal world, things get dark for them really fast. –Allison Picurro [Trailer]
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
Hollywood keeps making these things, and I can’t get enough. Writer/director Adam Wingard, who also handled 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong, has a great feel for this type of movie, injecting just enough plot to keep it coherent while still keeping the story from becoming overly complicated despite all the sci-fi elements (Marvel could use some filmmakers like that, to be honest). Thanks to Wingard’s deft hand, GxK isn’t the sort of movie where you have to slog through the talky bits to get to the spectacle — Godzilla x Kong is fun the whole way through, and that makes the out-of-control action sequences all the better. –Phil Owen [Trailer]
Problemista
Written by, directed by, and starring Julio Torres, Problemista is a whimsical and bittersweet comedy about an aspiring toy designer named Julio struggling to bring his unique ideas into the world. With his work visa about to expire, Julio finds a job assisting a lonely, eccentric art world outcast (played by Tilda Swinton) as she tries to honor the paintings of her artist husband. –Allison Picurro [Trailer]
The Iron Claw
The uniquely tragic true story of the Von Erich family comes to life in this film directed by Sean Durkin, chronicling their efforts to make it in the cutthroat world of professional wrestling in the 1980s. The three brothers are played by a trio of It boys — Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, and Harris Dickinson — with Holt McCallany and Maura Tierney as their parents. –Allison Picurro [Trailer]
Dune: Part Two
Respectfully, Dune: Part One was basically a really long, really beautiful trailer for Dune: Part Two, which makes Part Two all the more thrilling. The Denis Villeneuve-directed film finds Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) joining forces with the Fremen people (which includes his love interest, Zendaya’s Chani, and his hype man, Javier Bardem’s Stilgar), who live on the desert planet Arrakis, to wage war against the ruthless House Harkonnen (which includes Stellan Skarsgård’s Baron and Austin Butler’s Feyd-Rautha). –Allison Picurro [Trailer]
The Zone of Interest
The winner for Best International Feature and nominee for Best Picture at the 2024 Oscars was noticeably absent from streaming before the ceremony in early March, but now it’s here for everyone to enjoy at home. OK, maybe “enjoy” is not the right word here. The film takes an interesting approach to one of humankind’s worst atrocities — the Holocaust — and looks at it from the viewpoint of Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, and his family as they live next door to the death they order but go about their lives with striking mundanity. Director Jonathan Glazer’s film highlights the way we turn a blind eye to tragedy, and is stunningly effective at doing so. –Tim Surette [Trailer]
Wonka
Wonka, which is set during the very beginning of the chocolatier’s career, has a very different vibe from the fairly cynical original movie, adopting the more whimsical feel of director Paul King’s Paddington movies. That makes a lot of sense from a human nature standpoint — young folks tend to be more idealistic, and then they gradually gain cynicism as they get older and gain a greater appreciation for how terrible the world is. Seeing this more innocent version of Wonka is nice. –Phil Owen [Trailer]
The Color Purple
Blitz Bazawule directs this adaptation of the stage musical of the same name (which is itself an adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel, which was previously adapted by Steven Spielberg), following a woman’s journey to reunite with her sister and her children after being forcibly separated from them years earlier. A trio of powerhouse performances from Fantasia Barrino, Danielle Brooks, and Taraji P. Henson bring the film to vivid life. –Allison Picurro [Trailer]
Barbie
Greta Gerwig’s satirical comedy about gender roles and plastic dolls accumulated $1.44 billion from the worldwide box office, but now you can watch it at home. By now, you know what it’s about and you know who’s in it, and if you somehow still haven’t watched it, let me be the latest person to convince you to join the rest of us. It’s outstanding. –Tim Surette [Trailer]
aka Mr. Chow
Michael Chow is a restaurateur, an artist, an actor. The documentary aka Mr. Chow explores all these sides of the British Chinese entrepreneur, as well as the personal tragedies and historical events that shaped him. While most know Chow by the restaurant chain he launched across the U.S. and in London, few may be familiar with his relationship with his father, Zhou Xinfang — a trailblazing Beijing Opera grand master — and his lonely but colorful past before opening the first Mr. Chow. The film, which includes interviews from Chow’s family and friends, paints a searing portrait of a man determined to build a unique legacy marked by imagination and freedom. –Kat Moon [Trailer]
Moonage Daydream
This documentary film from Brett Morgen (The Kid Stays in the Picture) is described as a “cinematic odyssey” that looks at the life of glam rock icon David Bowie, which, given the subject, is a perfect fit. A flurry of images, animations, and impressionism, Moonage Daydrem rises to the top of films about Bowie. –Tim Surette [Trailer]
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
A nominee for Best Documentary at the 2023 Oscars, this affecting film allows the legendary artist and activist Nan Goldin to tell her story. Through a series of intimate interviews and carefully constructed slideshows, she revisits the death of her sister, the years she spent in New York City LGBTQ subcultures, and explains how she eventually made it her mission to hold the Sackler family accountable for the opioid crisis. It’s not just one of the best documentaries of 2022; it’s one of the best films of 2022, period. —Allison Picurro [Trailer]
Navalny
Alexei Navalny was one of the few politicians and activists in Russia to publicly oppose the Russian government. As a man rallying others against Putin’s totalitarian regime, he was blacklisted by the state-controlled media and arrested by sham courts, but that’s the easy part of what is considered the most dangerous job in the world. In 2020, Navalny was poisoned by a lab-created nerve agent and nearly died. He and his supporters pointed fingers at the Kremlin, who denied any participation. This award-winning documentary (including Best Documentary at the 2023 Academy Awards), which was released before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, looks at Navalny and the poisoning, and the challenges of fighting Putin. –Tim Surette [Trailer]
The Batman
There seem to be two general reactions to The Batman: Either you think it’s the greatest Batman movie of all time, or you’re totally ambivalent about it. But you’ll never know until you watch it! Here, Robert Pattinson dons the big black cape and a whole Hot Topic’s worth of black eye makeup to play Bruce Wayne’s alter ego. The film follows Batman’s hunt for a killer with the peculiar quirk of leaving a trail of cryptic riddles in his wake, uncovering dark secrets about Gotham’s history of corruption along the way. –Allison Picurro [Trailer]
Dune
Denis Villenueve’s take on Frank Herbert’s science-fiction novel (and David Lynch’s “classic” 1984 version) is a stunning film, despite all the browns. The hard sci-fi story follows Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), a young royal, as his family is thrust into battle for a planet that is the only source for the most valuable substance in the universe, spice. But you’re just watching for the giants worms, right? –Tim Surette [Trailer]
The Fallout
This indie follows two high school girls — played by Jenna Ortega and Maddie Ziegler — who strike up a bond after surviving a school shooting. The movie is more of an empathetic look at their responses to it than it is about the actual tragedy, which is a refreshing change of pace from movies like this, which typically try to turn their characters into inspiring symbols of resilience. The Fallout is more interested in exploring how these kids get through the day after witnessing something unthinkable. Shailene Woodley and Julie Bowen co-star. –Allison Picurro [Trailer]
The Suicide Squad
Not to be confused with 2016’s Suicide Squad (there’s no “the” in that one, get it?), James Gunn directs this irreverent superhero movie about a team of villains who are recruited by the government to go to a remote island and destroy an evil starfish. With a cast that includes Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, and Viola Davis and over-the-top violence that fits the franchise, it’s a big improvement from the first Suicide Squad movie. Once you’re done watching it, you can check out Max’s spin-off series Peacemaker, which centers on Cena’s character. –Tim Surette [Trailer]
Spirited Away
One of the coolest things about Max is that it’s home to the Studio Ghibli collection, putting Hayao Miyazaki’s greatest films in one place. Spirited Away is probably his most famous one, having won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. It came out in 2001, and all these years later, it remains a stunningly animated, wholly moving film, following a little girl named Chihiro whose parents are turned into pigs by a witch, forcing her to enter the witch’s treacherous, mysterious world as she tries to find a way to free her parents. It’s an absolutely magical experience, and the perfect gateway to Miyazaki’s work. –Allison Picurro [Trailer]
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
If HBO Max only had the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy I would still confidently call it the best streaming service out there. Luckily, it has a lot more stuff than that (clearly), but that doesn’t make it any less exciting that LOTR fans can watch the full versions of Peter Jackson’s sprawling, visually stunning adventure series whenever we want. Even if you haven’t seen them, you’re probably familiar with the general plot: Frodo (Elijah Wood), a hobbit, goes on a quest to destroy the extraordinarily powerful One Ring and the dark lord who made it. Each extended installment clocks in at well over three hours, but HBO Max also has the regular theatrical cuts (which, admittedly, are all about three hours) if you’re more of a casual fan. There’s no wrong way to watch LOTR. –Allison Picurro [Trailer]
