The newest addition to our roundup of the best movies to watch on Max isn't a blockbuster from Warner Bros. or a cinephile favorite from A24 — though you'll find plenty of those on the list, too — but rather a made-for-TV movie that finished filming in April and was released in May. That's an astonishingly fast turnaround for a movie, even a made-for-TV one, but the quickness makes Mountainhead feel timely. It joins movies like historical epic The Brutalist, which won Adrien Brody his second Academy Award for Best Actor, and erotic drama Babygirl, which didn't win any Oscars but did win the meme war, on our list.

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 June 6; newer additions are at the top.

More on HBO and Max: Ramy Youssef, Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell, and Jason Schwartzman, Mountainhead Macall Polay/HBO Succession creator Jesse Armstrong returns with this timely made-for-HBO movie about billionaires destroying the world. Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef, and Cory Michael Smith star as tech titans who gather at a mountaintop vacation home for a weekend of fun when the real world intrudes on them — or at least as much as it can when you're as insulated as these guys are. You see, one of them launched an app that enables the easy creation of AI videos, and it's having extreme political consequences.

The film has the biting satirical edge that Succession fans will love as it skewers the self-serving mindsets of "masters of the universe" types. "The best moments of Mountainhead capture the breathtaking arrogance of this way of seeing the world without making its characters seem cartoonish," Keith Phipps writes in his review. -Liam Mathews [Trailer] Adrien Brody, The Brutalist A24 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 [Trailer] Nicole Kidman, Babygirl Niko Tavernise 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] Samantha Morton, 2073 Neon Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Asif Kapadia (Amy) directs this genre-defying sci-fi/documentary hybrid.

In the narrative portions, Samantha Morton stars as a woman living in dystopian San Francisco in the titular year. The documentary portions theorize how political, social, and environmental things that are happening in the present could lead to the future depicted. It's a dark vision that the trailer describes as not fiction, not a documentary, but a warning from the future.

Reviews were mixed for the filmmaking, but critics agreed that the ideas are powerful. -Liam Mathews [Trailer] Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig, Queer Max 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] Colman Domingo, Sing Sing A24 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] Hugh Grant, Heretic A24 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 Janus Films 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] Sebastian Stan, A Different Man A24 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] Leslie Bibb, Nicholas Hoult, and J.K. Simmons, Juror #2 Claire Folger/Warner Bros. 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] Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, Joker: Folie á Deux Niko Tavernise/DC Comics There's no other way to say it; this musical sequel to 2019's billion-dollar-grossing superhero crime thriller Joker was a flop. Critics and audiences rejected it in its theatrical run, and it lost a lot of money for its studio.

You almost certainly didn't see it in theaters. But now that it's on Max, you can decide for yourself whether it's as bad as its reputation suggests. Joaquin Phoenix reprises his role as disturbed aspiring comedian Arthur Fleck, who is facing trial for the events of the first film, and Lady Gaga joins him as Harleen Quinzel, a fellow patient at Arkham Asylum who's obsessed with him.

They start a toxic relationship, and then things get even worse. -Liam Mathews [Trailer] Winona Ryder and Michael Keaton, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Warner Bros. Pictures 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] Josh Hartnett, Trap Warner Bros. Pictures 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] Cailee Spaeny, Civil War A24 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] Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine, 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] Katy O'Brian and Kristen Stewart, Love Lies Bleeding A24 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 Warner Bros. 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] Julio Torres and Tilda Swinton, Problemista A24 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] Dakota Johnson and Sonoya Mizuno, Am I OK? Emily Knecht/Max Dakota Johnson stars in this dramedy film co-directed by real life married couple Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne, loosely inspired by Allynne's life. Johnson plays Lucy, a woman navigating coming out in her 30s with the help of her best friend, Jane (Sonoya Mizuno).

-Allison Picurro [Trailer] Jacob Elordi and Cailee Spaeny, Priscilla A24 Priscilla is sort of like the "Taylor's Version" of movies. Directed by Sofia Coppola and adapted from Priscilla Presley's memoir Elvis and Me, the film is a direct contrast to Baz Luhrmann's bombastic Austin Butler-starring biopic of The King. Coppola's film examines how a teenage Priscilla Beaulieu (played by Cailee Spaeny) fell into a complicated marriage with Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi).

-Allison Picurro [Trailer] Harris Dickinson, Iron Claw A24 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] Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet, Dune 2 Warner Bros. Pictures 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 A24 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] Nicolas Cage, Dream Scenario A24 Ever dream of Nicolas Cage?

Everyone in the A24 film Dream Scenario has. Cage stars as a professor who somehow becomes the star of everyone's nighttime subconscious mental parties, turning him into an overnight pop culture sensation. But when the dreams become nightmares, the attitude toward him changes.

Sound weird? Good, because it is. -Tim Surette [Trailer] Timothée Chalamet, Wonka Warner Bros. Pictures 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] H.E.R., The Color Purple Warner Bros. Pictures 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] Margot Robbie, Barbie 2022 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. 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 HBO 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] Sydney Sweeney, Reality HBO Sydney Sweeney plays former NSA translator and whistleblower Reality Winner, who leaked an intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The film is an adaptation of Tina Satter's acclaimed play, which takes place on the day of Winner's arrest and pulls all of its dialogue from a transcript of her FBI interrogation. -Allison Picurro [Trailer] David Bowie, Moonage Daydream David Bowie Estate 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 NEON 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 CNN Films 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] Zoë Kravitz and Robert Pattinson, The Batman Jonathan Olley/DC Comics 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] Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Javier Bardem, and Timothée Chalamet, Dune Warner Bros. 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] Zoë Kravitz, KIMI HBO Max Zoë Kravitz plays an agoraphobe who works for a tech company with its own digital personal assistant. Her job is to listen to users' failed requests and improve the gadget's artificial intelligence, but when she thinks she hears a murder in one of the recordings, she inadvertently gets involved in the crime. It's a thriller in the vein of Rear Window, but better than it should be thanks to Kravitz and the eye of director Steven Soderbergh.

-Tim Surette [Trailer] Jenna Ortega and Maddie Ziegler, The Fallout HBO Max 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 Warner Bros. 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 Studio Ghibli 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 Viggo Mortensen, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Warner Bros. 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]