16 Must-Watch Movies on HBO and Max to Stream Right Now (May 2025)

Tóth (Adrien Brody) is an architect from Hungary who immigrates to America after World War II. After a period of struggle, he finds work with the wealthy Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce). Harrison recognizes László’s talents, but he also envies them. As the years pass, László persistently fights Harrison to realize his artistic vision, which takes its toll on his career and relationships with his wife and daughter. Can art and commerce exist peacefully? Or are they constantly at odds, much like László and Harrison?

Nominated for 10 Academy Awards in 2025, The Brutalist is an American epic Hollywood just doesn’t make anymore. It takes place during the last half of the 20th century in New York City, Philadelphia and Italy. But The Brutalist is also an intimate character study focusing on two men who share wildly different views on just about everything. It’s a film with big ideas about Life and Art, but it never feels too stuffy or self-important.

Before mobile phones and TikTok, most kids had to rely on their imaginations for endless hours of entertainment. But for Mikey (Sean Astin), Brand (Josh Brolin), Chunk (Jeff Cohen), Data (Ke Huy Quan), Mouth (Corey Feldman), Andy (Kerri Green) and Stef (Martha Plimpton), they have One-Eyed Willy’s buried treasure to keep them occupied. These “Goonies” explore hidden caves and lost pirate ships to find the booty needed to save their homes from foreclosure, but will the lethal Fratelli family beat them to it? 

The Goonies is pure ‘80s — complete with a Cyndi Lauper pop song and some sketchy ethnic stereotypes — but it’s also a timeless adventure that taps into the youthful urge to explore places you shouldn’t. Astin leads a cast of charming kids that probably remind you of the brood you hung out with in middle school, and the climactic showdown on Willy’s pirate ship beats any CGI nonsense that’s commonplace today.

Has there ever been a creepier Best Picture Oscar winner than The Silence of the Lambs? Jonathan Demme’s 1991 thriller is still scary today, but its real power lies in the strange relationship between Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter. She needs his help to capture Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine), a serial killer who likes to wear the skin of his victims. But Lecter’s help comes with a price — he wants to know everything about Clarice, including the traumatic event that still haunts her. Will Clarice open herself up to a psychopath to catch another that’s still on the loose?

Hopkins is only on screen for 16 minutes in The Silence of the Lambs, but he dominates the movie with his seductive, sophisticated monster. Foster has a trickier role, but she turns her character’s vulnerability into an asset. Slight in frame and ignored by her male peers, Clarice is the only one perceptive enough to piece together clues that lead to Buffalo Bill. She’s the blueprint for all the thriller heroines who came after her.

Katja’s (Diane Kruger) life is picture perfect — she has a great marriage and loves her 6-year-old son, Rocco (Rafael Santana). But that picture is shattered when both are killed in a nail bomb explosion. Katja saw the people who planted it, but the law is no help. Katja decides to take matters into her own hands and find the justice that’s eluded her. 

In The Fade is a revenge tale that’s less concerned with action and more focused on Katja’s fragile state of mind. Her transformation from a happy mother and wife to a gun-happy vigilante is often painful to watch and involves her taking drugs and contemplating suicide to dull her pain. It’s a tough film to take, but also a rewarding one you won’t shake anytime soon.

Romy Mathis (Nicole Kidman) seemingly has it all: a thriving career as a powerful CEO, a loving marriage to a caring husband and two wonderful teenage daughters. But Romy has one big problem — her sex life stinks. That all changes when young intern Sam (Harris Dickinson) enters her life and correctly guesses that Romy isn’t just horny, she’s also craving to be sexually dominated. Soon, they have an affair, but how far will Romy go to have it all?

Babygirl deals with complicated subject matter, but it has a surprisingly light comedic touch that makes it a pleasure to watch. Kidman excels at playing characters like Romy, who can seem serious and cold one moment and funny and warm in another. It’s one of the actress’s best performances, and she was nominated for a Golden Globe for her efforts.

Iris (Sophie Thatcher) seems like the perfect girlfriend —  intelligent, attractive and attentive to her boyfriend Josh (Jack Quaid). There’s a good reason for that: she’s actually a companion android whose every move is controlled by Josh. But when she discovers Josh may be using her for nefarious purposes on a weekend getaway with some friends, Iris breaks free of her programming. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, even a female robot like Iris, and her revenge will change Josh and his friends forever.

Companion is a morbidly funny horror film with a twisty plot that will keep you guessing. Quaid takes a break from playing nice guys (well, mostly) to portray an amoral man who will do pretty much anything to get what he wants. Thatcher is also great as the paranoid android who has every reason not to trust the humans around her. 

Edward Lemuel (Sebastian Stan) is an out-of-work actor with neurofibromatosis who receives an experimental medical treatment that dramatically alters his appearance. After he assumes a new identity and a new career as a real estate agent, he discovers that a new play written by his past neighbor is about to be staged. He auditions for the role and gets it, but things get complicated when Oswald (Adam Pearson), a man with the same condition Edward once had, befriends the cast and crew, pushing Edward to the brink of madness.

A Different Man is a strange, hypnotic film, a movie about obsession and jealousy that never goes where you’d expect. Stan earned an Oscar nomination last year for The Apprentice, but he’s even more impressive here as the self-loathing Edward. He’s ably supported by Pearson, as the man Edward simultaneously hates and aspires to be, and Renate Reinsve as the neighbor/playwright Ingrid.

William Lee (Daniel Craig) is drifting through life. An American expat in Mexico, he has nothing better to do than hang out in bars and try to pick up hustlers who aren’t interested in him. Things change when he meets Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), a young GI also wandering without any clear objective. The two soon begin an affair, but Eugene isn’t sure he wants to be with any man, let alone William. But William is madly in love and is willing to travel to the ends of the Earth to make Eugene stay with him.

Queer isn’t quite a romance, drama or a comedy, although it contains elements of all those genres. The third act gets trippy (literally) and may leave you feeling confused, but it’s worth it for the dynamic lead performances by Craig and Starkey. They’re convincing as tenative lovers who can’t quite connect with one another.

One of the best films of 2024, Flow is an Oscar-winning animated movie from Latvia with no dialogue, nameless animal characters and barely any plot. A black cat barely survives a stampede of wild dogs when a giant flood engulfs his home … and eventually, most of the land. Desperate to survive, the cat finds a floating sailboat with a capybara as its sole occupant. Eventually, a dog, a secretary bird, and a lemur join them, and together, they navigate the dangers of rising tides, an epic storm and other wild animals as they try to find dry land free of danger.

On paper, Flow seems intimidatingly basic, but the movie’s pleasures are in simply experiencing its gorgeous visuals and spellbinding score. The director, Gints Zilbalodis, wrote the screenplay and composed the music, and his passion shines through in every frame and musical chord. Most modern animated movies, with their celebrity voiceovers and assembly-line pop tunes, play it safe to appeal to everyone, but Flow takes risks by marching to its own beat. It pays off, and it’s an instant classic.

They don’t make straightforward melodramas anymore, which is why We Live in Time feels so surprising – it’s retrograde in all the right ways, and it’s emotional without being too saccharine. Tobias (Andrew Garfield) isn’t really looking for love, but after he meets chef Almut (Florence Pugh), he can’t help but fall hard for her. Soon, they are living together, but two things threaten their burgeoning romance: Tobias’s desire to have a child and Almut’s discovery that she has ovarian cancer.

Told in non-chronological order, We Live in Time dips back and forth in time to showcase a relationship that’s tested and strengthened by circumstances beyond Tobias and Almut’s control. Garfield and Pugh make a believably mismatched couple, with the former appealingly low-key and mousy and the latter electric and rebellious. It’s now rare for a movie to invest so much time and energy in making its lead characters so multifaceted and frustrating, which makes We Live in Time so special to watch.

Divine G (Colman Domingo) is behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit, and his only hope is to make it to his next parole hearing. To make life bearable in the Sing Sing prison he’s incarcerated at, he joins a theater group comprised of other prisoners. Soon, he finds a new purpose and peace in life as he immerses himself in preparing for the next stage production while also befriending another actor and prisoner, Divine Eye (Clarence Maclin).

Sing Sing is one of 2024’s best dramas, and there are many reasons why the people who saw it fell in love with it. Chief among them is the terrific performance by Domingo, who brings so much depth and warmth to his role as Divine G. Sing Sing is inspirational without feeling phony, and the ending ranks right up there with The Shawshank Redemption’s.

There’s a bomb on a crowded Los Angeles bus, and it will detonate if it drops below 50 mph. LAPD officer Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves) has to find a way to get on the bus, help emergency driver Annie (Sandra Bullock) navigate congested L.A. traffic, keep the vehicle’s terrified passengers from panicking and figure out where the mad bomber, Howard (Dennis Hopper), is located before it’s too late. Can Jack keep everyone safe, bond with Annie and capture the bad guy?

Most movies, even the great ones, wear and tear with age, but Speed is that rarity – an action movie that feels just as fresh today as it did when it was released in 1994. That’s due largely to Jan de Bont, who wastes no time in getting to the point, and lead actors Reeves, Bullock and Hopper, who commit to the bit. In a movie full of unbelievable stunts, which include buses flying in mid-air and a guy crawling on top of a runaway subway car, perhaps the most outrageous thing it asks you to accept is that there’s no gridlock on the L.A. highways.

Italy. Summer, 1983. 17-year-old Elio’s (Timothée Chalamet) lazy summer vacation is disturbed by the arrival of Oliver (Armie Hammer), a handsome graduate student assisting his professor father on a research project. As the days pass, Elio and Oliver grow closer to each other, resulting in an unexpected romance with a clear expiration date. Will Elio learn to accept the inevitable? And can Oliver sever the connection he forged with Elio when he returns to his life in the United States?

Heartbreak never looked so good in Call Me by Your Name, which conveys all the heat and boredom of spending summer in the countryside. The director, Luca Guadagnino, specializes in tales of desire, and he depicts Elio and Oliver’s courtship and romance with sensitivity and sensuality. This is the film that established Chalamet as a star, and it’s a knockout performance that never rings false. The soundtrack by Sufjan Stevens is just the right amount of wistful and is a good complement to the dreamy, sun-dappled cinematography.

Superhero fatigue is real, and it’s here to stay. But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a great comic book movie from the past. One of the best is Batman Returns, Tim Burton’s kinky, freaky sequel from 1992. This time around, Batman (Michael Keaton) has to battle the Penguin (Danny DeVito), who wants to take over Gotham City, and Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer), who just wants to make men pay for being jerks. Get in line, sister.

Throw in corrupt businessman Max Schreck (Christopher Walken), a plot to kill all the firstborn children of Gotham, and an army of armed penguins ready to blow the city sky high, and you’ve got a movie that’s sublimely ridiculous and tons of fun. Keaton remains the best Dark Knight, while Pfeiffer is simply unforgettable as the feline femme fatale. It’s one of the great performances of the last 30 years, and it remains the blueprint for all supervillains to follow.

Is there anyone better in the romantic comedy genre than Julia Roberts? Since her arrival as a star in Pretty Woman, she’s headlined a handful of rom-com classics, and most of them have been big hits. But Duplicity, a 2009 comedic thriller that’s really a good old-fashioned love story between two rival spies, was one of her rare disappointments at the box office, and it’s not as fondly remembered as Notting Hill or Ticket to Paradise. Thankfully, it’s available to stream, where you can enjoy its subtle pleasures.

Roberts is Claire Stenwick, a CIA officer who has grown tired of working at her thankless government job. She finds a kindred spirit in MI6 agent Ray Koval (Clive Owen), and together, they hatch a scheme to steal the formula of a new, top-secret hygiene product from Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson), a CEO of a major cosmetics company. But Howard may know more than they realize, and Claire and Roy’s slow-burning romance may fizzle out completely if they are caught red-handed and thrown in jail. 

When Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) travels to Berlin with his wife Liz (January Jones) to attend a biotechnology summit, things don’t go according to plan. He loses his briefcase that contains his scientific research, and he gets into a car accident that puts him in a coma for four days. Worse, when he returns to his hotel, he finds his wife denying she’s married to him. She claims he’s not Martin Harris at all; he’s an impostor, and a wanted one at that, with multiple hitmen trying to kill him. Is Martin really who he thinks he is? Or is his “wife” correct, and he’s lost his mind?

Unknown is probably the most ludicrous of Neeson’s action movies, and that’s saying something, considering this is the man who battled overgrown wolves in The Grey and alien invaders in Battleship. But Unknown is directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, and the Spanish director specializes in making silly action movies somehow plausible. Neeson is suitably tough and gruff as the would-be Martin, while Diane Kruger kicks ass (both in the film and performance-wise) as his partner-in-crime Gina.