HBO Max added a new slate of films to its service in September, bringing something for everyone hoping for a movie night. This wide variety of features included 2025 new releases and a cinematic classic celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Here are the seven best new movies streaming on HBO Max in September.
“Dog Day Afternoon”
In 2025, Sidney Lumet’s “Dog Day Afternoon” celebrates its 50th anniversary. It’s one of the signature films in a beyond exceptional career for Lumet, a tense hostage drama written by Frank Pierson and based on an early 70s Life magazine article by P.F. Kluge and Thomas Moore. The film was released hot on the heels of “The Godfather” and “The Godfather Part II,” seeing Al Pacino reunite with Lumet (who directed “Serpico”). Here, Pacino was also once again joined by John Cazale, whose only five cinematic credits before his untimely passing were “Dog Day Afternoon,” “The Godfather,” “The Godfather Part II,” “The Conversation” and “The Deer Hunter” — masterpieces all.
“Dog Day Afternoon” holds its own against what is quite possibly the strongest Best Picture lineup of all time, nominated alongside “Jaws,” “Nashville,” “Barry Lyndon” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (one of three films to sweep Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay at the Oscars). Lumet’s tense, timely, lasting story about a desperate bank robber trying to escape an unintended hostage crisis certainly belongs among these giants.
“Evil Dead II”
In “Evil Dead II,” Sam Raimi finds a perfect outlet for his talents. Here, he and co-writer Scott Spiegel blend their comic abilities (seen more heavily in time-traveling follow-up “Army of Darkness”) with Raimi’s mean streak as a horror filmmaker (more concentrated in precursor “The Evil Dead”). The result is a horror-comedy classic that would forever influence the genre, anchored by a committed performance from Bruce Campbell and wonderful visual effects throughout. This playfully cruel cabin in the woods feature (which heavily inspired “The Cabin in the Woods,” also on HBO Max this month) remains a gold standard for what the horror-comedy genre has to offer. “Evil Dead II” may recycle the plot of “The Evil Dead,” but it’s far from a mere retread.
“Friendship”
2025’s “Friendship” won’t be everyone’s flavor of comedy. Writer/director Andrew DeYoung steers hard into the comic stylings of lead actor Tim Robinson, creating an uncomfortable and irreverent film that at times feels like a series of “I Think You Should Leave” sketches playing on end. For some, this will feel more akin to an exercise in torture than one in comedy.
To others, it will be one of the funniest movies of the decade.
“Friendship” places Robinson against Paul Rudd in a marathon of awkwardness and regret. The two bounce off of each other nicely — one a charmer putting on an eternal act, the other a buffoon who couldn’t act normal to save his life. Through this relationship, the movie makes glancing commentary on the so-called “male loneliness epidemic” and its potential roots. Any drama, however, fails to live up to the brilliance of “Friendship’s” comedy. Between a self-inflicted soap bar punishment, a disappointingly uneventful drug trip, a meal too big for one man and a show-stopping Conner O’Malley appearance, “Friendship” is, laugh for laugh, among the funniest comedies of the decade so far.
“Goodfellas”
In 1990, Martin Scorsese turned his eye on the mafia once again with “Goodfellas,” still arguably the crowning achievement of the filmmaker’s career. Detailing the rise and fall of Henry Hill as he lives out his boyhood dream of being a gangster, “Goodfellas” is a sampler pack of Scorsese’s best traits as a filmmaker. It moves like magic, perfectly edited by longtime Scorsese collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker and featuring astonishing performances from the likes of Ray Liotta, Lorraine Bracco, Robert De Niro and an Oscar-winning Joe Pesci.
While “Goodfellas” is unimpeachable in its own right, it’s only gotten that much more effective in the broader scope of Scorsese’s career. At the time of release, “Goodfellas” already followed up on ideas established in the filmmaker’s earlier entries like “Mean Streets” and “Raging Bull.” Yet “Goodfellas” has become even more poignant with time, with later Scorsese films — “Casino,” “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “The Irishman,” to name a few — further displaying the futility of greed and the hollow endings it leads to down the road.
“Prometheus”
As Hulu and FX air their own “Alien” prequel, HBO Max has added the sci-fi origin that comes straight from the Ridley Scott source. “Prometheus” may not be as universally beloved as other entries in his space-set horror franchise, but it avoids the traditional pitfalls of many modern prequels by expanding upon the “Alien” mythos in radical, complex ways. The proper introduction of concepts like the Engineers and Michael Fassbender’s malevolent android David (a franchise-best character) does wonders for the world Scott, Dan O’Bannon, Ronald Shusett and others created.
History has largely been kind to “Prometheus,” as the film written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof continues to gain affection among “Alien” fans. Many prequels have an unfortunate habit of making the films they derive from feel smaller, more limited. “Prometheus” makes the world of “Alien” feel much, much bigger.
“Seven”
“Seven” (or “Se7en,” if you want to do that) is certainly a beloved detective thriller, but it’s also a film that often gets reduced to a handful of moments — the kills, the John Doe introduction and, of course, the “What’s in the box?!” exclamations. Around these key scenes, however, David Fincher and Andrew Kevin Walker created a tense, emotional, complex thriller that influenced crime films (recently, “The Batman”) for decades to come.
The central conceit of “Seven” is a powerful one — an insane killer takes out his frustrations with society by killing people that disgust him in a manner evoking the Biblical seven deadly sins. Around this, Fincher and Walker build a compelling personal story about the lives of their central characters. Somerset (Morgan Freeman) is a longtime detective in a dark, dreary city who wants to retire while he can still see the sun. Mills (Brad Pitt) is a newcomer hotshot desperate to prove himself as more unshakable than he really is — or should be. His wife, Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow), finds herself adrift in a new, gloomy life with nobody but her danger-seeking husband to occasionally keep her company. “Seven” is remembered for its scenes of action and horror, and these scenes deserve to be remembered. But even more powerful are the moments when the film slows down to focus on these three characters and the humanity they’re at risk of losing.
“Superman” (2025)
A surprise release, HBO Max added James Gunn’s “Superman” to its service on Sept. 19 — possibly to get it on the service before the heavily secretive final episodes of “Peacemaker” Season 2. It took more than a decade for the Last Son of Krypton to get another solo feature after Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel” flew into theaters in 2013.
This new vision of the Man of Tomorrow was worth the wait.
In “Superman,” Gunn and his crew — led by a stellar ensemble of David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan and Nicholas Hoult — perfectly locate what makes Clark Kent such an enduring comic book hero. Corenswet captures both the purity and the inherent isolation of his trunks-wearing protagonist, portraying Kal-El as a man who unwaveringly believes in truth, justice and a better tomorrow, even as fear and insecurity knock on his own door. Corenswet and Brosnahan show audiences exactly why the hard-edged Lois and the open-hearted Clark are perfect for each other, delivering some of the swooniest moments in superhero movies to date. Hoult, meanwhile, plays Lex Luthor as sniveling and menacing in equal measures, a perfect depiction of the villain who thinks himself the true “super man.” It will be a thrill to see these actors return to these characters and this world in “Man of Tomorrow” — and the wider DCU to come.
