The holidays are soon upon us, which means extra time for streaming. Right now, HBO Max has a slew of worthy contenders for your watchlist, including an underappreciated Marvel adventure, a hilarious Christmas classic and a delightfully bizarre 2026 release.
Here are the three best movies streaming on HBO Max this week.
“The End of Oak Street”
In “The End of Oak Street,” David Robert Mitchell plays a trick on unsuspecting audiences. The “Under the Silver Lake” and “It Follows” filmmaker’s latest starts off as a fairly unassuming ’80s pastiche, with an over-the-top score and campy dialogue evoking a copy of a copy of a Spielberg classic.
But as the film goes on (and dinosaurs enter the picture), Mitchell starts pulling back the layers on this slice of suburbia, revealing something far starker and meaner than the opening would suggest. The prehistoric action is gonzo and great, but the dynamic between Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway can be just as compelling. Later, Mitchell really pulls the rug out from the audience with one of the more delightfully baffling endings seen in a big-budget film this decade. It’s a hoot!
“National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”
It’s never too early to get your holiday watchlist rolling. “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” is a perfect addition to the lineup, an end-of-year staple that is endlessly rewatchable. Chevy Chase is at the top of his game in this Christmas classic from Jeremiah Chechik and John Hughes. “Christmas Vacation” is a perfect, easy watch to throw on once or twice at this time of year.
“The Wolverine”
Now that a WGA credit has let us know that Hugh Jackman is seemingly involved in “Avengers: Doomsday” (which makes our Comic-Con interview with James Marsden make a bit more sense), you can go back and revisit one of his best turns as Logan in “The Wolverine.” James Mangold’s first “X-Men” feature gets overshadowed by his superior follow-up, “Logan,” but his first swing in the Marvel universe has a lot to love.
This Japan-set adventure, adapting Chris Claremont and Frank Miller’s iconic Wolverine comic, is unlike any “X-Men” feature before or since, a grounded one-off adventure that dives deeper into Logan than anyone had before on the big screen. It’s not perfect, but it’s worthy of another look.
