Another month means another slate of HBO Max releases. The streamer will bring a few notable films onto its service this August, including A24’s “The Legend of Ochi” and the horror sensation “Final Destination: Bloodlines.” It also boasts a minor selection of archive entries, bringing new horror, romance, comedy and drama onto the service.
Here are the seven best movies that are new to HBO Max in August
“Alien: Covenant”
“Alien: Covenant” isn’t the best of the “Alien” franchise. It’s barely in the top five. Still, Ridley Scott’s third feature in his outer space horror franchise expands upon the interesting themes and ideas established in his earlier entries.
Scott and company bring Michael Fassbender back into the fold, allowing one of the franchise’s best actors to give a dual performance as synthetics David and Walter. Through these characters (particularly David), “Covenant” continues to explore the concepts of creation and destruction established in “Prometheus.” Decades later, Scott elevates his groundbreaking horror film into a religious story of pure fear. “Covenant” makes a litany of missteps along the road, and its ideas are more potent than its execution, but it remains (alongside “Prometheus”) one of the most fascinating franchise blockbusters of the 21st century.
The 33 Best Movies on HBO Max Right Now
“Final Destination: Bloodlines”
The best “Final Destination” movie arrives on HBO Max this August. After more than a decade away, the gore-filled franchise returned for a sixth installment of outlandish kills coming as recompense for a flaw in death’s design. With the series’ biggest budget yet, “Final Destination: Bloodlines” became a box office sensation, earning nearly $300 million with a domestic opening of more than $50 million.
In this resurgence, “Bloodlines” fully embraces the gross, mean-spirited kills that make “Final Destination” so fun. The film boasts several of the finest sequences in the series, with the most appealing visuals in the franchise so far. This isn’t a cast of Oscar winners, but the actors all know exactly how to lean into the ridiculousness of the series without coming across as overly winking. The film’s tribute to Tony Todd — a scene the late actor helped write himself — is a genuinely touching and earnest moment that slots perfectly into the otherwise absurd horror movie.
“Gremlins 2: The New Batch”
It’s fitting that “Gremlins 2: The New Batch” opens with a brief Looney Tunes skit starring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Director Joe Dante goes wild with creative control in his “Gremlins” follow-up, delivering a zany, meta film that at times feels like a Looney Tunes cartoon come to life. “Gremlins 2: The New Batch” never blew up in the same way as the original movie, but it did gain a strong cult following over time.
It’s not hard to see why. Christopher Lee plays a man named Dr. Cushing Catheter who inadvertently helps create a smart, talking Gremlin and a girl Gremlin with a green wig and a dress. Leonard Maltin films a segment panning a VHS of the original “Gremlins” as he gets attacked by a horde of the little monsters. Hulk Hogan scolds a group of the creatures into restarting the movie after they attack a projection booth in the “real world.” Gizmo becomes Rambo. The movie is entirely absurd, and a fascinating follow-up to what seems like a quaint precursor in comparison.
“Martha Marcy May Marlene”
“Martha Marcy May Marlene” is a lot of firsts. Sean Durkin, who later went on to write and direct “The Iron Claw,” helmed this 2011 Sundance indie as his feature film debut. Elizabeth Olsen stars as the titular Martha/Marcy May/”Marlene” in her first big-screen film role. Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, who earlier this year co-starred in “Wolf Man,” likewise make their feature debut.
The film sees Olsen, named Martha at birth, escape from an abusive cult after two years. The cult leader (played by John Hawkes) renamed her “Marcy May,” and instructed all women to answer the compound’s phone with the codename “Marlene.” Martha reconnects with her sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson), and Lucy’s husband, Ted (Hugh Dancy), taking up residence in their home. She struggles to adjust back to her old life, however, still carrying the trauma she incurred through years of reconditioning. As the title alludes to, it’s hard for her to reclaim an identity of her own. Olsen instantly arrives as a force to watch, while Durkin displays a strong, patient and deliberate hand behind the camera in their mutual feature debut.
“My Favorite Wife”
In this 1940 screwball comedy, Cary Grant plays Nick Arden, a man who’s finally moved on seven years after his wife, Ellen (Irene Dunne), apparently died in a shipwreck. The film starts when Nick attends a courthouse to both declare Ellen dead and marry his new wife, Bianca (Gail Patrick). Unfortunately for Nick, this also happens to be the day that Ellen comes back from the dead, having survived for seven years on a desert island. Just his luck!
It’s not like Nick particularly wants to stay married to Bianca; with intense chemistry between Grant and Dunne from moment one, it’s clear that these two form a perfect pair. Nick simply doesn’t want to hurt the feelings of his new bride (or, perhaps more accurately, has to actually face the situation rather than hoping he can just ice Bianca out until she leaves on her own). Matters are further complicated once Nick discovers that another man (played by Randolph Scott) survived on the island alongside Ellen, and is really in no rush to leave her. Grant and Dunne are electric throughout the film, both as lovers and comic foils. The ending beat is simple, silly and utterly romantic — a couple that bits together stays together.
“The Woman King”
Gina Prince-Bythewood’s “The Woman King” gives audiences the kind of mid-budget storytelling that at times feels lost. Its scope and quality rival many modern blockbusters, made all the more impressive by its $50 million price tag. Thrilling action sequences, intricate craft and a strong lead performance from Viola Davis contributed to a “Movies are back” feeling that began to crop up across late 2021 and 2022 at the theaters.
“The Woman King,” unfortunately, received zero nominations at the Oscars, overlooked in favor of bigger blockbuster sensations like “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Avatar: The Way of Water,” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” Still, it’s a stunning historical action piece in a genre that feels as if it’s increasingly going by the wayside.
“You Hurt My Feelings”
Is honesty truly the best policy? Nicole Holofcenter examines this question at the center of her slice-of-life dramedy “You Hurt My Feelings,” in which Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays an author who discovers her husband (played by Tobias Menzies) lied about liking her first fiction novel. This throws her into a spiral, one in which she — and those around her — confront the social niceties that keep us supportive rather than truthful.
“You Hurt My Feelings” will not be for everyone, but in some ways, that makes it an ideal HBO Max entry. It’s an easy watch, one that asks big questions without deep interrogation. Louis-Dreyfus and Menzies both deliver good performances (with great chemistry) in a gentle conversation starter of a film.
