Best Drama Movies to Watch on Max (HBO Max)

How do you make a film about the Holocaust feel new? How do you make the terrors feel fresh, like it was just in the news, without sounding redundant or without giving into the sensationalized and emotionally manipulative? For Director Jonathan Glazer, the answer lies in not what you show but what you don’t show. […]

“Inner beauty is what counts” is a cliche many films have tried and failed to tackle, but A Different Man manages to make it feel unsettlingly new. The film follows Edward, a disfigured man who lives a normal but lonely life. No one is overtly mean to Edward—in fact, many are nice—but he’s consumed by […]

For better or for worse, every romantic relationship anyone will ever have will end. This isn’t a bitter statement single or heartbroken people declare, it’s just that we have to keep in mind that time with our loved ones is limited. Romcom drama We Live in Time is titled as such for a reason– mentioning […]

Just a few minutes in, you can already feel the immensity of The Brutalist. The rousing score stirs you. The weight of The Holocaust and Toth’s immigration story, which is also one of xenophobia and addiction, pulls you in. The visuals, shot in VistaVision, demand your attention. The period setting calls for nostalgia, but the […]

In Aftersun, Sophie recalls a holiday she took as an eleven-year-old in the ‘90s with her father. Video recordings help jog her memory, but she’s looking for more than just a blast from the past. Rather, she seems to be seeking answers to fill in the gaps between who she knew as her father and […]

The story of the Von Erich family is excruciatingly sad, but Iron Claw doesn’t dive right into the tragedy. Instead, it takes care to paint a picture of a close-knit family that’s filled with just as much warmth, jealousy, affection, and resentment as the next bunch. Durkin masterfully draws you into their circle so that […]

At the peak of his fame in the 80s, Christopher Reeve was constantly seen as his onscreen character, Superman. Like him, Reeve could fly (planes). He was full of charm and stood for what was right. But in this revealing documentary, we learn the whole truth about Reeve; his troubled childhood, his initial struggles with […]

At one point in the documentary, director Kristen Lovell says, “I wanted to archive the movement that was building between transwomen and sex workers,” and that’s exactly what she achieves with The Stroll, a well-researched, creatively edited, and deeply moving account of the trans-sex-work experience that defined New York for a good chunk of the […]

Produced by M. Night Shyamalan, Caddo Lake isn’t the most shocking thriller out there. It starts slow, suffers from low-budget CGI, and tends to be schmaltzy at times. But it is, overall, a strong and suspenseful film. Once it kicks into gear and finds its rhythm, it turns into something wholly arresting. The plot twists […]

Many films have been made about that uniquely taut mother-daughter bond, but maybe none is as delicate as Janet Planet. The film, written and directed by playwright and first-time filmmaker Annie Baker, explores that relationship in a way that may jar viewers, initially. The pauses are heavy and long as Baker lingers on mood, expressions, […]

In All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, documentarist Laura Poitras (Citizenfour, My Country, My Country) lends her empathetic and incisive lens to a subject so passionate and imaginative, she ends up collaborating with Poitras to co-create the documentary about her life. The subject is Nan Goldin, one of the most influential photographers of the late […]

The Boy and the Heron isn’t Hayao Miyazaki’s best film, nor is it his most accessible, seeing as the director himself has admitted to getting lost in the world he’s built here. But it is his most personal film to date (apparently he’s out of retirement!) and consequently, it’s one of the most complex Ghibli […]