50 Best Must-watch Movies on HBO Max

From its title and premise, the hope for this kind of documentary would be for it to show some respect for the people who died from the Floridian opioid epidemic. At the very least, the film should dissuade people from the crimes documented here, by emphasizing the consequences of these actions. American Pain does not do this. It’s interesting to view how quickly the business gets out of hand for these unethical entrepreneurs – director Darren Foster reveals each development with enough style and flourish to be entertaining – but the film is clearly more fascinated with how the twins got away with drug dealing for so long. It’s a fun watch… if you forget people died from the events of this film.

It makes sense that a documentary about Faye Dunaway doubles as a documentary about the best of late 20th-century cinema. Dunaway, after all, has starred in many defining films, including Bonnie & Clyde, Chinatown, and Network, the latter of which won her an Oscar. But there are times when it feels like the documentary equates Dunaway to her career, and we get way too many clips of these admittedly great films, as opposed to more intimate slices of Dunaway’s life. Still, it’s heartwarming to see Dunaway take control of her narrative after falling victim to the press’ relentless defamation of the star. Yes, she’s difficult and a diva, she admits that many times in the documentary. But she’s also a fastidious hard worker—someone’s gotta be, or else they wouldn’t come up with the classics that we have now.

If you’ve seen the bone-chilling Oscar-winning film The Zone of Interest, then The Commandant’s Shadow isn’t just supplementary but necessary viewing. It interviews and interrogates the son of SS officer Rudolf Höss, who describes his childhood in Auschwitz as “idyllic,” and parallels his life with that of an Auschwitz survivor and her family. They’re not asked “gotcha” questions, though there are some moments where Höss’s family members’ insularity shocks you. Instead, everyone is given the time and space to reflect honestly about the pain and trauma that continues to live on in their families. It’s a difficult film to sit through, but insightful and ever-so-resonant in an age where mass torture and genocide continue in many parts of the world.

You would think that a film made with Demi Moore, Sissy Spacek and Cher would be a major theatrical release, but even in 1996, the topic of abortion rights was still quite controversial. If These Walls Could Talk may be relegated to the small screen because of this, or because of being an anthology of shorts, but with each lead starring each segment, the film outlines real experiences with abortion, from the dangerous ways women had to resort to without it, to the way, that even with the Court’s support, these rights were actively suppressed. Of course, it’s a harrowing, unsubtle watch, and it would have been great to have a segment depicting the safety of modern day procedures, but if you have a friend that’s unconvinced of the procedure’s necessity, or if they’re entirely new to the conversation, If These Walls Could Talk is a place to start.

In the Gloaming has the expected constraints of a made-for-TV movie. It is set in only a handful of places, features even fewer characters, and utilizes that all-too-familiar cheesy soundtrack present in (I swear) every family drama produced in the ‘90s. That said, In the Gloaming feels more like a precious indie than a cheap TV movie. Mostly, it has the leading performances of Glenn Close and Robert Sean Leonard to thank for that. The two don’t have the big performances you’d expect from a film about AIDS, but their simple and subtle approach works even better than that. First-time director Christopher Reeve (yes, Superman) does well to stay on Close’s face for a few beats longer to show how much pain and doubt she’s hiding beneath her facade of calm. I only wish the film could’ve tied its many loose ends and that we got to know more about Leondard’s character—really know him, beyond his being gay. This would’ve made the film stronger, though it is already a moving watch.

Ethan Hawke, Uma Therman and Jude Law star in this film, set in the not-so-distant future, where humans are genetically engineered to be as close to perfect as possible. Any child who is conceived in the traditional fashion is labeled inferior and is discriminated against by the rest of society. The movie follows the life of Hawke’s character who, although looked down upon and considered genetically inadequate, attempts to break free from the tethers his peers have placed on him to pursue his lifelong dream of traveling to outer-space.

A beautiful coming-of-age story that is mixed with one of the best depictions of a mother character in movie history both make Lady Bird an absolutely exquisite film. Its slice-of-life story taps into the universal issues, dreams, and frustrations that almost every small-town kid has faced; and it manages to do all of this without feeling forced or cliché. This is because of the attention and care that were given to it but also because of how tightly it’s based on the life of its writer / director Greta Gerwig. A wonderful movie.

If you’ve ever been puzzled by “Greek life”, this documentary will go some way to demystifying that somewhat baffling phenomenon of American college culture. Bama Rush follows four hopefuls as they “rush” the University of Alabama’s sororities, a TikTok-viral weeklong recruitment process so cutthroat some candidates spend months preparing for it. The documentary digs deep into why these young women put so much time, energy, and money into joining what the film hints is a largely unforgiving and reductive element of campus life. What it finds is pretty affecting: they’re really just looking for acceptance and belonging.

Threaded throughout are director Rachel Fleit’s reflections on her own history with those motivations, having grown up with alopecia. Though it does illustrate that rushing isn’t so dissimilar from other quests for acceptance, this parallel is sometimes clunkily drawn — and can seem somewhat self-indulgent in places, given the documentary’s comparatively surface-level exploration of more systemic issues. A late development shifts Bama Rush into an even deeper self-reflexive mode, as the film itself becomes a contentious issue in the process it’s documenting. Despite its flaws, turns like this — and its participants’ extraordinary candor — help make Bama Rush an often illuminating look into an opaque world. 

In the saturated sphere of sci-fi and superhero movies, Gray Matter just doesn’t cut it. The film, which was produced as part of the filmmaking workshop/reality show Project Greenlight, doesn’t add anything new, much less its own spin, to a story we’ve heard countless times: that of a young kid learning to harness her supernatural powers for the first time. If you’ve seen Carrie, Firestarter, or more recently Stranger Things, then you’ll be able to predict how most of Gray Matter turns out. It is watchable, sure, enjoyable even in the first few minutes where it promises a world chockful of lore, but it never fulfills that promise. To be fair, the performances are solid and the technicals maximize what limited resources the movie has (it looks more decent than you’d expect a small-budgeted sci-fi production to be), but the pros don’t outweigh the cons in this case. It’s simply too empty and generic to be elevated by anything else. 

Nobody should doubt Tatiana Suarez’s place in the world of mixed martial arts, and it goes without saying how inspirational she can be to young girls who feel they don’t fit a traditionally feminine mold. But a documentary really should do more than just reiterate facts, farm motivational soundbites, and refuse to ask follow-up questions to the most interesting ideas revealed. By the end of The Unbreakable Tatiana Suarez, it feels as if the film has repeated the same few talking points over and over, which doesn’t actually make Suarez herself look better, but makes her look more like a product to be endorsed. Any potential discussion that can be had about the dangerous nature of wrestling and MMA—or on how this kind of controlled, organized violence interacts with real domestic violence experienced by Suarez—is quietly dismissed.