HBO’s rebranded streaming platform Max might be better known for its sleek, shocking original dramas: The White Lotus, Game of Thrones, Euphoria, and the flop of the year The Idol. But, if you prefer your stories in cinematic format, Max has a full contingent of movies to keep you satisfied. Here are three of our favorite August picks.
20th Century Women
So it hasn’t been the 20th century for some time now, but this heartfelt, introspective comedy-drama, partially based on writer and director Mike Mills’s own memoirs, doesn’t feel dated in the slightest.
In 1979, single mother and 15-year-old son Dorothea (Annette Bening) and Jamie Fields (Lucas Jade Zumann) live in Santa Barbara, California, along with their two tenants Abbie (Greta Gerwig), a young photographer who’s fighting against cervical cancer, and her partner William (Billy Crudup.) Rounding out the main cast is Jamie’s best friend/surrogate sister Julie (Elle Fanning), a young and curious woman trying to figure out her place in an ever-changing world.
Perhaps the best praise for 20th Century Women we can say is that it doesn’t feel like it was written by a man. Mike Mills brings to this story a sensitivity and earnestness to women’s stories that’s lacking in many male-penned stories about women, and for that alone it’s worth a spot on this list.
Parasite
The first ever non-English film to win an Oscar, Parasite, even four years later, still stands as an instant classic.
In modern-day Seoul, the poor Kim family, father Kim Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho), mother Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin), and their grown children, son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-sik) and daughter Ki-jung (Park So-dam), live in a squalid basement apartment and struggle to make their ends meet. Until, that is, they get the bright idea to lie on their resumes.
Yes, all four of them.
The Kim family swiftly finds employment with the wealthy Park family. Ki-woo tutors the family’s teenage daughter Da-hye (Jung Ji-so), with whom he begins a romantic relationship with, and Ki-jung works as an art therapist for the Park family’s epileptic son Da-song (Jung Hyeon-jun.) Ki-taek frames the Park family’s original chauffeur for illicit sexual activities, then swiftly moves to take his place, while Chung-sook gets the Park family’s housekeeper (Lee Jung-eun) fired – and takes her place as well. At last, their family finances are secure.
If only there wasn’t someone lurking just out of sight that could expose them all…
First Reformed
In a small town in upstate New York, the historic First Reformed Church is struggling to retain its membership – all the while its pastor, Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke), struggles with his faith. Having lost his son in Iraq, he’s turned to alcohol to fill the void, a slide into darkness that’s only exacerbated by his dwindling membership and the giant megachurch that threatens to swallow up his historical parish.
One day, one of his parishioners, Mary Mensana (Amanda Seyfried), approaches him looking for counseling. Mary is pregnant, and her husband Michael (Philip Ettinger), fearful of the ever-present threat of climate change, desperately wants her to get an abortion. Together, Ernst and Mary must find some hope in a world that seems to have gone mad around them.
First Reformed isn’t a happy movie, not by any means. But it’s an important one, full of dark and meditative looks at the nature of life in a world where everything – relationships, religion, and even the planet itself – seems to be crumbling around you.
Each of these movies is streaming now on Max.