{"id":61579,"date":"2025-08-06T02:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T02:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/61579\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T02:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T02:27:10","slug":"the-7-best-new-movies-streaming-on-hbo-max-in-august","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/61579\/","title":{"rendered":"The 7 Best New Movies Streaming on HBO Max in August"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another month means another slate of HBO Max releases. The streamer will bring a few notable films onto its service this August, including A24\u2019s \u201cThe Legend of Ochi\u201d and the horror sensation \u201cFinal Destination: Bloodlines.\u201d It also boasts a minor selection of archive entries, bringing new horror, romance, comedy and drama onto the service.<\/p>\n

\"Katherine20th Century<\/p>\n

\u201cAlien: Covenant\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlien: Covenant\u201d isn\u2019t the best of the \u201cAlien\u201d franchise. It\u2019s barely in the top five. Still, Ridley Scott\u2019s third feature in his outer space horror franchise expands upon the interesting themes and ideas established in his earlier entries.<\/p>\n

Scott and company bring Michael Fassbender back into the fold, allowing one of the franchise\u2019s best actors to give a dual performance as synthetics David and Walter. Through these characters (particularly David), \u201cCovenant\u201d continues to explore the concepts of creation and destruction established in \u201cPrometheus.\u201d Decades later, Scott elevates his groundbreaking horror film into a religious story of pure fear. \u201cCovenant\u201d makes a litany of missteps along the road, and its ideas are more potent than its execution, but it remains (alongside \u201cPrometheus\u201d) one of the most fascinating franchise blockbusters of the 21st century.<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\""Sinners"\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Final\u201cFinal Destination: Bloodlines\u201d (New Line Cinema)<\/p>\n

\u201cFinal Destination: Bloodlines\u201d<\/p>\n

The best \u201cFinal Destination\u201d 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\u2019s design. With the series\u2019 biggest budget yet, \u201cFinal Destination: Bloodlines\u201d became a box office sensation, earning nearly $300 million with a domestic opening of more than $50 million.<\/p>\n

In this resurgence, \u201cBloodlines\u201d fully embraces the gross, mean-spirited kills that make \u201cFinal Destination\u201d 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\u2019t 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\u2019s tribute to Tony Todd \u2014\u00a0a scene the late actor helped write himself \u2014\u00a0 is a genuinely touching and earnest moment that slots perfectly into the otherwise absurd horror movie.<\/p>\n

\"gremlins-2\"Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

\u201cGremlins 2: The New Batch\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fitting that \u201cGremlins 2: The New Batch\u201d opens with a brief Looney Tunes skit starring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Director Joe Dante goes wild with creative control in his \u201cGremlins\u201d follow-up, delivering a zany, meta film that at times feels like a Looney Tunes cartoon come to life. \u201cGremlins 2: The New Batch\u201d never blew up in the same way as the original movie, but it did gain a strong cult following over time.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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 \u201cGremlins\u201d 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 \u201creal world.\u201d Gizmo becomes Rambo. The movie is entirely absurd, and a fascinating follow-up to what seems like a quaint precursor in comparison.<\/p>\n

\"\"Searchlight Pictures<\/p>\n

\u201cMartha Marcy May Marlene\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMartha Marcy May Marlene\u201d is a lot of firsts. Sean Durkin, who later went on to write and direct \u201cThe Iron Claw,\u201d helmed this 2011 Sundance indie as his feature film debut. Elizabeth Olsen stars as the titular Martha\/Marcy May\/\u201dMarlene\u201d in her first big-screen film role. Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, who earlier this year co-starred in \u201cWolf Man,\u201d likewise make their feature debut.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cMarcy May,\u201d and instructed all women to answer the compound\u2019s phone with the codename \u201cMarlene.\u201d Martha reconnects with her sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson), and Lucy\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"the-pitt-the-white-lotus-casey-bloys\"\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\"my-favorite-wife\"MGM<\/p>\n

\u201cMy Favorite Wife\u201d<\/p>\n

In this 1940 screwball comedy, Cary Grant plays Nick Arden, a man who\u2019s 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!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like Nick particularly wants to stay married to Bianca; with intense chemistry between Grant and Dunne from moment one, it\u2019s clear that these two form a perfect pair. Nick simply doesn\u2019t 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 \u2014\u00a0a couple that bits together stays together.<\/p>\n

\"ViolaSony<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Woman King\u201d<\/p>\n

Gina Prince-Bythewood\u2019s \u201cThe Woman King\u201d 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 \u201cMovies are back\u201d feeling that began to crop up across late 2021 and 2022 at the theaters. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Woman King,\u201d unfortunately, received zero nominations at the Oscars, overlooked in favor of bigger blockbuster sensations like \u201cTop Gun: Maverick,\u201d \u201cAvatar: The Way of Water,\u201d and \u201cBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever.\u201d Still, it\u2019s a stunning historical action piece in a genre that feels as if it\u2019s increasingly going by the wayside.<\/p>\n

\"you-hurt-my-feelings-julia-louis-dreyfus\"Julia Louis-Dreyfus in \u201cYou Hurt My Feelings\u201d (A24)<\/p>\n

\u201cYou Hurt My Feelings\u201d<\/p>\n

Is honesty truly the best policy? Nicole Holofcenter examines this question at the center of her slice-of-life dramedy \u201cYou Hurt My Feelings,\u201d 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 \u2014\u00a0and those around her \u2014\u00a0confront the social niceties that keep us supportive rather than truthful. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou Hurt My Feelings\u201d will not be for everyone, but in some ways, that makes it an ideal HBO Max entry. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another month means another slate of HBO Max releases. The streamer will bring a few notable films onto…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[30479,88,22522,36325,1010,206],"class_list":["post-61579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-alien","tag-entertainment","tag-final-destination","tag-gremlins","tag-hbo-max","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}