Look, it’s pretty undeniable at this point that HBO Max has some branding issues. Why they got rid of the HBO branding to begin with is beyond me, but regardless of whether you know what the streaming service is called, you should know that there are plenty of great movies on the service.
Those movies span every genre, but HBO Max is particularly deep when it comes to crime movies. We’ve pulled together three great crime dramas you should watch this month, all with very different styles and virtuosic directors.
Need more recommendations? Then check out the best new movies to stream this week, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on HBO Max, and the best movies on Disney+.
Get Shorty (1995)
It’s fair to say that Get Shorty toes the line between comedy and drama. Regardless, it’s one of the best movies of the 1990s. The film follows John Travolta as a mob enforcer who finds himself shaking down a Hollywood producer who is in debt to the mafia.
When he arrives in town, though, he quickly realizes that life as a producer is not that different from life as a mobster. Featuring brilliant performances from Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, and Danny DeVito, Get Shorty is a crime dramedy about all the ways that Hollywood is, and has always been, a bit of a racket.
You can watch Get Shorty on HBO Max.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)
Perhaps the darkest movie in David Lynch’s filmography, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is a prequel that examines the final days of Laura Palmer’s life. Although the movie provides interesting details about Laura’s knowledge of her impending doom, the actual effect of this movie is a tribute to Laura Palmer, who doesn’t get to live for a single second of the original series.
Sheryl Lee, who plays Laura, is a force of nature, delivering a heartbreaking performance as a young woman trying to escape from the evil that consumes her whole being.
You can watch Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me on HBO Max.
Kimi (2022)
A pandemic movie that seems to understand how to take full advantage of that, Kimi tells the story of Angela (Zoë Kravitz), an agoraphobic woman who reviews audio files from an Alexa-like smart home device. When she starts to suspect something terrible happened on one of those recordings, she dares to leave the safety of her home in search of answers.
Featuring a brilliant performance from Zoë Kravitz and some excellent, claustrophobic direction from Steven Soderbergh, Kimi is hugely satisfying without being overly ambitious.
You can watch Kimi on HBO Max.
