Top 10 Movies To Watch This Week on HBO Max | June 8-14, 2025

So you’re stuck in scrolling purgatory again, huh? Endlessly thumbing through HBO Max, hoping something jumps out. We’ve been there. That’s why we pulled together the Top 10 Movies you would actually want to watch this week—no fluff, no filler. Whether you’re into thrillers, rom-coms, or indie gems, there’s something worth hitting play on. Here’s your movie cheat sheet for June 8-12, 2025—because your time is too valuable for another “meh” movie night.

Caddo Lake (2024)

Caddo Lake starts as a missing child story—but what it really wants to do is haunt you. Set in a murky stretch of East Texas, it follows the aftermath of a young girl’s disappearance and the unsettling connection it seems to have with past tragedies in the same area. It’s not a twisty thriller exactly—it’s quieter, dreamier, more about the mood than the mystery.

Eliza Scanlen carries most of it, and she’s fantastic—wide-eyed and raw, like she’s unraveling something just beneath the surface. Dylan O’Brien and Lauren Ambrose show up with that uneasy, coiled tension you get when a family’s grief turns inward. And with M. Night Shyamalan producing, there’s definitely a hint of the uncanny floating just under the waterline.

If you like your thrillers more A24 weird than Netflix true-crime, this one’s worth sinking into. It doesn’t shout. It just sits with you, unsettling and still, long after the credits roll.

Showing Up (2022)

Showing Up is one of those “nothing happens, everything happens” kind of films. Michelle Williams plays Lizzy, a sculptor living in Portland, trying to finish work for a show while juggling all the tiny inconveniences and absurdities of her life. There’s a bird that crashes through her window, an icy roommate dynamic, and a parade of art-world frustrations—but the magic is in the small stuff.

Director Kelly Reichardt doesn’t force anything. She lets the tension simmer in quiet conversations, awkward silences, and long takes of people just… existing. Williams is perfect here—frazzled, focused, quietly funny—and Hong Chau, as her maddeningly chill landlord/frenemy, is a scene-stealer every time she shows up.

If you vibed with Frances Ha or Paterson, this is in that lane. It’s about making art, sure, but more than that, it’s about the weird rhythms of being a person. Sometimes messy, often boring, always human.

The Commandant’s Shadow (2024)

This one doesn’t pull any punches. The Commandant’s Shadow tells the story of Hans Jürgen Höss—the son of the Auschwitz commandant—who meets Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a survivor of the very camp his father ran. It’s real, raw, and deeply uncomfortable in all the ways it should be.

What makes it so powerful is the restraint. No dramatic music cues, no moralizing narration—just two people carrying very different kinds of pain, trying to sit across from each other and speak the truth. Hans looks his father’s crimes in the eye for the first time. Anita, somehow, chooses grace without forgetting a thing.

If documentaries like The Act of Killing or Final Account shook you, this one belongs in the same conversation. It doesn’t ask you to forgive. It just asks you to witness. And sometimes, that’s more than enough.

The Great Lillian Hall (2024)

Jessica Lange steps back into the spotlight—and right into your heart. The Great Lillian Hall is about a legendary Broadway actress preparing for yet another performance while quietly facing the early stages of dementia. It’s not a sob story. It’s a love letter—to theater, to aging, and to the fierce pride of women who refuse to go quietly.

Lange is absolutely magnetic here. She plays Lillian with fire and fragility—one moment reciting Shakespeare from memory, the next forgetting where she is. The supporting cast is great (Kathy Bates and Lily Rabe are especially sharp), but the film belongs to Lange. You can feel the weight of her history in every glance, every line she nails or forgets.

If The Father or All That Jazz ever wrecked you, this will too—but maybe a little more softly. It’s about losing control, yes, but also about legacy. And choosing to go down swinging.

The Souvenir (2019)

The Souvenir is a film that doesn’t tell you what to feel—it just shows you the ache and lets you sit with it. Honor Swinton Byrne plays Julie, a young film student caught in a relationship with an older man who’s equal parts charming and toxic. It’s slow, almost diary-like, full of moments that feel too small to matter until they suddenly do.

Joanna Hogg directs with this quiet, observational style—no big speeches, no soaring music. Just tension, and doubt, and the slow unraveling of someone realizing they’ve given too much of themselves away. Tom Burke is brilliant as Anthony—evasive, damaged, magnetic in a way that makes you understand exactly why Julie can’t look away.

If Aftersun or Call Me By Your Name left you with that heavy, chest-tight feeling, The Souvenir will live in that same place. It’s delicate, devastating, and deeply personal.

We Live in Time (2024)

We Live in Time isn’t a big, flashy love story—it’s the kind that creeps in quietly. The kind that feels like real life. Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield play two people falling for each other in fits and starts—over burnt toast, awkward silences, missed trains. The story jumps around in time, just like memory does, and you piece their relationship together moment by moment, the same way they probably lived it. It’s tender, messy, and weirdly familiar—even if you’ve never lived anything quite like it.

There’s a warmth between them that makes the whole thing work. They’re funny, sharp, and real in that way where you totally buy into the intimacy, even when nothing “big” is happening. And when the big moments do hit? They land hard. The film doesn’t lean on tragedy, but it doesn’t shy away from it either. It’s about what we carry forward—how time reshapes the love we think we understand.

If you’re into Eternal Sunshine or Normal People, this will hit that same nerve. It’s tender and haunting and leaves you thinking about your own timelines—what happened, what didn’t, and what it all meant.

Women Is Losers (2021)

This one’s scrappy in the best way. Women Is Losers follows Celina, a young Latina woman in 1960s San Francisco, trying to build a life on her own terms in a world that keeps telling her “no.” The film doesn’t gloss over anything—sexism, racism, poverty—it just charges right through with grit and a little bit of swagger.

Lorenza Izzo is fantastic—funny, fierce, and completely grounded. The movie plays around with tone too, breaking the fourth wall here and there, adding a little punk-rock energy to what could’ve been a standard period drama. It’s got heart, but it’s also got fight. Celina doesn’t just want to survive—she wants to win, even if the system’s stacked against her.

If Erin Brockovich and Persepolis had a daughter, it might look like this. It’s smart, it’s personal, and it reminds you that even “small” victories can be revolutionary.

Master of Light (2022)

This is one of those documentaries that hits like a quiet revelation. Master of Light follows George Anthony Morton, a classical painter who spent ten years in federal prison, now returning to his hometown to rebuild relationships and rediscover his craft. It’s not flashy—it’s intimate, almost meditative—but it’s absolutely beautiful.

The camera lingers on brush strokes, on silence, on long looks between family members trying to unlearn years of damage. George paints like a master, but it’s the emotional work that feels hardest—reconnecting with a mother who still holds her own pain, figuring out how to be present for a younger generation watching him closely.

If you loved Time or Minding the Gap, this is in that emotional wheelhouse. It’s not just about redemption—it’s about art, legacy, and the complicated beauty of starting over.

My Dead Dad (2021)

My Dead Dad sounds like a dark comedy, but it’s more of a quietly emotional coming-of-age story—with a side of weed smoke and inherited apartment keys. Pedro Correa plays Lucas, a drifting skater kid who learns he’s inherited a rundown LA apartment complex from the estranged father he barely knew. What follows isn’t some big tearful reconciliation—it’s smaller, weirder, more human.

As Lucas gets to know the building’s tenants, he starts piecing together the man his father was—and who he might be without all the baggage. There’s a gentleness to it, even in the mess. And Raymond Cruz, playing the building manager with a past of his own, adds this grounded, paternal energy that anchors the whole thing.

If The Kings of Summer or Garden State hit a nerve for you, My Dead Dad might surprise you. It’s messy, sweet, and low-key moving in a way that sneaks up on you.

The Whale (2022)

You’ve probably heard about Brendan Fraser’s comeback—and yeah, The Whale is the one that did it. He plays Charlie, a reclusive English teacher living with severe obesity, trying to reconnect with his teenage daughter in what might be the final chapter of his life. It’s heavy—emotionally, thematically, all of it. But Fraser brings so much tenderness to the role that you can’t look away.

Director Darren Aronofsky frames the entire story in one small apartment, turning it into this claustrophobic pressure cooker of guilt, regret, and broken relationships. But it’s never hopeless. Sad, yes—but shot through with grace. Sadie Sink (as the daughter) brings fire, and Hong Chau gives a performance that’s quiet and devastating in all the right ways.

If Manchester by the Sea or Room gutted you, this one will too. But it’s also about forgiveness, about finding a sliver of beauty in the wreckage. Brendan Fraser earns every tear you’ll cry.

And That’s a Wrap

This batch wasn’t here to entertain you—it was here to make you feel something. You’ve got artists navigating small heartbreaks (Showing Up), Holocaust legacies unfolding in living rooms (The Commandant’s Shadow), and Broadway legends refusing to fade quietly into the wings (The Great Lillian Hall). Even the romances (We Live in Time, The Souvenir) don’t give you the easy stuff. They give you the real stuff.

There’s survival through painting (Master of Light), through protest (Women Is Losers), through a rundown apartment building left behind by a ghost of a father (My Dead Dad). And then there’s The Whale, which just rips your heart out and quietly hands it back, still beating.

These aren’t just stories. They’re reckonings. Quiet ones, loud ones, unfinished ones. So yeah—watch whatever hits. But maybe sit with it for a minute afterward. Some of these aren’t made to be binged. They’re made to be felt.