As we head into the final weekend of August and say farewell to summer, there’s still a little left of the month before all the new streaming content arrives, which is just fine because we’re still mining HBO Max‘s catalog movies for the month.
This weekend’s lineup features a pair of top-shelf 2025 picks—the first an Oscar-nominated psych thriller with a 92% Rotten Tomatoes rating, the second a dark sci-fi comedy about a guy contractually obligated to die. But my top pick this week trumps them both, regardless of what the critics said about it.
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If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Rose Byrne’s Oscar-nominated meltdown is superb
Conan O’Brien, as host of the 2026 Oscars in March, came so very close to watching his If I Had Legs I’d Kick You costar Rose Byrne win the Best Actress Oscar for her shattering performance as a therapist whose life is falling to pieces. But while it was Jessie Buckley’s Oscar year for her turn in Hamnet, Byrne snatched the Golden Globe instead.
Despite writer-director Mary Bronstein’s dark comedy’s muted wide release and weak marketing support, Byrne’s Globe win and subsequent Oscar nom delivered it the audience it deserved—it is one of Byrne’s best performances. Linda (Byrne) is having an epically bad week. Her young daughter (Delaney Quinn) has an undiagnosed illness and is on a feeding tube; her husband Charles (Christian Slater) is always away on business; and a ceiling collapse at home forces her and her daughter to live in a motel.
Alone and suffering from anxiety-induced hallucinations, Linda is imploding, but her own therapist (excellently played by Conan O’Brien) is also her supervisor, is completely lacking in empathy, and no help at all. A$AP Rocky and Danielle Macdonald round out the cast, but If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is all Byrne, and you shouldn’t miss it.
Cast
Rose Byrne, Delaney Quinn, Mary Bronstein, A$AP Rocky, Ivy Wolk, Mark Stolzenberg, Conan O’Brien, Manu Narayan, Danielle Macdonald, Helen Hong, Daniel Zolghadri, Josh Pais, Ronald Bronstein, Laurence Blum, Amy Judd Lieberman, Char Sidney, Jodi Michelle Pynn, Christian Slater
Runtime
113 minutes
Director
Mary Bronstein
Writers
Mary Bronstein
Producers
Josh Safdie, Ronald Bronstein, Ryan Zacarias, Sara Murphy, Eli Bush, Conor Hannon, Richie Doyle
Main Genre
Comedy
Release Window
October 2025
Executive Producer(s)
Rose Byrne
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Mickey 17
The worst job in the galaxy
After his incredibly dark psychological thriller Parasite swept the Oscars in 2020, South Korean writer-director Bong Joon Ho took his blank check and made a return to sci-fi turn with this wacky sci-fi comedy about a down-and-out guy who takes a job in space where he’s required to die for a living.
Quiz
21st century sci-fi movies
Trivia challenge
From dystopian deserts to multiverse mayhem — how well do you know these
modern sci-fi classics?
Ex MachinaMultiverseMad MaxDuneBlade Runner
Ex Machina
In Ex Machina, what is the name of the AI humanoid robot that Caleb is asked to
evaluate?
research facility. Her name is a subtle nod to the concept of ‘life’, derived from the Latin ‘vita’, and
she is portrayed with haunting brilliance by Alicia Vikander.
AI at the center of the film’s unsettling examination of consciousness and manipulation. Her name is
thought to be a subtle nod to the Latin word for life.
Ex Machina
In Ex Machina, what does Nathan’s company, BlueBook, primarily function as in the
real world?
engine, and Nathan harvested its vast trove of user search data to help develop Ava’s intelligence. It’s
a chilling reminder of how much personal data search engines actually hold.
enormous repository of global search data to model and shape Ava’s understanding of human thought and
language, giving the film a pointed commentary on big tech surveillance.
Multiverse
In Everything Everywhere All at Once, what is the name of the interdimensional
villain that Evelyn must ultimately confront?
universes simultaneously — a power that has driven her to the edge of existential madness. In a stunning
twist, she is revealed to be a version of Evelyn’s own daughter, Joy.
Joy, Evelyn’s daughter, whose mind was fractured by being pushed to verse-jump too many times. The
reveal reframes the entire film as a deeply personal story about a mother-daughter relationship.
Multiverse
What mundane business does Evelyn Wang run at the start of Everything Everywhere All
at Once?
the film opens with the chaos of preparing for a tax audit. The mundane setting brilliantly contrasts
with the multiverse-spanning adventure that follows.
multiverse premise in the very ordinary stress of running a small business and facing a tax audit,
making Evelyn’s journey from overwhelmed laundromat owner to multiversal hero all the more satisfying.
Mad Max
In Mad Max: Fury Road, what is the name of the tyrannical warlord who rules the
Citadel and controls its water supply?
powerful ruler of the Citadel who hoards water and guzzles mother’s milk while his subjects bake in the
wasteland below. His death at Furiosa’s hands is one of the film’s most cathartic moments.
(who also played the Toecutter in the original Mad Max), Immortan Joe controls the Citadel’s water
supply as an instrument of power, deliberately rationing it to keep the population desperate and
dependent.
Mad Max
What is the name of Imperator Furiosa’s homeland that she is desperately trying to
return to in Mad Max: Fury Road?
Furiosa is racing toward, believing it to be a lush sanctuary. The devastating reveal that it has become
a toxic swamp — and that the Vuvalini women are all that remain of her people — is one of the film’s
most powerful moments.
of Many Mothers, it was Furiosa’s childhood home and the land of the Vuvalini clan. Tragically, when the
convoy finally reaches it, they discover it has long since turned into an uninhabitable swamp.
Dune
In Denis Villeneuve’s Dune (2021), what precious resource makes the desert planet
Arrakis the most important planet in the universe?
makes interstellar travel, extended life, and enhanced cognition possible. It can only be found on
Arrakis, which is why control of the planet is the ultimate prize in the film’s political chess match.
only in the deep deserts of Arrakis, Melange grants extended life, heightened awareness, and — crucially
— enables the Guild Navigators to fold space for interstellar travel, making whoever controls it
effectively controls the universe.
Blade Runner
In Blade Runner 2049, what shocking discovery does Officer K make early in the film
that sets the entire plot in motion?
beneath a tree on a protein farm — and forensic analysis reveals she died during a cesarean section,
meaning a replicant had miraculously given birth. This discovery of biological reproduction among
replicants threatens to upend the entire social order.
childbirth. The discovery that a replicant could naturally reproduce is treated as an existential threat
by both the Wallace Corporation and the authorities, since it would fundamentally challenge the boundary
between humans and their engineered servants.
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I’ve had some terrible jobs over the years, but none as bad as the one Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) signs up for. Somewhere in the 2050s, Mickey is broke and being hunted by a loan shark, so he desperately signs up for a colonization mission to the icy planet of Niflheim, without reading the contract’s fine print. His job title is “Expendable,” which means that he gets sent into whatever dangerous situations necessary the mission requires, and when he dies, they just print another one of him, with his memories restored from the most recent backup. But on his 17th body, Mickey miraculously survives a deadly fall, and makes his way back to base to find Mickey 18 has already taken over his life—and sinister colony leader Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his wife Ylfa (Toni Collette) would like nothing more than to put an end to 17.
Adapted from Edward Ashton’s novel Mickey7, Mickey 17 is a fun and funny meditation on identity and what it means to be alive and human. It has a 77% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Cast
Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette, Anamaria Vartolomei, Daniel Henshall, Patsy Ferran, Steve Park, Tim Key, Holliday Grainger, Cameron Britton, Edward Davis, Ian Hanmore, Lloyd Hutchinson, Christian Patterson, Samuel Blenkin, Rose Shalloo, Bronwyn James, Jude Mack, Thomas Turgoose, Adam Colborne, Tom Cawte, Ellen Robertson, Sam Woodhams
Runtime
137 minutes
Director
Bong Joon Ho
Writers
Bong Joon Ho, Edward Ashton
Producers
Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Marianne Jenkins, Dooho Choi, Jesse Ehrman
Main Genre
Sci-Fi
Characters By
Edward Ashton
Cinematographer
Darius Khondji
Producer
Bong Joon Ho, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Dooho Choi
Production Company
Offscreen, Plan B Entertainment, Kate Street Picture Company
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Road House (1989)
Forget Point Break—this is Swayze’s best
The late, legendary Patrick Swayze made Road House right at the peak of his fame—hot off his breakout role as sexy dance instructor Johnny Castle in 1987’s Dirty Dancing and right before playing sexy specter Sam Wheat in 1990’s Oscar-winning Ghost. But since teen romance and erotic pottery wasn’t really of interest to 16-year-old me, the story of mysterious Zen bouncer James Dalton (Swayze), who could rip a man’s throat out with his bare hands, was far more appealing.
OK, so the critics hated it (it currently has 44% on Rotten Tomatoes) and it did respectably well at the box office, but like Dalton throwing someone through a plate glass window, Road House would shatter expectations on home video and cable TV, not to mention deliver some of the most memorable moments and quotable lines ever. The story is a classic David and Goliath tale—wealthy greedy jerk Brad Wesley (Ben Gazzara) is extorting money from the small town’s businesses for “protection.” When the owner of local dive bar the Double Deuce—where a fight breaks out every five minutes—fires Wesley’s corrupt nephew and hires Dalton to run security, that pisses off Wesley.
As Dalton settles in and falls for local doctor Elizabeth Clay (Kelly Lynch), Wesley gets ugly by cutting off the bar’s booze supply, forcing Dalton to call in his badass mentor, Wade Garrett (the excellent Sam Elliott), for help. Road House may very well border on so-bad-it’s-good territory, but that’s half the fun of this classic bar-brawl action thriller. Jake Gyllenhaal’s 2024 remake is also kind of bad, but good.
Cast
Kelly Lynch, Patrick swayze, Sam Elliott, Ben Gazzara, Marshall R. Teague, Julie Michaels, Red West, Sunshine Parker, Kevin Tighe, John Doe, Kathleen Wilhoite, Travis McKenna, Roger Hewlett, Bob Jennings, Kym Malin, Jeff Healey, Gary Hudson, Joe Unger, Sheila Ryan, Keith David, Patricia Tallman, Heidi Paine, Jacklyn Palmer, Laura Albert, Christina Veronica
Runtime
114 minutes
Director
Rowdy Herrington
Writers
Hilary Henkin, R. Lance Hill
Producers
Joel Silver
Main Genre
Action
Budget
$17 million
Studio(s)
United Artists
Distributor(s)
United Artists
Executive Producer(s)
Steve Perry, Tim Moore
Ups and downs all around this weekend
This weekend’s picks have something in common—they all feature characters at the end of their rope, ready to blow, freak out, or throw someone across a bar. This can be oddly soothing from the comfort of your couch. It’s a fun lineup, but if none of them are strumming the right chord, head to our streaming section for loads more suggestions.
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