Action movies are far from dead, and the 2020s have provided some of the most exciting new action films we’ve seen in a long time. Case in point: one of the most highly-anticipated action movie sequels was released in 2025, and it didn’t disappoint. While it wasn’t a box office breakout like the first film, it was even more of a critical darling, and the rare modern sequel to lean heavily into the classic “bigger is better” mantra, and make it work. Now it’s hit streaming, and is jumping to the top of the charts.
HBO Max is now streaming the Finnish action movie Sisu: Road to Revenge, the sequel to the 2022 breakout hit film Sisu. Road to Revenge is shooting up the streaming charts in its first week of release on HBO Max: According to Flix Patrol, it currently hold the No. 2 spot on the HBO Max movies chart, and is closely competing with Jurassic World Rebirth for the top spot. That’s an impressive streaming debut for a foreign-language film that wasn’t exactly a box office smash, earning just $9.8 million worldwide, on a budget of $12.2 million. That was a significant dropoff from the first film, which earned $14 million against a budget of approximately $7 million.
Sisu was set near the end of WWII, where a former Finnish prospector, Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila), crosses paths with a battlion of Nazis who are committing a horrific scorched-earth retreat from northern Finland. When the Nazis discover and steal Aatami’s gold, they quickly discover that the man is no ordinary miner. Aatami is, in fact, a legendary ex-commando, who embodies the Finnish word “sisu”: a white-knuckled form of courage and unimaginable determination in the face of overwhelming odds. Aatami begins of campaign of slaughter to get his gold back, “even if it means killing every last Nazi in his path.”
Sisu: Road to Revenge Plot Details & Critics Score Explained
Sisu: Road to Revenge sees Aatami “return to the house where his family was brutally murdered during the war,” to move the structure to a new location via truck, and rebuild his life. However, the Red Army commander who killed Aatami’s family (Avatar‘s Stephen Lang) comes back to also finish off the man himself. Thus begins “a relentless, eye-popping cross-country chase,” which promises “a fight to the death, full of clever, unbelievable action set pieces.”
Both installments of the Sisu franchise were written and directed by Jalmari Helander, and have made a new action movie icon out of Finnish acting icon, Jorma Tommila, in the same vein as Liam Neeson after Taken. While the box office returns were only modest, the critical acclaim has been massive. Both Sisu and Sisu: Road to Revenge hold 94% Rotten Tomatoes critics scores, and audience scores of 88% and 87%, respectively. That latter part is the key here, as it speaks to the satisfaction viewers get from this series. It also helps that Sisu: Road to Revenge as a car chase element to its action, thereby offering viewers something different from the first film, yet still in the same vein as the first film.
Many action fans have been vocal about how underrated Sisu: Road to Revenge is, so it’s good to see it getting its due on streaming. Hopefully, it will help Helander get the opportunity to make a threequel, and complete the trilogy.
Sisu: Road to Revenge is now streaming on HBO Max.