Lovers of genre movies are eating well at the end of 2025. Anyone who heads to the theater will be able to choose between watching James Cameron’s latest sci-fi epic, Avatar: Fire and Ash, checking out the latest Disney animated comedy, Zootopia 2, or experiencing whatever the reboot (sequel?) of Anaconda has to offer. Once all of those are logged on Letterboxd, though, it’s time to return home and find something else to watch. The smart move would be to binge Stranger Things, since that show is coming to an end and the entire world is going to want to discuss its ending. But there’s no reason to shut down the party so early.
Rather than using all the streaming subscriptions to cave to public pressure, another potential avenue is to seek out more genre films. Every platform likes to throw its heavy hitters on the home page, trying to keep people around by boosting titles they know. However, there are always hidden gems to be found. Here are seven great genre movies hidden on HBO Max in December 2025.
7) The Watchers
M. Night Shyamalan is famous for his twist endings, so it should be no surprise that his daughter follows in his footsteps. Ishana Night Shyamalan’s fantasy film The Watchers follows a group of humans confined to a bunker by evil monsters who wish to do them harm. However, it turns out the real threat is inside the cage because the survivors start turning on each other. In her directorial debut, Ishana proves that she’s just as good at building tension as her father and also knows how to stick the landing.
6) Evil Dead Rise
Sam Raimi brought the Evil Dead franchise to life in the 1980s, but it’s been a struggle for him to keep it relevant since the turn of the century. Handing the keys over to Lee Cronin proved to be the right move, as the horror filmmaker brought the Deadites back in a big way in Evil Dead Rise. Focusing on two sisters who want to protect their family, the movie uses more than just jump scares to terrify its audience, taking the franchise to horrific places it’s never been before.
5) The Fate of the Furious
The Fast & Furious movies get a bad rap because of the claims that people have to turn their brains off to enjoy them. There might be some truth to that, but the sheer scale of the franchise is something to behold. In The Fate of the Furious, Dom Toretto turns his back on his family and works for the kind of criminal he usually brings down. The twists and turns in the eighth installment have to be seen to be believed, including a run-in with a nuclear submarine.
4) Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
Movies about aliens always seem to hit. Maybe it’s because of the questions they pose about humanity’s place in the universe. Well, whatever it is, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets deserves to be in the same league as some of the greats because it introduces a location that’s unlike anything seen in cinema before. It’s not a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination, but the visuals alone are worth the price of an HBO Max subscription.
3) Shazam!
HBO Max is the streaming home for just about all of DC’s movies, as its owner, Warner Bros. Discovery, also owns the comic book publisher. However, not every superhero project on the platform gets the same treatment. Anyone scrolling on the app will have to go pretty far down to find Shazam!, a movie about a kid who gains incredible abilities after meeting a wizard. What sets Shazam! apart from its competition, it is its ability to tug at the heartstrings, delivering a really positive message about found family.
2) Kong: Skull Island
Kong and Godzilla’s fights get so much attention that it’s easy to forget that the best film in the Monsterverse only features the former. In Kong: Skull Island, a military convoy heads out to a remote island in search of a dangerous creature. They find far more than they bargained for, though, having to fight hard to make it out in one piece. Outside of great visuals, the real appeal of Kong: Skull Island is its cast, which includes notable names like Samuel L. Jackson, Brie Larson, Tom Hiddleston, and John Goodman.
1) Companion
AI is a topic that’s never going to go away now that the genie is out of the bottle. However, it’s still important to consider the potential drawbacks, and Companion helps remind the world of that. The sci-fi/thriller sends Iris and her boyfriend, Josh, on a weekend getaway, where it comes out that she’s not human but a robot companion. The truth shocks her to her core, and things don’t get any easier as the man she thought she loved turns out to be the real monster.
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