The newly rebranded HBO Max is delivering the goods in June. One of its best May titles, Mountainhead, is popular on the streamer, and the return of And Just Like That is already lighting up social media. (Rosie O’ Donnell as a virgin lesbian nun who sings songs from Wicked? Now that’s must-see TV!)
In addition to those high-profile premieres, the streamer has an impressive library of underrated movies that are waiting to be discovered.
Watch With Us has selected three movies that are underappreciated and worthy of your time and attention this weekend. The below list includes a romantic drama (not a rom-com!), an exotic thriller set in Hawaii and a creepy horror movie starring a two-time Oscar winner.
‘The Sunlit Night’ (2019)
Frances’ (Jenny Slate) life is a mess. She broke up with her boyfriend, her parents are getting divorced and she just lost a job as a resident artist in Tokyo. Desperate, she accepts a last-minute job helping a Norwegian painter in Oslo. But Frances soon finds herself overwhelmed by her new occupation and being a foreigner in a land where the sun is out almost all the time. Her only salvation lies in her art and Yasha (Alex Sharpe), a young Russian who is grieving his father’s recent death. Will Frances and Yasha’s unlikely romance be enough to pull them out of the doldrums?
Fans of Eat, Pray, Love and Normal People will like The Sunlit Night, which deals with similar themes and has a protagonist who is trying to find her place in the world. The movie’s unusual location makes it stand out from other rom-coms (how many are set in the heart of Scandinavia?), and Slate kills it as Frances, who isn’t as likable and predictable as your average Sandra Bullock heroine. The Sunlit Night barely got a release, but it deserves to be rediscovered now that it’s on HBO Max this month.
The Sunlit Night is streaming on HBO Max.
‘A Perfect Getaway’ (2009)
Cliff and Cydney (Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich) just got married, and so far their honeymoon in Hawaii has been a dream. But their idyll is shattered after two bodies are discovered nearby, with the prime suspects being an unidentified male and female couple.
Soon, Cliff and Cydney meet two other couples: Nick (Timothy Olyphant) and Gina (Kiele Sanchez), and Kale (Chris Hemsworth) and Cleo (Marley Shelton). Is one of the pair the killers everyone is looking for? And if so, how can Cliff and Cydney notify the authorities in time before they become the next victims?
A Perfect Getaway is a deceptively good thriller that keeps delivering one surprise after another. The writer-director, David Twohy, knows his way around a twist-filled narrative (he was the architect behind Pitch Black and Below), and he works similar magic in this movie. Each role is perfectly cast, with Zahn standing out as an everyman whose vacation turns into a bloody fight for survival.
A Perfect Getaway is streaming on HBO Max.
‘Backtrack’ (2016)
Before Adrien Brody won his second Oscar for The Brutalist in 2025, he started in a lot of, well, crap. And while Backtrack isn’t nearly as great as that Brady Corbet-directed drama, it’s effective enough for you to give it a look this weekend.
Brody plays Dr. Peter Bower, a psychotherapist still grieving the recent death of his young daughter, Evie. One day at his office, he’s visited by a mute female child named Elizabeth Valentine (Chloe Bayliss), who leaves her initials on a piece of paper before leaving. Peter soon discovers the girl died in 1987 and that her initials, E.V., sound like Evie’s name. Why is Peter being haunted by Elizabeth? And why is it linked to the train tracks that rest just outside Peter’s office?
Backtrack is an average ghost thriller that is better at evoking a sinister mood than telling a logical storyline. The movie’s frequent flights of fancy are forgiven, though, by Brody, who invests as much emotion here as he does in his Oscar-winning movies. The actor makes you feel Peter’s pain and confusion as he struggles to deal with a supernatural problem his scientific mind can’t fully comprehend.
