HBO Max has so many movies from the last 100 years of cinema that many of its older titles don’t have Rotten Tomatoes rankings simply because they predate that site by decades.
Regardless, HBO Max has several high-ranking Rotten Tomatoes films this month, including Warfare.
Since we’ve already put Warfare in the spotlight, Watch With Us is looking to the classics for the three new HBO Max movies with over 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
All three of our picks are celebrating their anniversaries this year, including two very different crime dramas.
‘Dog Day Afternoon’ (1975)
Rotten Tomatoes rank: 96 percent
This month marks the 50th anniversary of Dog Day Afternoon, a crime drama by Sidney Lumet that’s loosely based on a real bank robbery that occurred in 1972. The Godfather‘s Al Pacino stepped into the role of Sonny Wortzik, a man who had never committed a robbery in his life. And he picked a bad day to start.
Almost everything Sonny and his friend, Sal Naturile (John Cazale), planned for their quick bank robbery goes off the rails. Without the money they expected or a quick and easy getaway, Sonny and Sal are forced to take the employees and customers hostage. Sergeant Eugene Moretti (Charles Durning) attempts to defuse the situation and negotiate with robbers, and the story takes an unexpected turn when Sonny reveals why he needed the money in the first place.
Dog Day Afternoon is streaming on HBO Max.
‘Goodfellas’ (1990)
Rotten Tomatoes rank: 94 percent
Watching Goodfellas this month for its 35th anniversary may remind everyone just how incredibly charismatic the late Ray Liotta was. Liotta carries this movie as Henry Hill, even when sharing the screen with fellow screen legends Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, both of whom are terrific as Hill’s best friends, Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito.
Director Martin Scorsese was denied an Oscar for this masterpiece, but Goodfellas is widely considered one of the best crime dramas ever made. Hill’s rise and fall as a member of a mafia crime family paved the way for The Sopranos and other similar projects. This film is nearly three hours long, and yet it has such a gripping story that the time feels like it’s flying by.
Goodfellas is streaming on HBO Max.
‘Misery’ (1989)
Rotten Tomatoes rank: 91 percent
Stephen King and director Rob Reiner didn’t need supernatural forces to scare the hell out of audiences with Misery. They just needed Kathy Bates, who gave an Oscar-winning performance as Annie Wilkes, a former nurse and self-described “biggest fan” of novelist Paul Sheldon (James Caan).
After Paul is seriously injured in a car accident, Annie takes him to her remote mountain home to recuperate. Technically, she did save Paul’s life. But Annie is deranged, and she flies into a murderous rage when she discovers that Paul killed off her favorite heroine, Misery, in his latest book. To Paul’s horror, Annie holds him prisoner and forces him to write a new novel that resurrects Misery. She also brutally punishes him for daring to look for some way to escape.
Misery is streaming on HBO Max.
