The 25 Best Movies to Watch on HBO Go (July 2014)
We’ve gotten caught up in countless HBO original series, but if you have an HBO Go account (or you’re bumming your parents’), it’s worth looking at the monthly movie selection. This month, the streaming service offers some of the best crime dramas in history, several recent Oscar favorites and three Wes Anderson films. Here are our picks for the 25 best movies to watch on HBO Go for July 2014.
25. The East (avail. 7/15)
Year: 2013
Director: Zal Batmanglij
Director Zal Batmanglij and Actress Brit Marling join forces again as co-writers in their fast-moving followup to 2012’s Sound of My Voice. The East is the story of a private-firm intelligence agent (Marling) looking to infiltrate a shadowy group of anticorporate terrorsists, and it’s fun to see her on the other side of the ledger (she was the leader of the group being infiltrated in Sound). Marling is wonderful as always, Alexander Skarsgaard is appropriately mysterious as the leader of the group, and Ellen Page turns in her best performance in years. The film was produced by Ridley Scott (and executive produced by his late brother Tony), and the Hollywood pedigree shows; Batmanglij seems to be making his bid for the brass ring here, and he should get it.—Michael Dunaway
24. Behind the Candelabra
Year: 2013
Director: Steven Soderbergh
At first blush, the main draw of Behind the Candelabra would seem to be its camp appeal: a true-life love story between a humble aspiring veterinarian and Liberace, that icon of kitsch and knowing excess. And while that element exists in director Steven Soderbergh’s film, what resonates more strongly is the difficulty in falling in love with someone famous. That person may love you back sincerely, but fame always gets in the way. That’s not a particularly revelatory idea, but Soderbergh and his cast at least find a lively way to say it one more time. A glitzy coming-of-age story told in hot tubs and Rolls Royces, Behind the Candelabra is not necessarily the sort of project you envision Soderbergh finishing his directing career making. But if it is his final movie, it’s worth noting that this is one of his warmest.—Tim Grierson
23. Enough Said (avail. until 8/24)
Year: 2013
Director: Nicole Holofcener
At the heart of Enough Said are the stellar performances by a solid cast with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini leading the way. Gandolfini’s cooly confident performance as a man who knows exactly who he is (a big-bellied slob) and what he wants out of a relationship plays perfectly against a woman who builds defense mechanisms to protect herself—and her heart—from getting it wrong again the second time around. Holofcener’s characters are wonderfully imperfect, and Enough Said shows that, just as in real life, sometimes moms and dads don’t have all the answers.—Christine Ziemba
22. Longford (avail. until 7/31)
Year: 2006
Director: Tom Hooper
Originally made for TV, Longford tells the story of an English member of the House of Lords who campaigns for the parole of a notorious murderer, believing her to be reformed. Directed by Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech, Les Misérables, the film is an opportunity to see the wonderful acting of Jim Broadbent. And to witness a soul who chooses to see the good in humanity.—Josh Jackson
21. The Thing (avail. until 7/31)
Year: 1982
Director: John Carpenter
Starring a never-more-grizzled Kurt Russell and his epic beard, John Carpenter’s remake of 1951’s The Thing from Another World is a different beast altogether. An horrific, slimy, pissed-off beast at that. Perfectly evoking Reagen-era Cold War paranoia, Carpenter’s Thing also boasts creature effects that remain as grotesquely terrifying 30 years later. And hey—how many other films do you get to see with the Quaker Oates guy going berserk with an axe?—Scott Wold
20. This Is 40 (avail. until 8/15)
Year: 2012
Director: Judd Apatow
Judd Apatow might just be the dirtiest moralizer in all of Hollywood. This Is 40, a loose sequel to Apatow’s Knocked Up, is another example of Apatow’s values-based story-telling. It tells the simple yet emotionally complex story of Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann, Apatow’s wife), who find themselves in a mid-life fight for their marriage. By film’s end, This Is 40 not only confirms Apatow’s ardor for family and marriage (and the moral fabric they represent), it also confirms that there’s substance beneath the filthy veneer, that the director’s crass aesthetic is just a means by which he communicates truth. Sure, it can be a chore to wade through the overabundance of vulgarity and profanity in This Is 40 (in spite of the strong humor that comes of it), but, well, this is Apatow. The payoff is worth it.—David Roark
19. American History X (avail. until 7/31)
Year: 1998
Director: Tony Kaye
It’s upsetting that director Tony Kaye was so unhappy with the final cut of American History X that he tried to have his name removed from the credits. How much better can a debut feature realistically get, and why discredit one of the greatest films ever made about race relations by attributing it to Humpty Dumpty? Although the driving force of the film is Edward Norton’s visceral performance, Kaye makes him the centerpiece of so many now-iconic black-and-white compositions. The dinner scene that erupts into an argument about Rodney King is so arresting due to Derek Vinyard’s palpable anger. But when Vinyard throws his mother’s new boyfriend out of the house and he turns back, briefly, to see the American flag blowing in the wind, just before he leaves? That’s Tony Kaye knowing how to create an indelible image.—Allie Conti
18. Go (avail. until 7/31)
Year: 1999
Director: Doug Liman
Quentin Tarantino’s meteoric rise in the ’90s brought about an inevitable wave of copycats, with each trying to capture the director’s quirky, pop-culture-informed dialogue and propensity for non-linear storytelling. Go actively succeeds at aping the energy and playfulness of Tarantino’s films while retaining a voice all its own. Set primarily around Christmas Eve, the film tracks three separate stories of crime gone afoul, with each story interlocking or playing into the others in increasingly amusing ways. Directed by future Bourne Identity helmer Doug Liman and written by John August (Big Fish, The Nines), the film also boasts an impressive cast that includes Sarah Polley, Timothy Olyphant, Katie Holmes, Taye Diggs, Breckin Meyer, Jay Mohr and Melissa McCarthy.—Mark Rozeman
17. Big (avail. until 7/15)
Year: 1988
Director: Penny Marshall
If you ignore the problematic issues inherent in a man with a 13-year-old’s mind entering into a relationship with a thirtyish woman, Big remains as charming as it was at the time of its release. Tom Hanks is an absolute joy to watch as the central boy-man and the iconic scene where he and Robert Loggia perform “Heart and Soul” and “Chopsticks” on a foot-operated keyboard is enough to warm the cockles of even the most cynical viewers’ hearts.—Mark Rozeman
16. Match Point (avail. until 7/31)
Year: 2005
Director: Woody Allen
Match Point restored many’s faith in Allen after a series of disappointments. Essentially a retread of half of Crimes and Misdemeanors—albeit a fine, glossy, expertly-paced retread—the film marked Allen’s key departure to Europe for the first of four efforts. Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Scarlett Johansson made for beautiful blanks for which he could project his lofty Dostoyevskian ideals, in a tale about murder and it’s devastating mental and moral ramifications. Thematically dense yet consistently compelling, Match Point is the kind of thinking man’s thriller only Allen knows how to make.
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12. The Darjeeling Limited (avail. 7/15)
11. Leaving Las Vegas (avail. 7/15)
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8. Rushmore (avail. 7/15)
7. Argo (avail. 7/15)
6. Gravity (avail. 7/12)
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3. The Shining (avail. 7/15)
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