Star Wars Star’s Action Movie Becomes A Streaming Hit Months After Making $1m In Theaters

Daisy Ridley cleaned up the streaming charts this weekend. Her new action thriller Cleaner debuted on HBO Max on Friday, and according to FlixPatrol, it was the number one most-watched movie on the service this weekend. Cleaner hit theaters in the U.S. on February 21st, and it was a box office flop, earning just over $1.3 million worldwide on a $25 million production budget. It was not well-received by film critics either, but it seems like fans were still interested in watching once it was available at home on a subscription-based service. It is streaming now on HBO Max in the U.S.

Cleaner was written by Simon Uttley, Paul Andrew Williams, and Matthew Orton, and directed by legendary action filmmaker Martin Campbell. It stars Ridley as Joanna “Joey” Locke, a military veteran now working as an exterior window cleaner on a London skyscraper. She is also caretaker to her older brother Michael (Matthew Tuck), who has autism. She brings him to work with her one day, and they are both entangled in a hostage situation when terrorists take over the building. Joey is forced to use her expertise to save as many lives as possible.

At the time of this writing, Cleaner is marked as “rotten” on Rotten Tomatoes, with 53% of reviews counted as positive overall. It scored marginally better among audiences — 66% of user-submitted reviews are positive, with an average rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars. Critics praised Ridley’s performance, particularly her convincing execution of action-heavy feats, and most of the criticism fell on the writing.

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In general, critics and viewers found this movie to be predictable and formulaic, patching together ideas and elements from other hits in the genre. Comparisons to Die Hard are not surprising, but many reviews felt that this movie simply re-used parts of Die Hard rather than expanding on them or adding new twists.

Still, for a movie night at home it was clearly enough to draw a big audience. Alongside Cleaner, HBO Max’s top 10 movies included the first three Hunger Games movies, the original How to Train Your Dragon, and Spaceballs. Three other 2025 releases made the list as well — the sci-fi dark comedy Mickey 17, the crime drama The Alto Knights, and the TV documentary Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster.

It’s hard to say if this streaming surge will vindicate Cleaner in the public eye, or make up for its poor turnout at the box office. At the very least, it belatedly found its audience in the streaming ecosystem. You can stream Cleaner now on HBO Max in the U.S. It is also available to rent or purchase digitally on PVOD stores.