We’re in the middle of 2025’s summer movie season and there are some big flicks out there, like Superman, How to Train Your Dragon, Lilo & Stitch, and F1. It’s the time of year when most people go to the theater for the distinct purpose of being entertained. Is that the point of going to the movies regardless of the time of year? For many people, sure. But there’s something about the summertime that makes you want to just watch something fun. And, if you’re not in the mood to drive out to the theater, HBO Max is a perfectly suitable back-up plan, and they have some movies that are perfect to watch during the summertime.
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We’re not relegating things to just movies that were literally released during the summer movie seasons of past. However, if they were released in May, June, July, or August of any given year, we’ll point that out. Furthermore, these are just the big fun movies that many don’t know are HBO Max titles.
1) Bullet Train
The star-studded, high-speed Bullet Train is the enthralling story of, well, a bullet train. A train that just happens to be loaded front to back with assassins and criminal types, all of whom have been brought there for a reason, be it a briefcase stuffed with cash or to complete a hit. We primarily follow Brad Pitt’s “Ladybug,” who is there for that briefcase, but as the film progresses his main goal becomes staying alive, as it seems just about everyone on this train has some sort of an unresolved beef with him.
Just about every David Leitch film is perfect summertime viewing. He’s a director who knows how to make action comedies that don’t favor one genre too strongly over the other. And, thanks to its twists and the energetic performances by the cast (including Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, and Hiroyuki Sanada), it may very well be even more rewatchable than Hobbs & Shaw, Deadpool 2, and The Fall Guy.
2) Mortal Kombat
It’s not high art, but Paul Anderson’s Mortal Kombat is one of the better video game adaptations to date. Like the games, the movie introduces a group of heroes, all of whom are regular citizens of Earth with exceptional martial arts skills and transports them to a tournament where the stakes couldn’t be higher. Mortal Kombat is only held once a generation, and only the best of the best of Earth get to go to Outworld. But most don’t come back, and this time the stakes are even higher, as this particular contest could very well be Outworld’s tenth victory in a row and, if they win again, it’s Earth on the line.
Mortal Kombat was released in August 1995. Typically, August is the summer movie month when a studio’s riskier movies are released. It was the month Borderlands was released, after all. But, unlike with Borderlands, Mortal Kombat paid off in a major way. For one, Mortal Kombat is a blast of a movie, while Borderlands is, well, not. It’s absolutely a silly movie and a product of its time, but that’s its charm. HBO Max also has Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, which should be avoided at all costs, and the underrated 2021 reboot, which doesn’t have a summer movie feel quite the same way the 1995 one does, but is worth a stream, nonetheless.
3) Speed
Speed follows Keanu Reeves’ LAPD officer Jack Traven, who is called by a terrorist whose plot he once thwarted and is told that the bomber’s newest target is a bus. If that bus goes under 50 miles per hour, it will blow.
The core concept of Speed may be the most ingenious one. Like Die Hard it has a single locale and a relatively mysterious terrorist, but in this case the terrorist is no ordinary robber like Die Hard‘s Hans Gruber (here we get the sense Howard Payne would almost prefer detonation to the cash he’s requested), and the single locale absolutely must keep moving. There’s no way to keep a plot moving like having the central locale do the same. Toss in amazing chemistry between Reeves and Sandra Bullock as well as a fantastic fanatical performance by Dennis Hopper and Speed is one of the most thoroughly entertaining action films of all time.
4) The Hangover
One of the most successful studio comedies of all time, The Hangover tells a fairly simple tale. A man is getting married, and one of his friends is pushing for a bachelor party. And where better to go than Vegas? However, after what must have been a long night, only three of the four members of the bachelor party wake up in their hotel room, and the groom is missing. Together, they must piece together the night and, most importantly, find the groom.
Even Bradley Cooper has expressed interest in returning for a fourth Hangover movie, but let’s face it, Todd Phillips’ movie worked best as a one-off, even if The Hangover Part II is underrated as a dark comedy version of the party animal original. It would be very interesting to see how The Hangover would have done were it not released in June. That was a perfect release date for it because it really is the ultimate summer comedy. It’s the very definition of a crowd-pleaser, and audiences chose it over the much higher budgeted comedy Land of the Lost. Even with two inferior sequels tainting its legacy, this is still a fun movie to pop in when everyone is out of high school for summer vacation.
5) Clash of the Titans (2010)
Louis Leterrier’s glossy remake of 1981’s Clash of the Titans tells much the same tale that film told. Perseus is the half-human son of Zeus, overseer of humanity and the head of Mount Olympus. But Zeus’ brother, Hades, wants to stage an uprising, and he’s using everything at his disposal, from Furies to Poseidon’s pet Kraken. Perseus aligns with a group of (mostly doomed) warriors from different corners of the Earth to try and assure the Kraken stays deep down in the water where it belongs.
Released just before the summer movie season in 2010, Clash of the Titans wasn’t exactly a critical darling. But it was a lot of fun and still is to this day (it also has a decently sized role for Mads Mikkelsen, which is never a bad thing), the same of which can’t be said for its incredibly dull sequel, Wrath of the Titans. It’s a breezy, energetic adventure, which is often the perfect type of film to kick back to, check your brain at the door, and just enjoy. Not to mention, it was pretty spot-on casting to put Liam Neeson in the role of Zeus and Ralph Fiennes in the role of Hades, and both (particularly the latter) seem to have a lot of fun with the movie.
6) The Meg
One of the best shark movies not titled Jaws, The Meg tells the story of Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham), a revered deep sea diver who is enlisted to rescue is ex from a mission gone wrong. What made the mission go wrong? A 75-foot-long megalodon, and it’s now en route to gobble up some spring breakers.
The Meg is one of those movies that prove Statham is the best in the action business today. But, when it comes to a movie titled The Meg, Statham’s not the main draw. That would be the massive shark, and even with the PG-13 rating (which does somewhat hurt the film’s impact), it’s a fun beast to watch. The film is also bolstered by a great supporting cast, all of whom seemed to fully understand the assignment, e.g. Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose, and Cliff Curtis.
7) Get Shorty
Get Shorty has us follow Chili Palmer (John Travolta), a charming Miami mobster who steps on the toes of a dopey higher-up. To make good, he travels out to Hollywood, which has always been his dream anyway, to collect a debt from B-movie director Harry Zimm (the late Gene Hackman). Palmer finds himself getting wrapped up in the business and loving it, and he even finds love, to boot. But now that mafioso higher-up is en route to L.A. to mess Palmer over, unless Palmer can get the upper hand and keep it.
One of the best Elmore Leonard adaptations out there, Barry Sonnenfeld does a great job of capturing the author’s prose and style. It’s also a perfectly-cast adaptation, with Travolta scoring his second-best role of his ’90s resurgence after, of course, Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction. Of the top-tier Leonard adaptation films (meaning this, Out of Sight, and Jackie Brown), Get Shorty is without a doubt the one with the most palpable sense of fun, and it’s a great movie to introduce to friends during summer vacation.
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