Bringing together the very capable talents of Chris Evans, Dakota Johnson, and Pedro Pascal in an R-rated romantic comedy seems like a sure-fire winning formula. With a $108 million box office (from a $20 million budget), and a 77% critics score, Materialists did enough to be a moderately successful venture, becoming A24’s third-highest grossing movie ever. Now, the film is finding a new audience on streaming, debuting at the top of the HBO MAX chart, and dethroning exceptional horror movie, Weapons, in the process.
Materialists is written and directed by Celine Song, and was released in June 2025. The story of the movie goes a little like this:
“A young, ambitious New York City matchmaker finds herself torn between the perfect match and her imperfect ex.”
Although the movie’s $108 million box office would be balked at by some, the film is the highest grossing independent movie of the year, and Song’s highest grossing project after surpassing her 2023 movie, Past Lives. Where Materialists did struggle a little was with audiences, who only scored it 66% on Rotten Tomatoes’ Popcornmeter, with many calling it out as “slow” and “boring.”
Despite that, the film has scored a big win on streaming, claiming the top spot on HBO Max’s movie chart with ease. As more viewer reviews pile in, it seems that audience sentiment towards the film has not changed, but that hasn’t stopped millions of people still checking it out as part of their HBO MAX subscriptions.
Is ‘Materialists’ Worth Watching on HBO MAX?
Like many movies with a divided score on aggregate sites, Materialists is a movie that you would probably either love or hate. One reviewer watching the movie on streaming called it “fascinating,” while another said, “Beautiful. Unexpectedly not as light as you originally suspect. It’s nice to see a love story with a dose of reality.”
Several others also catching the film in the last 24 hours were a little less enamored by the casting choices, the story choices…and pretty much any other choice you want to name. A 1-star review said, “What an idiotic movie. I’d never seen Dakota Johnson in anything before but am stunned at what–not subpar or mediocre–but a really terrible actress she is. And zero chemistry with Pedro Pascal.” This complaint was a common thread in several reviews, such as one that added, “This movie was an absolute snooze fest. The dull relationship connections, the drug out storyline and the overall plot was dismal at best. None of the actors came across as having any sort of rapport with one another.”
In the end, the only way to work out if this movie is for you is to check it out yourself, and there are many people doing that with Materialists now that it has arrived on streaming. If you are looking for a movie that doesn’t play for laughs at every turn and is just a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours, then there are worse things to watch.
- Release Date
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June 13, 2025
- Runtime
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117 minutes
- Director
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Celine Song
- Writers
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Celine Song
- Producers
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Christine Vachon, Pamela Koffler, David Hinojosa