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This Hunger Games sequel is one of the HBO Max action movies you need to watch (August 2025)

These action movies are all quite different from one another, but each of them is well worth watching while they're on HBO Max.

Action movies are hard to define but easy to recognize. It’s a genre that can encompass everything from franchise fare to director-driven work, but at the end of the day, a great one will leave you deeply satisfied.

HBO Max actually has a remarkably deep bench of great action movies worth watching. Because the platform can be difficult to navigate, it can be hard to surface the ones that you might actually be interested in. That’s why we’ve pulled together three very different action movies that are all worth your time.

We also have guides to the best new movies to stream, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on HBO Max, and the best movies on Disney+.

The only Die Hard ripoff that’s worth watching, Speed follows an LA police officer who gets trapped on a bus that will explode if it drives under 50 miles an hour. As he navigates Los Angeles traffic to avoid disaster, he must figure out who rigged the bus and why they did it.

Speed is thrilling from minute one. Thanks to some excellent chemistry between Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, it never feels even a little bit stale or played out. It might not be reinventing the wheel, but Hollywood could use more action movies that are sturdy and age well.

You can watch Speed on HBO Max.

The Hunger Games movies are better than you remember (unless you remember them being great). Of the original quadrilogy, Catching Fire is undoubtedly refines the ideas and cast of the original movie into something both entertaining and disturbing.

Following Katniss Everdeen in the wake of her victory in the Hunger Games, she eventually realizes that she has to go back into the arena, and this time her competition will be other victors. Jennifer Lawrence is remarkable at the center of this movie, an actress who brings her character’s vulnerabilities to the surface with every look on her face.

You can watch The Hunger Games: Catching Fire on HBO Max.

Superman Returns was made by some pretty problematic people, but it’s also a pretty effective Superman movie. A sort of pseudo-sequel to the Christopher Reeve films, this movie imagines an Earth where Superman has been gone for several years.

When he returns, he discovers that the world has moved on without him, but also that Lex Luthor has been carefully planning for his return. Featuring a genuinely arresting plane crash sequence, plenty of nostalgia, and a sentimental sincerity that feels entirely justified, Superman Returns might leave you a little emotional.

You can watch Superman Returns on HBO Max.

Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.

https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911

YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.

What is AV2, and why should viewers care?

YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.

YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.