Streaming has changed the entertainment industry in many ways, and one of them is sheer unpredictability. Because streaming a movie is considerably easier and involves less financial risk than heading to a theater, viewers are more likely to go wild with their movie night selections, which in turn means that the list of a streaming platform’s most popular movies at any given time can feature some seriously surprising titles. Such is the case with the current top 10 movies streaming on Max in the U.S. Leading the pack is “Uncharted,” a video game movie that became a streaming success on the platform despite its 41% Rotten Tomatoes score. The famous 2017 sci-fi flop “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” is also a massive hit on Max, and together, the two movies showcase the streaming audience’s willingness to experiment.
What’s more, these two titles are far from the only unexpected names to make the cut here. Writer-director Caroline Lindy’s 2024 romantic horror-comedy “Your Monster” is also doing very well on Max, having claimed fourth place on the streamer’s top 10 movies on January 29, 2025 (via FlixPatrol). Starring Melissa Barrera (“Scream,” “Abigail”), the peculiar film modernizes and plays with the themes of “Beauty and the Beast,” and its streaming success shows that the audiences are loving the approach.
Your Monster both embraces and subverts expectations
“Your Monster” is the kind of movie that thrives on streaming, since its eclectic but charming mix of genres might make it a tough sell for casual movie-goers. It begins when distraught actor Laura Franco (Barrera) finds that on top of her cancer diagnosis and career struggles, there’s a fearsome monster (Tommy Dewey) living in the closet of her home. After an understandably rough start, the two form an uneasy roommate alliance that grows closer and more supportive over time. The monster soon becomes involved in Laura’s daily life — including her troubles with her former flame, a duplicitous playwright named Jacob (Edmund Donovan) — as things start to get seriously strange.
Without going into the assorted plot twists and outright spoilers, suffice it to say that the film is a fun ride for fans of rom-coms and clever indie fare alike. /Film’s own review of “Your Monster” found it to be a wickedly romantic, funny and subversive twist on a fairy tale trope, and frankly? It’s nice to see that Max viewers have found it.
