Anne Hathaway’s Forgotten 2026 Thriller Explodes on HBO Max Streaming

Four months ago, almost nobody saw Anne Hathaway‘s Mother Mary in theaters when it was released in April 2026. However, that is changing fast. David Lowery’s A24 psychodrama landed on HBO Max on August 21 and has already climbed to No. 2 on the platform’s U.S. movie chart, according to FlixPatrol (as of August 23, 2026).

This viewership surge is not bad for a film that made $3 million in theaters against a $20 million budget. Hathaway stars as the title character, a global pop icon preparing a comeback show after walking away from her tour.

In the movie, she turns up at the remote studio of Michaela Coel‘s Sam Anselm, her estranged best friend and the costume designer who built her image, needing one final dress. What follows is mostly the two of them in a room, tearing open everything that went wrong between them.

Anne Hathaway’s Mother Mary Is No.2 on HBO Max in the U.S.

Interestingly, streaming is exactly the right home for this one, because Mother Mary is a film you either lock into or bounce off, and that is a much easier gamble to take at home than at a cinema. The reasons to try it are pretty straightforward.

Anne Hathaway is doing the most committed work of her recent run here, playing a woman who cannot tell where her stage persona ends and she begins. Michaela Coel is her equal and then some, matching every one of Mary’s speeches with something harder and quieter.

Critics landed at 69% on Rotten Tomatoes, praising the pair and the style even when Mother Mary‘s plot lost them. The audience score sits at 60%. Another praiseworthy aspect of the movie was its visual style. David Lowery shot it in a wide 2.39 aspect ratio to make a two-hander feel enormous, and the finale hinges on a red dress designed by Iris van Herpen that genuinely earns its buildup.

The songs are genuinely good, with Hathaway performing them with grace. There are seven original songs in the movie, written by the likes of Jack Antonoff, Charli xcx, and FKA twigs. Elsewhere on the chart, Mother Mary sits behind Bob Odenkirk’s Normal at No. 1 and ahead of The Drama, Mortal Kombat II, and Sicario.

Why Mother Mary Was Too Weird for Theater Audiences

Anne Hathaway in a still from Mother Mary | Credits: A24

The short answer for Mother Mary‘s failure is that nobody knew what they were buying a ticket for. A24 sold it as a psychos*xual pop thriller, and the trailer promised something in the Black Swan lane, discussing themes like obsession, fame, and a woman coming apart.

What audiences got was a very talky movie that detours into ghosts and quantum physics. It was never designed to be an easy sell. David Lowery has said the script began in 2019, when he stayed up after a rough day on The Green Knight and wrote 20 pages of dialogue.

The shoot stretched across 2023, 2024, and 2025, and Lowery has described the experience as one with no escape hatch. There was also an alleged review-bombing campaign over its religious imagery. Moreover, it opened two weeks before Hathaway’s other movie, The Devil Wears Prada 2. So, streaming is where a film like this was always going to find its people.

What do you think of Anne Hathaway’s A24 movie? Let us know in the comments below!