After earning over $100 million at the global box office earlier this year, Celine Song’s Materialists has found renewed success on streaming — debuting at No. 1 on HBO Max and reaffirming itself as one of 2025’s most distinctive romantic comedies.
Led by Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal, Materialists retools the familiar rom-com framework into something sharper and more self-aware. Song, whose debut Past Lives was a quiet revelation, uses this follow-up to explore how love in the algorithm age has turned into both a commodity and a coping mechanism. As High On Films noted in its ★★★★ review, “Song’s sculpture of modern romance is one chipped at all times by the sharpened cynicism of dating in a superficial world — yet still tender enough to find beauty in that honesty.”
In the film, Johnson plays Lucy, a New York matchmaker who treats love like a spreadsheet until her tidy logic is disrupted by the presence of two wildly different men — Harry (Pascal), a too-perfect billionaire, and John (Evans), a struggling actor and former lover. Their triangle becomes a wry reflection on how connection survives in a world obsessed with optimization.
While early audience reactions called the film “slow” or “talky,” Materialists has quietly defied those labels — first as A24’s third-highest-grossing film ever, and now as a streaming sensation. Its steady climb mirrors the kind of word-of-mouth affection that’s often earned, not manufactured. There’s a certain irony to that success: a movie so deeply skeptical of modern connection has found its second life through the very algorithmic systems it critiques.
As of this week, Materialists sits atop HBO Max’s trending list, surpassing horror hit Weapons and several major studio releases. The film’s newfound momentum suggests that audiences are increasingly drawn to rom-coms that resist easy sentimentality, preferring honesty over gloss. With its mix of understated humor, melancholy, and piercing insight, it’s clear why the film continues to find new admirers long after leaving theaters.
