As HBO Max returns from the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, a cult classic ‘80s comedy with a great soundtrack sneaks into the re-branded streaming service’s top 10.
Perhaps ‘80s nostalgia was behind Warner Bros. Discovery putting the “HBO” back in Max. Though HBO is indeed still around, the network now known for prestige TV shows reached the height of its importance as a pure movie channel in the 1980s, and has strongly pleasurable ᴀssociations for those who grew up watching it in that decade.
Why the nostalgia-loaded “HBO” was ever dropped from the original HBO Max name indeed remains a puzzling question. But two years after the service’s moniker was shortened to simply “Max,” the “HBO” has been restored to its rightful place.
It seems appropriate that, at the very time WBD is re-embracing the HBO brand, a movie has made it into the streamer’s top 10 that would’ve played endlessly on the original Home Box Office movie channel back in the 1980s.
Better Off ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Has Cracked The Top Ten On HBO Max
It Peeked Its Head In At Number Ten
Movies don’t get more ‘80s than Better Off ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, a killer-soundtrack cult comedy now hitting the top ten on HBO Max. The dark and surreal film stars John Cusack as a suburban teen living anything but a perfect suburban existence. The soundtrack features hits from the likes of Van Halen, Hall & Oates, and Jimi Hendrix.
Critics dismissed Better Off ᴅᴇᴀᴅ in its day, but HBO Max subscribers are currently embracing it and its eclectic lineup of tunes, pushing the overlooked comedy to #10 on the streamer’s U.S. chart for July 11, 2025 (via Flixpatrol).
Our Take On Better Off ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Making The HBO Max Top 10
It Might Have Been Too Weird For 1985
The ‘80s were filled to the brim with movies about the trials and tribulations of teenagers. John Hughes indeed built an entire career on examining the ‘80s teenage experience through films like The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Better Off ᴅᴇᴀᴅ now sits at 77% on Rotten Tomatoes, but was maligned by critics in 1985, getting two thumbs down from Siskel & Ebert.
Ferris Bueller is now widely considered the quintessential ‘80s teen comedy. Savage Steve Holland’s darkly comic Better Off ᴅᴇᴀᴅ almost feels like a direct answer to the upbeat whimsicality of Hughes’ film, except that it was released a year earlier.
Hughes was incapable of the kind of surreal, twisted humor that permeates Better Off ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. Sadly, that humor may have missed the mark for 1985 audiences expecting a purely fun teen-friendly movie like that year’s blockbuster Back to the Future, explaining why the Cusack-led comedy grossed just $10 million, finishing 89th for the year.
Better Off ᴅᴇᴀᴅ reads almost like a parody of the teen movie genre, but if the film was meant as a joke, Cusack wasn’t in on it. The star was so angry at the finished film that he stormed out of the premiere, and accused director Holland of making him look like a fool.
Cusack seems to have reacted to Better Off ᴅᴇᴀᴅ the same way 1985 audiences did: with perplexity and dismay. 40 years later, the film’s oddball humor and dark tone make it stand out from other 1980s тιтles, offering a different experience than the films of Hughes, many of which have not aged well.
Perhaps Better Off ᴅᴇᴀᴅ was just several decades ahead of its time. If so, it’s now finally finding its audience on HBO Max.
Source: Flixpatrol
