HBO Max Is Quietly Dropping a Forgotten Sci-Fi Thriller That Divided Viewers

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Samantha Morton laying down looking up in 2073

Published Jan 31, 2026, 11:20 AM EST

In over three years at Collider, senior author Jake has now penned over 2500 articles covering a wide range of TV and film for the resources, lists, utilities, news, and interview teams. Alongside interviewing stars such as Selin Hizli, Rose Ayling-Ellis, Harlan Coben, and Chelsea Peretti, Jake was lucky enough to visit the set of Aardman and Netflix's Wallace and Gromit: A Vengeance Most Fowl in 2024, getting the chance to chat with four-time Academy Award winner Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham. Jake has also worked for other publications, including Agents of Fandom.

Sci-fi movies are often at their best when taking the fears of today and turning them into the reality of tomorrow. From Arnold Schwarzenegger's T-800 disturbing a 1980s world afraid of the rise of machines in The Terminator to the existential crisis realized into glorious dystopia in The Matrix, sci-fi thrives on tapping into the cultural zeitgeist. Likened by some to filmmaker Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys, a divisive 2024 movie that finds angst for the future through genre-bending, is about to join a new streaming site and might just be your next favorite sci-fi flick.

Asif Kapadia's 2073, a film that had a short and unremarkable theatrical run, is heading to HBO Max on February 1, 2026. The director of the Oscar-winning Amy Winehouse documentary combined with stars Samantha Morton and The Man Who Killed Don Quixote writer Tony Grisoni, to bring this sci-fi movie to life, although it sadly faced plenty of backlash upon arrival. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 2073 could only muster a disappointing 49% from critics and 43% from audiences, with the consensus on the site reading, "2073 is visually striking and occasionally haunting, but its preachy tone, derivative dystopian tropes, and air of exhausted fatalism leave it more dispiriting than entertaining." A synopsis for 2073 reads:

"It's the year 2073, and the worst fears of modern life have been realized. Surveillance drones fill the burnt orange skies and militarized police roam the wrecked streets, while survivors hide away underground, struggling to remember a free and hopeful existence. In this ingenious mixture of visionary science fiction and speculative nonfiction, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Asif Kapadia transports us to a future foreshadowed by the terrifying realities of our present moment. Two-time Academy Award nominee Samantha Morton plays a survivor besieged by nightmare visions of the past--a past that happens to be our present, visualized through contemporary footage interconnecting today's global crises of authoritarianism, unchecked big tech, inequality, and global climate change. 2073 is an urgent, unshakable vision of a dystopic future that could very well be our own."

What Is Currently Topping the HBO Max Streaming Charts?

2073 will be hoping to make a small dent in the HBO Max streaming ranks this February, but it poses little threat to the top of the charts. This is in part due to the lack of hype around the movie, but it is also because of the vast number of beloved titles, classic or new, that are also on the streamer. At the time of writing, the most-watched movie on HBO Max in the U.S. is the sports drama The Smashing Machine starring Dwayne Johnson.

2073 is streaming on HBO Max this February. Stay tuned to Collider for more streaming stories.