Eddington on HBO Max: 2025’s Most Misunderstood Film

If a 2025 picture is destined to be reassessed as a misunderstood classic, it may well be Ari Aster’s Eddington, which is currently streaming on HBO Max. Part neo‑Western, part political satire, and set amid the upheaval of the 2020 COVID lockdowns, the film from the director of Hereditary and Midsommar is deliberately provocative and discomfiting. Critics offered uneven, sometimes hostile responses, and it underperformed at the box office, but its urgency and sting seem to sharpen with time.

I first saw Eddington months after its Cannes premiere and shortly after its U.S. release; a contemporaneous, unsettling news development made the film feel unusually prescient. Aster’s picture left a deep impression: if you want a movie that peers unflinchingly at the bitter psychodramas roiling America, this is it.

That description might suggest a grim, joyless experience, which could explain why it didn’t immediately find a broad audience. Yet beneath its bleak subject matter the film is often wickedly entertaining. True to Aster’s instincts, it blends tension, dark comedy, and shocking violence. It’s not straight horror—unlike Hereditary or Midsommar—and it isn’t a surreal comic odyssey like Beau Is Afraid, though it borrows elements from both: the narrative begins in a relatively conventional register and gradually escalates into a surreal, satirical, and blood-soaked crescendo.

The plot unfolds in the small New Mexico town of Eddington. Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix, here coded as a MAGA‑aligned figure) clashes with Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal, portrayed with a Clinton-era patina) over mask mandates and a plan to build a data center. Frustrated by professional and personal strains—his marriage to the withdrawn Louise (Emma Stone) and the influence of Louise’s conspiratorial mother Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell)—Joe impulsively launches a mayoral challenge. Youth-led Black Lives Matter demonstrations, Louise and Dawn’s entanglement with a charismatic cult figure (Austin Butler), and escalating hostilities between Joe and Ted push the town toward a violent unraveling.

Aster treats the material with a cool, often sardonic eye, taking aim at characters across the ideological spectrum. Some of the film’s sharpest satire is directed at performative, largely white progressive activists. That even‑handed scorn frustrated many reviewers, and several prominent outlets voiced strong reservations. Still, Aster’s approach is not a shallow “both sides” shrug: his critique is more searching and less complacent than the evasive centrism of films like Alex Garland’s Civil War.

Rooted in familiarity rather than detachment, the film’s perspective feels lived‑in. Aster—himself from New Mexico—reportedly interviewed local sheriffs and officials across the state while developing the script, which lends the piece an empathetic core that tempers its caustic impulses. Joaquin Phoenix’s restrained performance anchors that empathy, giving the story a human center even as the tone grows increasingly febrile.

As with much of Aster’s work, Eddington overstays its welcome at times and leaves a few subplots less resolved than one might like. Even so, Aster’s direction is assured: the film channels the visual grandeur of classic Westerns through lush cinematography by Darius Khondji and a tense, evocative score from Daniel Pemberton and Bobby Krlic.

What makes the film arresting is how precisely it captures its cultural moment—trapping characters and the open landscape in a web of intrusive screens, the constant din of doomscrolling, and the ambient hum of conspiracy. Aster refuses to single out one scapegoat; his satire points broadly and relentlessly. Yet the final image lands firmly, making clear where his sympathies—or indictments—rest.

Yes, a movie that foregrounds mask mandates, BLM protests, online conspiracies, and a decade’s worth of headline‑grit is a difficult commercial proposition. And there’s a familiar critique that smartphones and social feeds aren’t cinematic. But there’s also a case to be made that contemporary art must reckon with the realities of the present rather than retreat perpetually into the past or the fantastical.

Encouragingly, Aster’s film feels part of a larger, vital wave of 2025 cinema. Eddington pairs well with films like One Battle After Another and Bugonia (which Aster produced): each confronts political fracture with urgent, contemporary storytelling. Together they mark a lively moment for filmmakers willing to engage the messy present.

Eddington is now streaming on HBO Max and is also available to rent or purchase through Apple, Amazon, and other digital retailers.