Jennifer Lawrence's R-Rated Spy Movie Is One Of HBO Max's Biggest Streaming Hits

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

An R-rated spy thriller starring Jennifer Lawrence is finding new life on HBO Max. The Oscar-winner's 2018 movie "Red Sparrow" has become one of the streamer's biggest hit movies, nearly a decade after its original release.

Directed by Francis Lawrence, who had previously worked with Jennifer Lawrence on "The Hunger Games" movies, "Red Sparrow" is currently the eighth-biggest movie on HBO Max right now, per FlixPatrol. It sits just above "The Wolverine" and just below "The First Purge." Olivia Wilde's comedy "The Invite" is still HBO Max's biggest streaming hit, but the fact that an eight-year-old thriller is right up there with the streamer's current biggest movies is meaningful.

"Red Sparrow" sees Lawrence play a deadly Russian spy. The film centers on Dominika (Lawrence), a former ballerina forced to enter Sparrow School, a government program that thrusts her into a treacherous espionage game. She emerges as a lethal agent, but is trapped in a world she desperately wants to escape. Joel Edgerton ("Warrior"), Matthias Schoenaerts ("Rust and Bone"), Charlotte Rampling ("Broadchurch"), Mary-Louise Parker ("Weeds"), and Ciarán Hinds ("Rome") also star.

The movie is based on the novel of the same name by Jason Matthews. Before it turned into a Lawrence and Lawrence "Hunger Games" reunion, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" director David Fincher and Rooney Mara were poised to reunite for "Red Sparrow." Darren Aronofsky ("Black Swan") was also set to direct at one point. But after much back and forth with a revolving door of A-list talent coming and going, it became a Lawrence starring vehicle. The results were viewed as underwhelming at the time.

Critics weren't terribly kind to the thriller upon its initial release. It currently holds a not-so-great 45% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. /Film called "Red Sparrow" an "overlong waste of Jennifer Lawrence's talent" in our review from 2018. It also didn't resonate as well as Fox had hoped it would at the box office at the time.

Against a relatively steep $69 million budget, the movie pulled in $151 million worldwide. It was by no means a hit, especially relative to expectations. Keep in mind that Francis Lawrence and Jennifer Lawrence had a great track record together. "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2" ruled the box office just a few years earlier, capping off a multi-billion-dollar run for that franchise. Not to mention that Lawrence was just a handful of years removed from her Oscar win for "Silver Linings Playbook."

Not for nothing, but MoviePass wasn't allowing subscribers in some markets to buy tickets to "Red Sparrow," and this was at the height of the MoviePass craze. In any event, at the time it would have been safe to label this movie as a disappointment against very high expectations. But it's clear the movie has managed to resonate with viewers beyond that initial release.

Maybe it's because Lawrence remains a big star, with viewers seeking out stuff they haven't seen of hers before. Maybe it's because this sort of action/thriller is the perfect kind of "watch it on the couch" movie. Either way, what was once a disappointment is finding new life all these years later.

You can also grab "Red Sparrow" on 4K, Blu-ray, or DVD from Amazon.