HBO Max Has A New #1 Global Streaming Hit With Masterpiece Sci-Fi Cyberpunk

Published Sep 4, 2026, 10:49 AM EDT

Felipe Rangel is a Movie and TV Journalist ScreenRant. He has been writing about movies and TV since 2021. Felipe joined ScreenRant in 2022, working across different teams, covering everything from breaking news to features to reviews and more.

Felipe is a writer who is an avid film and TV fan, with superhero movies and series being his biggest passion. He graduated from college in 2019, having studied Journalism. Before college, he spent a month studying at the Oxford English Centre. His superhero knowledge expands to the comics, with his undergraduate thesis being "Politics Reflected In American Comics."

HBO Max's sci-fi cyberpunk masterpiece is dominating streaming charts right before the franchise comes back. Sci-Fi is a popular genre on streaming. For instance, many of Apple TV's best shows are sci-fi releases, such as Severance, Silo, Foundation, and many more. The streamer is not the only one to find success with the genre, as HBO Max's library of movies and TV shows features quite a few popular sci-fi releases. That extends itself to both original HBO Max projects and licensed films and series on the streaming service. In terms of original releases, Dune: Prophecy, Lanterns, and more have thrived on the streamer.

As far as licensed content goes, that list becomes quite vast. For instance, just like Disney+ is the streaming home of the Star Wars universe, with Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu having just been released on Disney+ to top its charts, HBO Max is the home of the Dune franchise. Both Denis Villeneuve's Dune and Dune: Part Two have found success on the streamer. That said, HBO Max also holds many other exciting licensed films, and the latest sci-fi movie to lead the streamer's charts is Blade Runner 2049, which is one of the genre's masterpieces released in the 2010s.

Why Blade Runner 2049 Is Dominating HBO Max Globally

Image via MovieStilsDB

At the time of writing, Blade Runner 2049 is HBO Max's most-watched movie worldwide, according to FlixPatrol. It leaves behind multiple Despicable Me movies, Ryan Reynolds' Green Lantern, Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One, and more behind on the coveted chart. Currently, Blade Runner 2049 is trending on HBO Max in 23 countries, being the streamer's most-watched movie in 20 of them. In the United States, Blade Runner 2049 is available to stream on Fubo and Paramount+. A few factors explain why Blade Runner 2049 is leading HBO Max worldwide. For one, it holds a matching stellar 88% critics' score and audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Blade Runner 2049 is also directly linked to a few major 2026 sci-fi releases. Ryan Gosling stars in the film as K, and the actor was recently seen in the critical and commercial sci-fi hit Project Hail Mary in theaters. Additionally, Blade Runner 2049 was directed by Denis Villeneuve, who will return to the genre in December with the release of Dune: Part Three, concluding his trilogy in one of the biggest sci-fi franchises of all time. The movie was also added to countries like Brazil on September 2, making it an instant streaming hit for HBO Max upon its international arrival.

The Hit Cyberpunk Franchise Is About To Return

Another major factor behind Blade Runner 2049's global streaming success is that the masterpiece sci-fi franchise is set to return soon, albeit on a different streaming service. Its sequel series, Blade Runner 2099, will debut on Prime Video on November 25. The upcoming sci-fi cyberpunk series will be set 50 years after the events of Gosling's Blade Runner movie, in a world where the replicant rebellion that was teased by the movie has already happened and changed the franchise's power dynamics, with humans now fighting against extinction. As such, the franchise's upcoming return likely boosted interest in Blade Runner 2049 on HBO Max.

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  Rick Deckard

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