A24’s Overlooked Fantasy Gem On HBO Max
A24 releases a lot of great movies every year, but you definitely missed an incredible fantasy movie that the company distributed earlier in 2025. The studio is known for small-scale drama and horror films, whether its Daniel Craig’s Queer or Ti West’s X trilogy. As a result, grand fantasy tales aren’t typically associated with the company.
A24 has taken some big swings this year, releasing several films that wouldn’t typically be associated with the company’s output. Warfare is a grounded war movie meant to follow up on the success of Civil War. Materialists is a traditional romcom that is played straight. Death of a Unicorn is a high-concept comedy horror film.
Among all these titles, not to mention the likes of Bring Her Back, Eddington, and Friendship, it’s easy to miss one of the studio’s titles, especially when it doesn’t fit the “conventional” mold of an A24 movie. This includes a fantasy film that is one of their oddest releases this year.
You Should Watch The Legend Of Ochi Now That It’s Streaming
Image via A24
The Legend of Ochi is now streaming, and if you didn’t get the chance to see it in theaters, you should definitely check it out now. The 2025 fantasy adventure film is now streaming on HBO Max, so a whole new audience can feast their eyes on the PG-rated fantasy film that runs for 1 hour and 35 minutes.
The movie is director and writer Isaiah Saxon’s feature film debut and stars Helena Zengel, Finn Wolfhard, and Willem Dafoe. The story follows a group of humans on an island who tell tales of a fierce species known as the ochi. However, a young girl named Yuri discovers a baby ochi and decides to return it to its family, sending her on a quest into the unknown.
Despite having a budget of $10 million, The Legend of Ochi only made $4.9 million at the box office, showing just how little attention it got. However, its critical performance was much better than its commercial. The Legend of Ochi has 76% on Rotten Tomatoes, but it was more divisive for regular viewers, as indicated by the lower audience score of 62%.
The film tells an original fantasy story, which is reason enough to check it out. It also makes fantastic use of practical effects and puppetry to bring the titular species to life, so fans of this style should see the film.
Given the smaller nature of its theatrical release, it’s somewhat understandable if you missed out on the bite-sized film in theaters. Now that it is on HBO Max, it is the perfect time to give The Legend of Ochi a chance as it gets a second life on streaming.
The Legend of Ochi
8/10
- Release Date
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April 18, 2025
- Runtime
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95 minutes
- Director
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Isaiah Saxon
- Writers
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Isaiah Saxon
- Producers
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Richard Peete, Jonathan Wang, Traci Carlson, Isaiah Saxon
