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9 Years Later, A24’s 113-Minute Masterpiece Seeks Redemption on Streaming

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Having now earned five acting Oscar nominations without winning, Ethan Hawke is overdue his Academy flowers. His latest nomination was a Best Actor nod earlier this year for portraying real-life American lyricist Lorenz Hart in Richard Linklater‘s Blue Moon. Hawke immerses himself into the character, being almost unrecognizable both in voice and certainly by hairstyle. Hawke’s nomination was one of two for Blue Moon, with Robert Kaplow also recognized in the Best Original Screenplay category.

Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be for Blue Moon on the night of the 98th Academy Awards, with Hawke walking away empty-handed. This wasn’t a surprise, with his nomination considered the least likely to win against the likes of Timothée Chalamet for Marty Supreme, Michael B. Jordan for Sinners, Leonardo DiCaprio for One Battle After Another, and Wagner Moura for The Secret Agent. It might not have won, but Blue Moon is the latest reminder that Hawke is one of the finest actors of his generation, and a performance many consider to be his best is about to stream for free.

Directed by Paul Schrader, the psychological thriller First Reformed features a stunning central turn from Hawke as Reverend Ernst Toller of First Reformed. The film was hailed by critics as a modern masterpiece, although it sadly failed to find its theatrical audiences and left theaters having only earned $3.9 million against a reported budget of $3.5 million. Although the movie holds a near-perfect reputation with fans, it still deserves much more attention. With that in mind, you’ll be able to watch First Reformed for free, starting this June 1, 2026, on Plex.

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Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz
Which Oscar Best Picture
Is Your Perfect Movie?

Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country

Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.

🪜Parasite

🌀Everything Everywhere

☢️Oppenheimer

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🐦Birdman

🪙No Country for Old Men

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01

What kind of film experience do you actually want?
The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.





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02

Which idea grabs you most in a film?
Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?





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03

How do you like your story told?
Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.





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04

What makes a truly great antagonist?
The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?





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05

What do you want from a film’s ending?
The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?





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06

Which setting pulls you in most?
Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.





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07

What cinematic craft impresses you most?
Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.





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08

What kind of main character do you root for?
The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.





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09

How do you feel about a film that takes its time?
Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.





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10

What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema?
The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?





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The Academy Has Decided
Your Perfect Film Is…

Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.

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Parasite

You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.

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Everything Everywhere All at Once

You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.

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Oppenheimer

You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.

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Birdman

You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.

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No Country for Old Men

You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.

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What Is Ethan Hawke Doing Next?

Off the back of his latest Academy Award nomination, Hawke’s next project has already impressed critics. After its premiere at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, The Weight, a historical drama directed by Padraic McKinley, now boasts a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score of 94%, with one critic calling it “Mr. Hawke’s show the whole way through.” However, Hawke isn’t the only talented star cast in the film, with the likes of Russell Crowe, Julia Jones, Austin Amelio, and more also featuring. The Weight is scheduled for theatrical release on September 18, 2026.

Ethan Hawke’s First Reformed is streaming for free on Plex, starting June 1, 2026. Make sure to stay tuned to Collider for all the latest stories.


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Release Date

May 18, 2018

Runtime

113 Minutes

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Director

Paul Schrader

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