Ryan Gosling’s Near-Perfect Sci-fi Movie Officially Becomes an HBO Max Streaming Hit

The neon-soaked sci-fi sequel is topping HBO Max’s movie chart

Ryan Gosling has built one of Hollywood’s strangest little sub-specialties with some of his most recent movies: being a sad, handsome man in space.

At some point, you have to imagine Gosling told his agent, “Get me more doomed sci-fi.” Since then, he’s played Ryland Grace in the massive space drama Project Hail Mary, Neil Armstrong in Damien Chazelle’s First Man, and he’s already booked his next trip beyond Earth by starring in Star Wars: Starfighter, the stand-alone Shawn Levy-directed movie coming next year.

But before Gosling heads to a galaxy far, far away, one of his best sci-fi thrillers is getting another moment on streaming. A modern classic starring Gosling was recently added to HBO Max, and it has already shot to the top of the service’s movie charts.

That movie is Blade Runner 2049, Denis Villeneuve’s gorgeous sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi landmark Blade Runner. According to FlixPatrol, the movie is the No. 1 on HBO Max worldwide right now — a contrast to the 2017 movie's meager performance at the box office. (Blade Runner 2049 only made $277 million worldwide against a $150 million budget.)

What is Blade Runner 2049 about?

To understand Blade Runner 2049, it helps to start with the original Blade Runner. Scott’s 1982 movie is set in a dystopian future Los Angeles where artificial humans known as replicants are used for labor and hunted down when they go rogue. Harrison Ford stars as Rick Deckard, a “blade runner” whose job is to track and “retire” escaped replicants.

That movie is free to watch on YouTube right now, if you need to catch up.

Blade Runner 2049 picks up decades later and follows Officer K, played by Gosling, a new blade runner working for the LAPD. K uncovers a buried secret that could destabilize the fragile order between humans and replicants, sending him on a search that eventually pulls him toward Deckard and the mysteries left behind by the original film. It is a detective movie, a dystopian romance, and a slow-burn sci-fi thriller all at once.

When Blade Runner 2049 was released in 2017, Polygon’s review praised it as a rare legacy sequel that actually justified returning to a beloved classic. The film reaches back to the original without simply repeating it. Its neon-soaked cities, desert-orange ruins, and thunderous score make the future feel familiar and disorienting at the same time.

Blade Runner 2049 holds an 88% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, with reviewers praising its stunning visuals and haunting score.an 88% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes

Blade Runner 2049 also remains one of Gosling’s most memorable sci-fi roles, giving him a quieter, lonelier kind of hero than the ones usually found in massive genre movies. And with Prime Video’s Blade Runner 2099 on the way, the movie now feels like a key bridge between Ridley Scott’s original nightmare and the franchise’s next future.