Cosmopolis, the dramatic thriller written and directed by David Cronenberg, joins the catalog of HBO Max on August 9, 2026. Adapted from the eponymous novel by Don DeLillo, the 2012 film stars Robert Pattinson, with Juliette Binoche, Paul Giamatti, Samantha Morton and Sarah Gadon.
In a New York gridlocked by the visit of the President of the United States, Eric Packer, a young billionaire at the helm of a financial empire, threads his way across Manhattan in his white limousine. His objective appears simple: to reach his father's barber shop, tucked away at the other end of town.
But as traffic jams, protests, and security threats slow his progress, Eric Packer’s world begins to fall apart. A high-stakes move against the yuan undermines his fortune, visitors keep flocking into the private car, and the threat of his assassination becomes ever more real.
Across this urban odyssey, unfolding in a single day, David Cronenberg follows a man locked inside a tech bubble, isolated from the chaos that slowly engulfs the city. The limousine is both his office and his sanctuary, and the emblem of an abstract financial machine he believes he can still control.
Cosmopolis tackles speculation, wealth concentration, isolation, and the fragility of power. The dialogue, heavily drawn from Don DeLillo’s novel, sits at the heart of this deliberately cool, cerebral narrative—more of an intellectual drift than a conventional thriller.
Robert Pattinson embodies this cool, impassive business executive whose certainty unravels as he encounters people. Around him, Juliette Binoche, Paul Giamatti, Samantha Morton, Sarah Gadon, Mathieu Amalric, Jay Baruchel, and Kevin Durand appear in sequence in a narrative almost entirely built around his movements through the city.
Presented in competition at the Cannes Film Festival 2012, the movie marks a convergence between Don DeLillo’s literary world and David Cronenberg’s cinema. The director extends his meditation on bodies, technology, and power relations, this time through the figure of a financier whose power rests on data and markets spiraling out of control.
Cosmopolis will be available on HBO Max beginning August 9, 2026. The film is geared primarily toward fans of dystopian storytelling, satire of capitalism, and David Cronenberg’s cerebral cinema.
To extend your discovery, check out our guide to the new releases to watch on HBO Max in August 2026, our selection of the month’s releases on streaming platforms, and our guide What to watch today in streaming?
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