{"id":378066,"date":"2026-09-16T07:28:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T14:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/?p=378066"},"modified":"2026-09-30T09:23:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T16:23:00","slug":"the-last-samurai-surges-on-hbo-max-shogun-interest-grows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/the-last-samurai-surges-on-hbo-max-shogun-interest-grows\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last Samurai surges on HBO Max: Sh\u014dgun interest grows"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Edward Zwick\u2019s 2003 historical epic <em><a href=\"https:\/\/last-samurai.en.softonic.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\">The Last Samurai<\/a><\/em> has quietly climbed into <a href=\"https:\/\/hbo-max.en.softonic.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\">HBO Max<\/a>\u2019s most-streamed movie chart in the U.S., giving the Tom Cruise film a surprising <strong>second run<\/strong> more than twenty years after it first hit theaters.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That timing makes sense. <a href=\"https:\/\/fx-calc.en.softonic.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\">FX<\/a>\u2019s 2024 breakout <em><a href=\"https:\/\/shogun.en.softonic.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Sh\u014dgun<\/a><\/em> is still driving a lot of the conversation, and it\u2019s easy to see why people are circling back to older samurai stories. In <em>The Last Samurai<\/em>, Cruise plays <strong>Capt. Nathan Algren<\/strong>, a Civil War veteran carrying deep trauma who\u2019s hired to train the Emperor\u2019s modern army during the Meiji Restoration. From there, the film moves into bigger territory: honor, identity, cultural upheaval, and the collision between modernization and the samurai way of life.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And if <em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.softonic.com\/articles\/why-should-you-be-watching-shogun-the-disney-plus-series-everyone-is-talking-about\" rel=\"noopener\">Sh\u014dgun<\/a><\/em> left you wanting more Hiroyuki Sanada, there\u2019s another reason to revisit it. Sanada plays <strong>Ujio<\/strong> in <em>The Last Samurai<\/em> after leading FX\u2019s 2024 hit <em>Sh\u014dgun<\/em> as Toranaga. He also worked as a consultant on <em>The Last Samurai<\/em> and later served as a producer on <em>Sh\u014dgun<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The movie still holds up as a star-powered spectacle, and it also captures a particular moment in Hollywood\u2019s changing relationship with Japanese stories. It reportedly pulled in <strong>$450 million<\/strong> worldwide, sits at 65% with critics and 83% with audiences on <a href=\"https:\/\/rotten-tomatoes.en.softonic.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>, and still gets credit for its scale, cinematography, costumes, emotional sweep, Ken Watanabe\u2019s Oscar-nominated performance, and Cruise\u2019s more restrained turn. At the same time, it continues to draw criticism for its historical liberties and its white-savior framing.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You can stream <em>The Last Samurai<\/em> now on HBO Max <strong>in the U.S.<\/strong> and on MGM Plus.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Edward Zwick\u2019s 2003 historical epic The Last Samurai has quietly climbed into HBO Max\u2019s most-streamed movie chart in the U.S., giving the Tom Cruise film a surprising second run more than twenty years after it first hit theaters. That timing makes sense. FX\u2019s 2024 breakout Sh\u014dgun is still driving a lot of the conversation, and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/the-last-samurai-surges-on-hbo-max-shogun-interest-grows\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Last Samurai surges on HBO Max: Sh\u014dgun interest grows&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9352,"featured_media":378065,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[6869],"class_list":["post-378066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","content-category-streaming-videos"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378066"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":378067,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378066\/revisions\/378067"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378066"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=378066"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=378066"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=378066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}