Chris Evans’ Forgotten Crime Thriller Finally Finds a Streaming Audience 1 Year Later

For nearly a decade, fans of Joel and Ethan Coen have had one wish and one wish only — to see them get back to making movies together again. Known collectively as the Coen Brothers, the wildly talented pair of siblings are the visionaries behind an onslaught of movies that cross over genres and speak to multiple generations. What started in 1984 with Blood Simple quickly turned into a decade-spanning career that left the duo with a multitude of awards and acclaim that only the most established in the industry can achieve. Films like The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Burn After Reading have left fans with unforgettable quotes while others, like Fargo, have taken on a life of their own and spawned follow-up content. And, of course, there’s also the sprawl of characters that they’ve created, with every movie outdoing the set of personalities that came before.

Tragically, the Coen dynasty seemed to have come crashing down in 2018 after the siblings paired with Netflix to create The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Following in the steps of True Grit and No Country for Old Men, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs was a dark Western filled to the brim with numerous of the brothers’ longtime collaborators. Sadly, it might be the final Coen brothers flick to see the light of day as, after its release, the filmmaking team decided to venture off on their own. Joel Coen would be the first to make moves as a solo director with the arrival of the critically acclaimed The Tragedy of Macbeth in 2021, while his brother soon followed by way of documentary filmmaking via 2022’s Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind.

After that, it seemed that both siblings would step away from the spotlight until Ethan Coen reappeared with Drive-Away Dolls in 2024. This time, Coen worked alongside his wife Tricia Cooke as the co-scribe of the production, which saw Margaret Qualley star as a young lesbian who finds herself in a mix-up with a group of criminals after renting a car. With a vision in mind, Coen and Cooke said the title would be the first in an eventual trilogy of lesbian B-movies and soon followed it up in 2025 with Honey Don’t! While both Drive-Away Dolls and Honey Don’t! may have flopped at the box office, the latter is enjoying a slight resurgence as, according to FlixPatrol, it has worked its way onto HBO Max’s global Top 10.

What’s ‘Honey Don’t!’ About?

Sticking to his neo-noir Western guns, Coen crafted Honey Don’t! to be a whodunnit that followed in the footsteps of his earlier musings. The film follows Qualley’s Honey O’Danahue, a private investigator who is on the case after a string of bizarre deaths are tracked back to a local church. Joining Qualley is an ensemble that includes the talents of Charlie Day, Aubrey Plaza, and Chris Evans. While, on the outside, Honey Don’t! had all the makings of a hit, audiences and critics weren’t particularly excited about the latest to come from one half of the greatest directorial pairings in history.

Honey Don’t! is now streaming in select countries on HBO Max.