There’s no place like a courtroom for the holidays. Warner Bros. Discovery announced today that Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2, starring Nicholas Hoult, will begin streaming on Max starting December 20. Controversially, the legal thriller only had a limited release in the U.S.—after opening in theaters on November 1, it will have spent a little less than two months on the big screen. But at least everybody’s dad will have something to watch over winter hols.
Eastwood’s latest directorial effort “follows family man Justin Kemp (Hoult) who, while serving as a juror in a high-profile murder trial, finds himself struggling with a serious moral dilemma…one he could use to sway the jury verdict and potentially convict—or free—the accused killer,” according to the film’s synopsis. The movie has thus far garnered critical acclaim, with a 93% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Juror #2 “turns an unlikely premise rich with fidgety, noirish guilt into a thorny moral dilemma,” Ignatiy Vishnevetsky writes in his B+ review for The A.V. Club. “To all appearances, it’s a solid, unpretentious piece of work, but like some of Eastwood’s more ambitious classics, it centers its murky moral contradictions without contriving a way to resolve them.”
WBD has withheld box office information on Juror #2‘s limited release, a move Deadline previously speculated was meant to “save face” for the 94-year-old director. However, many cinema acolytes have taken issue with the excessively short theatrical window for what could be Eastwood’s final film. IndieWire, for example, crunched the numbers and concluded that the studio owed Eastwood a bigger release based on the critical, commercial, and Oscar-worthy successes he’s given Warners as an actor, director, and producer during his five-decade-long relationship with the studio. Elsewhere, Guillermo del Toro praised the film and questioned “Why was this not released wide in the states?” in a post on Bluesky. “We saw at the Grove with a significant crowd that was vocal and responsive all the way. I truly hope WB can hold it longer,” he wrote. “Eastwood is a master filmmaker and the steady, unfussy craft reveals him still in great form. Go see it on the big screen!” You heard the man—and you’ve got about a month left to do it.