After a pretty successful run in theaters, The Iron Claw is headed to streaming. The movie, which is based on the true story of the Von Erich brothers, a family of professional wrestlers who met tragic ends in the 1980s, was one of A24’s biggest commercial successes upon its release in December of 2023 and one of the best wrestling movies ever made.
If you missed the movie when it was in theaters, though, you’re in luck. It’s about to make its streaming debut.
When will The Iron Claw start streaming?
The Iron Claw will begin streaming on Max on May 10.
It stars Zac Efron as Kevin Von Ehrich, the oldest brother in the Von Ehrich family, as he navigates his relationships with his brothers and the pressure that their father puts on each of them to succeed in the ring. The movie also stars Holt McCallany, Maura Tierney, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, and Lily James and was directed by Sean Durkin.
In addition to being one of A24’s biggest successes, the movie also represents the biggest triumph of Durkin’s career as a director to date. He burst onto the scene with Martha Marcy May Marlene back in 2011 and then took an extended break before returning with 2020’s The Nest. Both movies are well worth seeing, although each is decidedly less commercial than The Iron Claw, which deftly tells one of the most tragic stories imaginable.
The Iron Claw was not able to get through to award bodies
In spite of an overwhelmingly positive critical response and box office success, The Iron Claw was not able to break its way into the 2023 Oscar race, which had already been pretty well defined by the time it hit theaters in late December. Efron’s central performance earned particular praise, showcasing a kind of emotional range that many were unsure whether the former teen star would be able to deliver.
Each of Durkin’s three movies has been a critical favorite that failed to register with the Oscars and other awards bodies, but The Iron Claw was easily the most accessible of those efforts. Durkin’s next movie may very well breakthrough, and each of this movie’s stars may be on the trajectory toward Oscars success down the road as well.
For now, though, Efron, White and Dickinson will just have to be content with the movie they made and the success it had with general audiences.
Now that it’s set to hit Max, The Iron Claw will likely hit even more people, and those people will likely continue the outrage over the movie’s lack of awards success. The movie itself will break your heart, but it’s also a movie about the profound joy of having a family and what it means to lose the people you love the most and go on living.
