A24's 'Misty Green' Lands on Netflix, Bypassing HBO Max in Unusual Streaming Deal

Chris Rock's 'Misty Green' arrived on Netflix on November 9, and the story of how it got there is almost as interesting as the film itself.

A24 has a pay-one output deal with HBO Max, which, according to reporting by Deadline, gives Warner Bros. Discovery's streamer first dibs on new A24 releases in the United States. That arrangement has held pretty consistently for years. 'Misty Green' broke it. As reported by Deadline, Rock's long-running relationship with Netflix, built through a string of stand-up specials from 'Tamborine' through 'Selective Outrage,' the platform's first live event, was enough to route the film away from its contractually expected home.

The film itself, which Rock wrote, directed, and stars in alongside Rosalind Eleazar, Adam Driver, Daniel Kaluuya, Anna Kendrick, and Topher Grace, follows a once-promising actress, played by Eleazar, fighting for a second act in an industry that has largely moved on from her. It premiered at TIFF in September and opened in limited U.S. theaters on October 9. Per reporting from AOL citing Deadline, its theatrical gross came in at $160,023, and it landed at a 59% critics score and a 68% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The critical reception has been genuinely split. Deadline's chief film critic Pete Hammond called Eleazar's work "one of the best performances by an actress this year" and said "you believe her; you may even know her." Movie Web, tracking the aggregate, put the film at 61% approval across 79 reviews, noting that movies-about-movies tend to generate that kind of divide: some read them as honest reckoning, others as self-flattery in a tuxedo.

What's worth watching here is less the film's Rotten Tomatoes number and more what the deal says about how streaming power actually works. What's-on-Netflix laid it out plainly: Netflix has picked up A24 films before, but almost always in later windows. Getting first-window rights on an A24 theatrical release, even a modestly grossing one, is a meaningful exception. The site also flagged that producer Peter Rice, described as incoming Netflix Content Boss, is a producer on 'Misty Green,' though neither Netflix nor A24 has formally acknowledged his role in brokering the arrangement.

For Rock, who hasn't directed a feature in twelve years, this is a real swing. The subject matter, a Black actress navigating Hollywood's diminishing interest, tracks as the kind of project that takes personal investment to get made. Whether audiences actually find it on Netflix is the next question. The platform doesn't publish viewership numbers in any form that lets critics verify a hit, but the Nov. 9 drop put it into the streaming ecosystem right as awards conversation starts heating up in earnest.

Rosalind Eleazar, best known from 'Slow Horses' and 'Missing You,' is the name to watch. If the film has a future beyond this November, she's why.

Sources cited:
- Deadline (https://deadline.com/2026/10/chris-rock-mistry-green-netflix-date-1237169655/)
- What's on Netflix (https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/misty-green-rosalind-eleazar-netflix-arrival/)
- AOL / Deadline (https://www.aol.com/articles/a24-breaks-hbo-max-deal-201500000.html)
- Movie Web (https://movieweb.com/misty-green-neflix-release-date/)