One of the most influential crime films ever made is about to disappear from HBO Max. Le Samourai, the 1967 French thriller directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, is scheduled to leave the platform in September 2026, according to a report by Collider.
The film is nearly 60 years old. It follows a silent, methodical assassin who must figure out why he is being hunted. Alain Delon stars in the central role, and his performance, combined with the film's cool, stripped-down style, made the picture a foundational text for decades of crime cinema that followed.
The reach of Le Samourai is wide. Collider notes it directly influenced Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive, the entire John Wick franchise, and Frederick Forsyth's bestselling novel The Day of the Jackal, which was adapted into a 1973 film and a 2024 television series. Its shadow also falls over Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, Luc Besson's Leon: The Professional, and the Star Wars streaming series The Mandalorian.
Drive, released in 2011, grossed more than $80 million at the box office and remains one of the most acclaimed cult classics of that decade. Refn has not come close to replicating that commercial success since. His 2016 film The Neon Demon made around $3.5 million. Only God Forgives ended its run with $10 million. His most recent feature, Her Private Hell, starring Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton, earned $1 million at the box office after a 10-year gap during which Refn worked in long-form streaming and advertising.
For viewers who have not yet seen Le Samourai, the film remains on HBO Max for the remainder of August and into the early part of September. After that, it will no longer be available on the platform.
