How to watch The Matrix Resurrections in Australia

It was only a matter of time, really. With Hollywood soft-rebooting and throwing sequels at any franchise with a pulse these days, The Matrix 4 felt like more of an inevitability than a possibility. While The Matrix 4 (or The Matrix Resurrections as it’s officially called) did have its filming impacted by COVID-19, its release is upon us.

And in Australia, you have a couple of main ways to watch it including at the cinemas (finally) and from the comfort of your couch with HBO Max and a VPN. To get psyched, check out The Matrix 4 trailer below.

This is by far the easiest way to watch The Matrix 4, depending on how comfortable you are being in cramped cinema these days, possibly wearing a mask through the entirety of the movie’s two hours and 28-minute running time. Head to your favourite cinema outlet and book a ticket for 26 December, which is the release date for The Matrix 4, or any later time that suits.

While the release date for The Matrix 4 in Australia is 26 December at cinemas, you can watch it a few days earlier via HBO Max. Unfortunately, HBO Max isn’t officially available in Australia, but The Matrix 4 will be available to watch there from 22 December until 31 days later. You can still watch The Matrix 4 on HBO Max, though, if you don’t mind using a virtual private network (VPN).

Before we dive into that, it’s worth flagging that using a VPN to access international streaming services that are geoblocked in Australia is a big ol’ dark-grey area, so you do run the risk of losing access to your HBO Max account if you’re detected. Also, streaming services tend to sporadically block VPN servers or services, so if it your VPN is blocked one day, you may have to wait to try again.

Before you can even sign up for HBO Max, you’re going to need a VPN service that plays nice with the US streaming service. From our tests, these six VPN services work best when connecting to a US server from Australia to stream content via HBO Max:

• Hotspot Shield
• NordVPN
• Windscribe VPN
• PureVPN
• TunnelBear
• ExpressVPN

Do you have friends, family or peers in the US who are kind enough to share their HBO Max login details with you? If so, be sure to tell them how much you appreciate them! Now use any of those above VPN services to connect to a US server (anything on the West Coast is ideal because it’ll be faster), then punch in the shared HBO Max login details to stream content. HBO Max accounts support up to three simultaneous streams.

If you don’t have access to HBO Max login details, you’re going to need to start your own subscription. You may have some luck piggybacking a Hulu one-month trial with a seven-day HBO Max channel add-on trial, but I personally haven’t been able to get that to work for a long time.

Outside of Hulu, the next easiest solution is to buy a US VISA prepaid card. In the past, this has proven tricky, but use a VPN connected to a US server to visit somewhere like Target.com (not the Australian version) and search for VISA gift cards. You’ll need to get a little creative with your address by using or creating a US address, but you may be able to nab one. I say “may” because there’s a chance your order is cancelled, so shop around if that’s the case or switch payment methods (where possible).

With your VPN on, head to the HBO Max website and select whether you want the ads plan (US$9.99 per month) or no-ads alternative (US$14.99 per month). Alternatively, you can sign up for an annual plan: US$99.99 per year for the ads plan and US$149.99 for the ad-free version. From here, enter an email and password, then add the VISA prepaid card details to the payment screen to start streaming.

If you’d rather not mess around with VISA prepaid gift cards, there is another way, though it is trickier. For those with Android devices, you can sign up to HBO Max via the Google Play Store. According to my internet sleuthing, this also works with iOS devices on the App Store, but I don’t have an iPhone or iPad to test it.

For Android users, you’re going to have to get comfy with the idea of downloading the HBO Max app via Google search. Use a search term like ‘HBO Max apk download’ to find the HBO Max app, which is geoblocked on the Australian Google Play Store. Once downloaded, open the file and you’ll be prompted to install it. This is more of an advanced trick, and you really should only do it if you’re comfortable with bypassing the Google Play Store to install an app you know to be legit. If you have a virus scanner on your Google device, now’s the time to use once the apk is downloaded.

Once the HBO Max app is installed, you’ll connect to a US VPN server on your Android device. All of the options recommended above should have an Android app, so install that and connect to a stateside server. Now you can load the HBO Max app, where you’ll be prompted for a payment method. Set up a recurring Google Play payment method and you’re good to go. For my tests, it didn’t work with PayPal but it did work with my Australian VISA debit card.

With the payment part sorted, you can now use any supported device to watch The Matrix 4 or a wealth of other content on HBO Max.