One of 2025’s very best movies is finally available to stream at home

With a 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes, the Oscar-winning film is a true crowd-pleaser.

Some recent examples of films like this include the Oscar-winners and nominees Another Round, The Holdovers, The Worst Person in the World and A Real Pain - with the latter newly available to stream via Disney+.

Written and directed by and starring Jesse Eisenberg, the actor plays David - a husband and father living in New York who agrees to embark on a Jewish heritage tour through Poland with his free-spirited drifter cousin and former close friend Benji (Kieran Culkin, in an Oscar-winning turn).

This is in honour of their grandmother who has recently passed away and had emigrated to America from Poland during World War II.

Very soon into the trip, it soon becomes clear why the pair had become estranged. David's buttoned-up, mild, self-conscious manner clashes with Benji's charisma and abrasiveness - particularly as the pair join a tour group (populated by characters played by Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan and Will Sharpe).

As Benji and David learn more about what their grandmother and millions of other Jewish people faced during WWII, they each struggle to reconcile their daily pain with their ancestors' historical trauma.

What makes A Real Pain so easy to recommend to people is that it is both extremely funny and relatable, particularly to anyone who has ever had to spend an extended amount of time with someone they love but who also often drives them up the wall.

Having spent years making the quite despicable Roman Roy on Succession oddly compelling and endearing, Culkin is expertly deployed in Eisenberg's movie to play Benji - who, like most real people but not like a lot of film characters, is hard to define as he contains multitudes.

There's a sense in Culkin's performance that Benji is a person who feels emotions deeper than most people. So, if he's in a good mood, he's the life of the party. And if he's in a bad mood, he can be actively challenging to spend time with as he gets into arguments with everyone around him - something which is a nightmare for a person like David, who cares so much about how he is perceived.

The end result is partly a comedy of manners, with Culkin and Eisenberg's screenplay finding truly inventive and hysterical ways to make Benji get on David's last nerve.

As David sums up at one point about Benji, just out of earshot of his cousin:

"I'm just, like, so f*****g exhausted by him sometimes, you know? Like, I… I, I love him and I hate him and I wanna kill him… and I wanna be him, you know? And I feel, like, so stupid around him, you know, because he is so f*****g cool and he just does not give a s**t."

Unlike a lot of weaker Hollywood movies, A Real Pain never strains credulity with its hijinks and shenanigans. Everything is believable and well-observed, particularly the character of Benji.

Even as he ends up frequently tormenting David, it never feels like Benji is actively trying to do this. Rather, he is just being himself, and who that is is so fundamentally different to David.

The film is also deceptively complex. As its title suggests, it is truly interested in the notion of "pain". This includes both the aforementioned historical trauma and the daily struggles of both Benji and David, both of whom are dealing with their own mental health issues, which the trip seems to exacerbate.

In an interview with Little White Lies, Eisenberg - who himself has OCD - said of his screenplay: "With the movie, I was just trying to pose the question – what pain is valid? Is our modern pain valid? Is my character’s treatable OCD valid when our grandparents survived the holocaust?"

It's a fascinating question to hang a film around and is sure to be one to provoke a lot of discussion amongst those who watch A Real Pain.

How to watch A Real Pain

This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a commission on any sales generated from it.

A Real Pain is available to stream on Disney+ now in the UK and Ireland.