How to watch The Suicide Squad (2021) in Australia

The Suicide Squad is a soft-reboot, sorta sequel to a movie of almost the same name (anyone else having flashbacks to The Thing and its prequel, The Thing?). But while David Ayer’s Suicide Squad from 2016 was critically derided and mostly meh for audiences—with fans, these days, calling for a #ReleaseTheSynderCut-style release of writer/director Ayer’s original cut—The Suicide Squad from 2021 is a critically praised and, so far, beloved by audiences.

The giant Joker-coloured elephant in the room, though, is how you go about watching it in Australia. Originally, the plan was for an exclusive theatrical release, assumedly made at a time when most Australia’s population wasn’t in lockdown. Unfortunately, that plan didn’t change, but there is still a way to watch The Suicide Squad from the comfort of your own home. No, no, we’re not talking about pirating the movie; we’re talking about using a VPN.

Thankfully, using the power of a virtual private network (VPN) service and payment trickery, there is a way to stream The Suicide Squad in Australia. Full disclosure: using a VPN to stream content is generally frowned upon by service providers, so you do run the risk of violating a user agreement and, potentially, having your account banned.

Still keen to proceed? Then you’re going to need HBO Max.

If you have friends, family and/or random people in the USA who you’re on good terms with, ask them if you can use one of their three simultaneous streams to watch The Suicide Squad. They’ll need to share their username and password with you, but then you can create your own profile and get down to the business of watching The Suicide Squad or anything else that’s available on HBO Max.

You’ll still need to use a VPN service that can bypass HBO Max’s geoblocking or a Smart DNS service like Getflix to access the content via browser or app on a compatible device.

It used to be that you could use a VPN and HBO gift cards to streamline this process, but since the shift from HBO Now to HBO Max, gift cards are increasingly trickier to find, at least online. The most straightforward way is to use a service like US Unlocked to create a virtual credit card with US details (critical for bypassing HBO Max’s payment geoblock), but these services don’t tend to be cheap. Another option is to use Hulu.

Even though a bunch of Hulu content is available these days on Disney Plus in Australia (via the Star section), there are still reasons to sign up for a Hulu account. One of those reasons is that you can pay extra for add-ons like HBO Max, and the other is Hulu offers a one-month free trial and a seven-day HBO Max trial. If you set your calendar reminders properly, you can technically cancel both trials and watch The Suicide Squad for free.

To sign up for a free Hulu trial, though, you need to enter payment details, which means either a credit card or PayPal account. The catch is it needs to be either a US credit card or a US PayPal account, which brings the US virtual credit card from above back into play. Thankfully, you can bypass this by grabbing a Hulu gift card from an online outlet like MyGiftCardSupply, then redeeming it at the Hulu ‘Redeem Your Gift’ page.

You don’t need to use a VPN to purchase from a gift card retailer, but you should use one while signing up for Hulu, connected to a US server, and you need to be connected to a US VPN server (or using a Smart DNS service) to stream content. With one of these geoblocking side-steppers active, redeem your Hulu gift card and complete the sign-up process.

From here, log in to Hulu then click on your name in the top right-hand corner and select ‘Account’. Once the page loads, select ‘Manage add-ons’, then scroll down until you find the option to add HBO Max.

If you’d prefer to keep HBO Max as an ongoing streaming option, there is another way to watch The Suicide Squad. There are reports that this also works for the App Store on iOS devices, but I’ve only been able to test it via Google Play. It’s easier on Android because you can download region-locked apps by searching for them: in this instance, googling “HBO Max apk download” will point you in the right direction for acquiring the HBO Max app for an Australian device, which is otherwise geoblocked on the Australian Google Play Store.

Fair warning, we only recommend this step for savvy Android users who don’t mind installing apps outside of the Google Play Store, which tends to have an inherent risk if you download the wrong files.

From here, force your Android device to install the .apk file (a raw app file) from your downloads folder and you’re almost off to the races. Connect to a US VPN server on your Android smartphone or tablet, then set up a monthly or annually recurring payment subscription via Google Play. For my test, it didn’t work with an Australian PayPal account as a payment method but did with an Australian debit card.

With the payment out of the way, you can use a VPN or Smart DNS service to access The Suicide Squad and other HBO Max content via a range of supported devices.

At the time of writing, a lot of Australia was either in lockdown or had restrictions that mean going to the cinema is either not an option or may not be particularly viable. If you’re in Tasmania, though, you can go check out The Suicide Squad at your leisure in your local Village Cinemas theatre. Any other states that aren’t in lockdown and are reading this during the theatrical period for The Suicide Squad, check your local cinema for session times.

Unlike other recent movies like Black Widow and Jungle Cruise, there is no day-and-date parity between theatrical release and Disney Plus-like at-home streaming option for The Suicide Squad. While normally you might expect to find movies like this on Binge, it was not available for streaming at the time of writing.

With a VPN or Smart DNS service, you can stream HBO Max via web browser or with the following devices:

• Android smartphones or tablets
• iOS smartphones or tablet
• Samsung TV
• Amazon Fire TV
• Android TV
• Apple TV
• Google Chromecast
• PlayStation 4
• PlayStation 5
• Roku
• Xbox One
• Xbox Series S
• Xbox Series X

The Suicide Squad is absolutely worth watching, even if you haven’t seen the one from 2016 or you’re not a big fan of DC movies. While it’s technically set in the same universe as the recent slew of DC movies up to and including Birds of Prey, it’s separate enough that you don’t need to have watched any other DC movies beforehand. There’s plenty of gore and foul language, in line with the MA15+ rating in Australia, so it’s not one to watch with the kids, but there’s still a lot of fun to be had.

If you’ve ended up on this page looking for how to watch David Ayer’s Suicide Squad from 2016, you have more options. You can grab it on 4K, Blu-ray or DVD if you’re into physical media, otherwise you can rent or purchase it digitally on Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, YouTube, the Microsoft Store or on Fetch TV.

If you have a hankering to catch up on Harley Quinn’s antics before The Suicide Squad, you can also check out Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn). Nab Birds of Prey on 4K, Blu-ray or DVD or stream it via Netflix or Binge.