Silicon Valley
The best comedy HBO made in its era that nobody puts in the top tier, and that is a crime. A founder’s journey through the tech industry where every genius is also an idiot and every victory immediately breeds its…
Tag best shows on Max
Stuart Fails to Save the Universe
Solar Opposites side characters get their own show, and the result is a scrappy animated sci fi comedy that leans into its own weirdness. Stuart, a hapless alien underachiever, is handed the job of saving existence itself, which he is…
Harry Potter
The Early Word: HBO is remaking Harry Potter as a television series, one season per book, with an entirely new cast. Season 1 adapts Philosopher’s Stone and premieres December 25, 2026: a Christmas Day arrival that HBO is treating as…
Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty
The 1980s Lakers become showtime, and Adam McKay’s production turns sports history into a neon comedy with a great John C. Reilly as Jerry Buss. Quincy Isaiah’s rookie Magic Johnson and the behind the scenes chaos of a franchise reinventing…
Industry
Young graduates claw for permanent positions at a London investment bank, and the finance drama is really a war story about ambition, drugs, and 3 AM deals. Myha’la’s Harper is one of TV’s great volatile leads, and Ken Leung’s desk…
Euphoria
Sam Levinson’s portrait of teenagers navigating addiction, love, and identity is the most visually daring show HBO has aired: makeup as armor, drug sequences as horror, and Zendaya delivering one of the great young performances as Rue, whose relapses the…
Hacks
A legendary Vegas comedian past her prime hires a young writer canceled for a bad joke, and the war between them becomes the best written friendship on television. Jean Smart is operating at a level no one else touches, and…
Barry
A hitman takes an acting class and discovers he wants to be a different person, which is the funniest and darkest premise HBO has aired. Bill Hader and Henry Winger play the contradiction beautifully, a man committing murder while sincerely…
The Pitt
Noah Wyle returns to the hospital and reinvents the medical drama: one fifteen hour shift, one episode per hour, no flashbacks, no romance subplots, just the grind of a Pittsburgh ER. It is the most realistic show about medicine ever…
True Detective
The first season is a legend: Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as Louisiana detectives hunting a killer across seventeen years, with a mood so thick you can taste it. Rust Cohle’s philosophy made half the internet quote it for a…