What to Watch on Max December 2023
There are almost too many great shows and movies on Max—we’ve highlighted 90 of our favorites.
Other streaming services, like Netflix and Prime Video, might have more movies and TV shows, but Max makes up for its slightly smaller quantity with quality.
For one, it gives you access to the HBO vault, which includes decades of acclaimed series, like Curb Your Enthusiasm and Six Feet Under. For two, Max’s own shows (a.k.a. Max Originals like Hacks and The Flight Attendant) rank among the best you can stream.
It wasn’t easy to narrow down, but we’ve curated this list of some of our favorites currently available to stream on Max—and we didn’t even include all 26 seasons of South Park. Sorry, Kenny.
Set in an idyllic Hawaiian resort (The White Lotus, of course), the first season of Mike White’s The White Lotus follows a group of guests (including Jennifer Coolidge, Connie Britton, Steve Zahn, Jake Lacey, and Alexandra Daddario) who come to realize there’s a darkness behind the Lotus’s sunny façade. In keeping with the Mike White brand, things get weird from there. The even-better second season goes to Sicily with Aubrey Plaza, Meghann Fahy, and Michael Imperioli.
Veteran actress Jean Smart commands her role as Deborah Vance, a longtime Las Vegas comedian whose withering casino showcase residency is being threatened by younger acts. Reluctantly, she hires 20-something comedy writer Ava (Hanna Einbinder) to punch up her material. Sparks fly, but then a sweetly funny frenemyship is forged between these hacks.
Kaley Cuoco jettisons her Big Bang Theory sitcom image with Cassie, a boozy international flight attendant who wakes up from her latest one-night stand next to a dead body. Soon, she’s on the run from the authorities and the killer, never without a vodka soda in hand or a terrible decision in mind. The Flight Attendant is a darkly comedic murder mystery that doesn’t let up.
If you think your family has problems, wait till you meet the Roys. As aging patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) clings to his role as head of a billion-dollar media conglomerate, he also pits his children (Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin, and Alan Ruck) against each other to become his successor. This dark wealth satire is as unpredictable as it is biting, with almost no redeemable characters—and yet Succession is still addictive. You’ll (almost) pity the rich.
Hitman-for-hire Barry (Bill Hader) travels to Los Angeles for a job, but inadvertently becomes involved with the local theater scene and decides to pursue acting. Unfortunately, his mentor (Stephen Root) and the Chechen mob (including scene-stealer Anthony Carrigan as “NoHo Hank”) won’t let him out of the criminal life. Hader kills it, in every sense, as Barry.
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Obnoxious foodie Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) and paid escort Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) sail to an exotic island to dine at Master Chef Slowik’s (Ralph Fiennes) ridiculously exclusive restaurant. Slowly, it becomes obvious that Chef Slowik has darker plans aside from serving a $1,200-a-plate dinner to a gaggle of annoying snobs (including John Leguizamo, Janet McTeer, and Judith Light). The Menu is tense, funny, terrifying, and mouthwatering all at once—eat up!
Zack Snyder left 2017’s Justice League to another director, who turned it into a colorful, quippy mess that didn’t impress critics or fans. Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a four-hour reset of his own DC universe, a spectacularly indulgent but still entertaining dark superhero fable that does better by its characters. Without ZSJL, we might not have fully appreciated The Suicide Squad.
Horror master James Wan (The Conjuring, Insidious, Saw) strikes again with Malignant, a brand-new tale of psychological terror he says has more in common with pulpy Italian Giallo thrillers than traditional American shock flicks. Madison (Annabelle Wallis) is tormented by constant dreams of horrific murders, only to find out they’re real. Maybe don’t watch Malignant alone.
Sundance hit documentary The Janes looks at the underground Chicago network The Jane Collective, a group that secretly provided women with access to safe abortions before Roe v. Wade in the 1970s. Using safe houses, fronts, and code names to protect themselves, The Jane Collective operated covertly until seven women were arrested in a 1972 police raid. Unfortunately, The Janes is as relevant as ever right now.
On the lighter side, the best sports documentary of all time remains 1996’s Space Jam, the movie that simultaneously launched and ended Michael Jordan’s acting career. Space Jam, wherein Jordan leads a rag-tag team of Looney Tunes against alien basketball franchise The Monstars, is still a wild (if incoherent) ride. Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021) isn’t bad, either.
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