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The erstwhile HBO Max streaming app has always benefited from being the home for HBO hits like Game of Thrones, The White Lotus, and The Last of Us, but has also produced some quality original programming of its own. Hacks is a buzzy award winner, and shows like Peacemaker and The Sex Lives of College Girls have drawn eyeballs. More recently, The Pitt is burning up social media and Spanish-language import When No One Sees Us is drawing critical acclaim.
Given the volume of streaming content out there, and the number of shows Max and HBO have already produced, together and separately, there are some great choices that might have flown under your radar. In our current streaming era, in which good shows aren’t just canceled but erased from existence (farewell, Raised by Wolves), it never hurts to take a moment to consider the slightly less talked-about shows that are equally worthy of your attention. In that spirit, we're suggesting some popular hits and a few shows that might have flown under your radar.
Duster (2025 – , season one ongoing)
J. J. Abrams is back, and Hollywood's preeminent excavator of faded genres (for better and worse) is taking on the hard-driving (literally) 1970s, with Josh Holloway (Lost, Yellowstone) stars as Jim Ellis, a getaway driver with a sweet cherry-red Plymouth. He's becoming increasingly disenchanted with his crime-syndicate boss, Ezra Saxton (Keith David), especially when he's tasked to transport a just-harvested human heart and then asked to then help with the surgery. Into his life walks Nina Hayes (Rachel Hilson), the FBI's first Black woman agent (this is 1972, after all) who enlists Ellis in her plan to bring down Saxton. It's fast-paced and (mostly) fun, with immaculate period vibes. There seems to be a fair bit of buzz here, so maybe we'll get word of a season two when the current run is done. You can stream Duster here.
The Pitt (2025 –, second season coming January 2026)
E.R.'s Noah Wyle is back in scrubs as Dr. Michael "Robby" Rabinavitch, senior attending at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital’s emergency room. Robby’s mentor died during the height of COVID-19, and he’s only just recovering from his traumatic experiences. It's gonna be a long day, though: Each episode represents a single hour of a tumultuous 15-hour shift, peppered by tragedies including a mass shooting. It feels like medical dramas are a dime a dozen, but this one is quite a bit more interesting, and a lot buzzier, than most. You can stream The Pitt here.
Hacks (2021 –, renewed for a fifth season)
After getting canceled over a tweet, 25-year-old writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder) struggles to get her career back in order, reluctantly taking a job for Deborah Vance (Jean Smart)—a comedy trailblazer who remains popular with an older Vegas crown, but whose career is largely on autopilot. They're an entirely mismatched pair, but their chemistry is ultimately explosive, with Jean Smart doing some of the best work of her incredible career as the often deeply unlikeable Vance, and Einbinder more than holding her own in return. It's funny, bitchy, and surprisingly moving when it wants to be. You can stream Hacks here.
When No One Sees Us (2025 –)
A distinctive police thriller imported from Spain, When No One Sees Us stars Mariela Garriga (Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning) as a Cuban-American special agent of the U.S. Army, and Maribel Verdú (Pan’s Labyrinth) as a Spanish Civil Guard sergeant, both investigating an apparent death by violent suicide on an air base during Holy Week. It's a twisty-turny mystery, but the performances and the emphasis on character over plot make it a standout. No word yet on whether or not we'll get another season. You can stream When No One Sees Us here.
Dune: Prophecy (2024 – , renewed for a second season)
No matter how good the movies have been, a Dune prequel tie-in series was, most likely, going to be pretty inessential. But this one's been a surprise: a juicy space soap opera set 10,000 years before the Denis Villeneuve films, a time frame that puts it well out of the way of later events and lets it stand alone. There are a lot of threads here, but the series focuses on Valya and Tula Harkonnen (Emily Watson and Tula Williams), struggling to build and maintain the Sisterhood that we'll later come to know as the Bene Gesserit in the face of an unstable political order. The ruling dynasty has a new weapon in Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel), a manipulative former soldier who seems immune to the persuasive abilities of the Sisters, thus threatening their places at the Emperor's side. Especially given that we're on HBO Max, it's not entirely unfair to suggest that the vibe (full of intrigue, shady dealings, and violent plot-twists) is a bit that of a star-spanning Game of Thrones. You can stream Dune: Prophecy here.
The Gilded Age (2022 – , third season coming in June)
Julian Fellowes made period drama buzz-worthy with Downton Abbey, and does something similar here while shifting the time and place to the 1880s in New York City. We're introduced to the world of upper and extremely upper-class New York City society by Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson), poor relation to the estranged aunties who take her in, and Peggy Scott (Denée Benton), a young Black writer from a solidly middle-class family who becomes a secretary to Christine Baranski's Agnes van Rhijn. Old-money Agnes and sister Ada (Cynthia Nixon) live across the street from new-money social climbers the Russells (led with juicy imperiousness by Carrie Coon's Bertha); established society isn't keen on letting in these upstarts—though money very much talks. In one sense, the stakes here could not possibly be lower (Bertha wants a better seat at the opera!)—so why is the show so addictive? You can stream The Gilded Age here.
Industry (2020 – , renewed for a fourth season)
This British co-production debuted somewhat quietly back in 2020, getting good reviews but not much in the way of buzz. Perhaps because it was a different era (meaning: barely five years ago), HBO brought the show back, giving it time to grow until the third season premiere was up by almost 90% in viewership over the series debut, and earned a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score. Wild, isn't it, what happens if you actually give viewers time to discover a show? Surely a fluke with no discernible lessons for networks and streamers. Anyway! The show, created by two actual former investment bankers, chronicles the cutthroat world of the fictional Pierpoint & Co in which, at the series' outset, a group of young graduates are made to compete for a vanishingly small number of permanent positions. There are juicy soap-opera vibes, but the attention to detail when it comes to the world of high finance gives the show a feeling that the stakes are very real when it comes to the lives, and mental health, of our leads. You can stream Industry here.
Trixie Motel (2022 – 2024, two seasons)
A pick-up in its second season from Discovery+, Trixie Motel poses that all-important question: How would a drag queen with disposable income run a hotel? In the first season, RuPaul alum Trixie Mattel and then-partner David Silver buy a run-down Palm Springs motel and turn it into a campy desert destination; in the second the two buy and decorate a new home. Celebrity guests stop by to help the pair drag up their accommodations. It's fluffy, flashy, and fun. You can stream Trixie Motel season one here, and Drag Me Home, the second season, here.
Doom Patrol (2019 – 2023, four seasons)
Max’s early DC show was originally ported from the now-defunct DC Universe streamer (past and future episodes are now Max-exclusive), a largely forgotten effort. Thank goodness it survived; it was an uncharacteristically bold and freaky entry in the superhero canon. Nearly indescribably weird, the show includes characters like the non-binary Danny the Street (a literal street), paranormal investigators the Sex Men, Imaginary Jesus, and orgasm-generating body builder Flex Mentallo—while also grounded in some excellent, frequently emotional character work from the entire cast, including Brendan Fraser, Matt Bomer, Michelle Gomez, and Timothy Dalton. It’s also very queer and sex positive, making it a standout among the usually chaste and straight world of superhero cinema. You can stream Doom Patrol here.
Full Circle (2023, miniseries)
Creator Ed Solomon (Now You See Me) and director Steven Soderbergh navigate a big cast and a labyrinthine plot involving murder, kidnapping, corporate espionage, and magic. The title refers to a murder ritual conducted by a Guyanese crime lord (played by CCH Pounder) that involves drawing a literal circle in New York, centered on the scene of a murder. There are a few too many balls in the air at any given time, but watching the chaos unfold is addictive. Pounder is joined by Zazie Beetz, Claire Danes, Timothy Olyphant, and Dennis Quaid. You can stream Full Circle here.
Scavengers Reign (2023, one season)
A qualified recommendation for this one, only because it was canceled after its first season with plenty left unresolved. Nevertheless! It's a smart, impressively voice-acted, and beautifully animated sci-fi epic following the stranded survivors of the crashed interstellar cargo ship Demeter 227. The web of natural life on the world on which they find themselves is unusually complex, an the rules they're used to don't seem to apply. The creators are shopping a second season around, but it seems likely we'll be left with a few questions—which is maybe not the worst thing. You can stream Scavengers Reign here.
The Flight Attendant (2020 – 2022, two seasons)
Kaley Cuoco plays hard-living (i.e. alcoholic) flight attendant Cassie Bowden, who, in the first episode, wakes up in a Bangkok hotel room with no memory of the night before. Which could be a good thing or a bad thing, given that she's sharing a bed with a dead passenger from her last flight. Afraid to call the police, she tries, on her own, to piece together the increasingly convoluted memories of that last night. Impressively twisty-turny, but also with a hallucinogenic sense of fun, it's a unique show that earned several Emmy nominations, including for a great Cuoco. Despite generating plenty of buzz and seemingly good numbers, it was canceled after two seasons—which will become something of a theme with Max. You can stream The Flight Attendant here.
The Sex Lives of College Girls (2021 – 2025, three seasons)
Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet) is an endlessly naïve scholarship student; Bela (Amrit Kaur), is an aspiring comedy writer on the make for the hottest guys; Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott) is an overachieving athlete and senator’s daughter; Leighton (Reneé Rapp) is a closeted sorority girl. They're randomly assigned to room together as freshmen at the fictional Essex College in Vermont. Created by Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble, the comedy-drama isn't nearly as salacious as its title suggests: There's sex, for sure, but like Sex and the City before it, the funny and queer-friendly show is more about female friendship. You can stream The Sex Lives of College Girls here.
Jellystone! (2021 – 2025)
The Hanna-Barbera cartoon pantheon has been largely dormant in recent decades, but this is a fun revisit, with the titular town serving as home to dozens of characters from back in the day, led by Mayor Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear (now a doctor at Jellystone Hospital), Augie Doggy, Jabberjaw, Top Cat, and dozens more, with out-of-towners like The Jetsons and Space Ghost popping in now and again. The show's silly, anarchic style is definitely not a one-for-one match to the source material, but it's not a terrible thing that the show is focused on appealing to modern kids rather than their parents (or grandparents, at this point). It's fun for that older elementary age group. You can stream Jellystone! here.
Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai (2023 –, two seasons)
It was weird, but kinda cool, that the original Gremlins movie was marketed toward kids, given that the plot turns on moments like a Mogwai blowing up in a microwave and an anecdote about someone's dead dad mouldering in a chimney dressed like Santa Claus. That all being said, this animated prequel is legit kid-friendly, even if it doesn't shy away from the Looney Tunes-esque style of the live-action movies. It also takes the awkward Orientalism of those movies and makes it a virtue: Sam Wing (played by Hollywood legend Keye Luke in Gremlins) is, here, a 10-year-old boy who meets Gizmo and is then forced to join him on a journey through the Chinese countryside, sometimes encountering mythical creatures. The stacked voice cast includes Izaac Wang, Ming-Na Wen as Fong Wing, B. D. Wong, and the great James Hong; no word yet on a third season. You can stream Secrets of the Mogwai here.
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