The Best Movies and TV Shows to Watch on Max This Month
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I’ve looked into everything new and notable coming to Max this month, and the below TV shows and movies are the best of the bunch, or at least the most interesting.
My big three of the month: HBO’s own The Pitt, a tense medical drama where stressed out medical workers try to save lives and stay sane; A Different Man, a wickedly smart, dark comedy about identity and repulsion; and season 5 of excellent animated super-heroine series Harley Quinn.
The Pitt
HBO Originals medical series The Pitt was created by ER producer R. Scott Gemmill. The tense, realistic drama takes viewers into the charged emergency room of the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital. Each of The Pitt‘s 15 episodes is presented in real time: one episode is one hour of the same shift at the E.R. Noah Wyle stars as Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, chief attending physician, who’s having trouble dealing with the stress and trauma of his position. He’s not alone: The Pitt delves into its characters’ personal lives as well as the life-or-death decisions and day-to-day drama of the emergency room.
Starts streaming January 9.
A Different Man (2024)
If you like your comedy pitch black and shot through with absurdity and social commentary, A Different Man is the movie for you. Sebastian Stan plays Edward, a struggling actor with an extreme facial deformity. A medical procedure transforms him into a handsome dude—a different man—but he’s only pretty on the outside. Edward soon learns that beauty is skin deep, but ugliness can go right down to the marrow. Like just about everything released by A24, A Different Man received well-deserved raves from critics.
Starts streaming January 17.
Harley Quinn, season 5
The fifth season of adult cartoon Harley Quinn sees the titular character, voiced by Kaley Cuoco, moving to Metropolis with her friend Poison Ivy, voiced by Lake Bell. The pair soon find that something serious is going down in Superman-town, and Quinn will meet up with Lex Luthor, his sister, Lena Luthor, Brainiac, and other comic book favorites in this irreverent take on the DC Universe. Harley Quinn has a 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so it’s definitely worth your time.
Starts streaming January 16.
The Leopard Man (1943)
Just as Leopard Man producer Val Lewton’s most famous film, Cat People, didn’t have any cat people in it, Leopard Man is not about a leopard man. Lewton spent most of his career as the head of B-movie production company RKO’s horror department, where studio heads dictated their movie’s titles, but let Lewton film whatever he wanted. Lewton chose to make Leopard Man an atmospheric, creepy, surprisingly progressive examination of misogyny and violence instead of a cheesy monster flick. Leopard Man is arguably the first movie about a serial killer, and remains among of the best examples of the genre ever made.
Starts streaming January 1.
The Front Room
The directorial debut of Max and Sam Eggers, half-brothers of Nosferatu director Robert Eggers, The Front Room is a surrealist domestic horror story in which the worst mother-in-law imaginable moves in to “help” her pregnant daughter-in-law and her son. Despite the seriousness of the trailer, The Front Room is lightened by dark humor throughout. Solange, played by Kathryn Hunter, is a true nightmare, and will do anything to drive a wedge between her son Norman, played by Andrew Burnap, and his wife Belinda, played by Brandy Norwood.
Starts streaming January 3.
Sons of Ecstasy
This documentary examines the rivalry between English stockbroker Shaun Attwood and Gerard Gravano, son of notorious New York mobster Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano. The conflict played out in the 1990s against the backdrop of the ecstasy boom in Arizona, with both men fighting for control of a desert drug empire built on the rave scene’s insatiable appetite for Molly. That’s what I call a good subject for a documentary series!
Starts streaming January 9.
An Update on our Family
All “family YouTubers” are weird, but the Stauffer family were next-level reprehensible. This three-part documentary series examines how Myka and James Stauffer built a small vlogging empire by presenting themselves and their children as a perfect family, but took it a step too far when they adopted a baby from China with severe neurological problems. They tried to turn two year-old Huxley into the centerpiece of their content, but he soon disappeared from the family channel and the family.
Starts streaming January 15.
C.B. Strike: The Ink Black Heart
This four-episode British series is based on the best-selling novels by J.K. Rowling, but there’s not a wizard to be found. Instead, C.B. Strike: The Ink Black Heart offers the detective team of Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott, who are hired to investigate a murder involving the creator of a cult TV cartoon and an anonymous online troll called “Anomie.” The case reveals a complex web of online intrigue, shadowy business interests, and family conflicts that will test the limits of Strike and Robin’s investigative skills and might cost them their lives.
Starts streaming January 23.
Look Into my Eyes
I’m inclined to think of “psychics” as cynical ghouls who exploit grief for profit, but Look into my Eyes‘ director Lana Wilson has a more nuanced view of the craft. Her documentary examines the relationship between small-time, New York psychics and their clients without weighing in on whether the mediums’ claims are true. Instead of exploitation, Wilson finds healing, faith, and human connection. No matter how skeptical you are, it’s a fascinating take on the subject.
Starts streaming January 10.
Last month’s picks
Juror #2
Directed by 94-year-old icon Clint Eastwood and starring Tony Collette, J.K Simmons, Chris Messina, Kiefer Sutherland, and Nicholas Hoult, Juror #2 is a legal drama exploring justice and personal responsibility. Hoult plays Justin Kemp an everyman serving on the jury of high-profile murder case. When Kemp realizes he might have personal knowledge of the crime, he must decide whether he’ll try to sway the rest of the jury. This movie is getting extremely good reviews from critics.
Starts streaming December 20.
Creature Commandos
This stylish animated-series for adults is based on the DC Comics anti-hero team and was created by James Gunn, whose excellent Peacemaker also aired on HBO. The Creature Commandos of the title are a group of super-powered monsters assembled to take out the most dangerous enemies of mankind by whatever method they choose. They tend to choose extreme violence. More than just a series, Creature Commandos serves as a soft introduction to the James Gunn reboot of the DC Comics universe we’ll be seeing in Superman: Legacy in summer 2025.
Starts streaming December 5.
Humphrey Bogart film festival
Attention should be paid to the classic movies Max streams every month. For December, they are digging deep into the cinema vault for some of Humphrey Bogart’s best work—everything from 1939’s hardboiled gangsters-and-guns flick King of the Underworld, to 1937 horror movie The Return of Doctor X, to 1940’s It All Came True, a musical in which Bogie shares the screen with Ann Sheridan. If you haven’t watched any Bogart movies and you’re overwhelmed by the 14(!) options available on Max, start with classic Sam Spade noir-detective movie The Maltese Falcon, which deserves its reputation as one of the best films ever made.
Marked Woman (1937)
San Quentin (1937)
Kid Galahad (1937)
Invisible Stripes (1939)
King of the Underworld (1939)
The Return of Doctor X (1939)
The Roaring Twenties (1939)
You Can’t Get Away with Murder (1939)
It All Came True (1940)
They Drive by Night (1940)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Passage to Marseille (1944)
The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947)
Key Largo (1949)
Starts streaming December 1.
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
Through interviews with family and friends, this documentary tells the story of the rise of the actor the world would come to know as Superman, the near-fatal accident that left him paralyzed, and his activism in its aftermath. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story isn’t a hagiography; Reeves was a complex man, and this movie isn’t afraid to delve into his frustration over being typecast as Superman and battles with his own demons.
Starts streaming December 7.
Hard Knocks: In Season with the AFC North
With the playoffs right in front of us and the Super Bowl approaching, this HBO documentary series takes viewers inside the locker rooms and coaching offices of the Ravens, Steelers, Bengals, and Browns as they battle for the top spot in the AFC North division. Even if you aren’t a huge football fan, the personal stories of players like Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, Myles Garrett, and TJ Watt are fascinating, as is the all-access window on what it takes to make it as an elite team.
Starts streaming December 3.
Nature of the Crime
In Nature of the Crime, we follow three incarcerated men as they get ready for parole hearings after decades in prison. These men were convicted in their teens and now middle aged, and now they face a board of citizens who must weigh the protection of society against the rehabilitation of longtime convicts.
Starts streaming December 10.
