THE 30 BEST MOVIES ON HBO AND MAX RIGHT NOW

This article is updated frequently as titles leave and enter Max. *New additions are indicated with an asterisk.

HBO Max is now Max. Once upon a time, the streaming service was where you could stream blockbusters like Dune and The Matrix Resurrections on the same day they landed in theaters, but that era long gone. These days, Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max is best understood as the streaming service with a dense catalog of classic films, pulling from generations of the Warner Bros. catalog, as well as hosting Criterion, TCM, and Studio Ghibli (at least for as long as the merged Warner Bros. Discovery holds onto its licensing deals).

But you’re not here to celebrate the size of Max’s library. You want help navigating it. The streaming giant’s deep, wide bench makes it perhaps the hardest service to pare down to 30 great films, but somehow we found a way. Our aim is to pull from a cross-section of what the service offers, including recent additions (this month look for Under the Skin and The Souvenir), enduring classics (2001: A Space Odyssey and The Silence of the Lambs), award winners (Spirited Away), under-the-radar gems (Shoplifters), general Vulture favorites (Mad Max: Fury Road), and even films that offer an offbeat story but can’t-miss performances from its stars (Gloria Bell).

You’ll find our selections organized into five genre categories — drama, action, horror, comedy, and family-friendly — and each week we cycle our recommendations, whether in response to changes in the Max library or just to keep things fresh. Just because a movie no longer appears on this list doesn’t mean it’s been removed from Max. We just want to give some other films a moment in the spotlight, starting with this week’s critic’s pick below. If there’s an under-appreciated movie on the service that you think we should consider for inclusion, please let us know at [email protected].

This Week’s Critic’s Pick

**The Zone of Interest*

Year: 2023

Runtime: 1h 45m

Director: Jonathan Glazer

The Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film is exclusively available on Max. Based on the novel of the same name by Martin Amis, it’s the story of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoss and his family, who live just outside the concentration camp. As they live and profit off horror, the sights and sounds of the Holocaust give the film a terrifying, unsettling foundation, reminding us how often true evil can be right next door.

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Drama

Casablanca

Year: 1942

Runtime: 1h 42m

Director: Michael Curtiz

One of the most popular films of all time, Casablanca is now over eight decades old, but it’s still being watched somewhere every single day. Why has the story of Rick and Ilsa sustained as generations of other movies have come and gone? There’s something timeless in this tale of an ex-pat (Humphrey Bogart) who is asked to help the love of his life (Ingrid Bergman) escape the city of Casablanca during World War II. This is the first movie that so many people think of when they hear the phrase “classic cinema” for a reason.

Citizen Kane

Year: 1941

Runtime: 2h

Director: Orson Welles

Sure, most people have probably seen Citizen Kane by now, but it’s certainly not a film that plays on cable TV as much as some other acknowledged classics. So maybe you haven’t seen the movie that really redefined the form through the vision of Orson Welles? Or at least not in a long time. You have no more excuses to watch a masterpiece that gets richer every time you see it.

Clèo From 5 to 7

Year: 1962

Runtime: 1h 29m

Director: Agnès Varda

The Queen of the French New Wave has a strong presence on Max because of her deep catalog in the streamer’s Criterion section, and you owe it to yourself to learn more about one of the most vital and important filmmakers of all time. This is probably her most popular film, the tale of a French singer who is awaiting test results that could confirm she has cancer. It’s a deeply powerful and philosophical character study, and the perfect gateway to discovering an essential filmmaker.

In the Mood for Love

Year: 2000

Runtime: 1h 39m

Director: Wong Kar-wai

One of the best films ever made, Wong Kar-wai’s 2000 drama is the story of a man (Tony Leung) and a woman (Maggie Cheung) who form a delicate relationship of glances and brief touches but can never fulfill their obvious passion for one another. Set in 1962 Hong Kong, it is a gorgeous film, filled with color and music that tell the story as much as dialogue or action. Filled with longing, cultural imposition, and regret, In the Mood for Love captivates every time you see it. It’s like entering a dream.

**The Florida Project*

Year: 2017

Runtime: 1h 52m

Director: Sean Baker

One of the best films of the 2010s, this heartbreaking character study from Sean Baker tells the story of people on the edge of the Happiest Place on Earth as seen through the eyes of a child. It’s a beautiful movie with unforgettable performances and poetic realism throughout.

Lost in Translation

Year: 2003

Runtime: 1h 42m

Director: Sofia Coppola

Sofia Coppola exploded onto the filmmaking scene with her second film, this dramedy about a fading movie star who meets an American girl in Tokyo and both of their lives change. Bill Murray does career-best work in the film (and should have won an Oscar), and he’s matched by Scarlett Johansson, but Lost in Translation really is Coppola’s film, a tender, brilliant character study with personal resonance.

The Manchurian Candidate

Year: 2004

Runtime: 2h 10m

Director: Jonathan Demme

Over four decades after the wildly influential original film, Jonathan Demme returned to the Richard Condon 1959 novel and delivered a movie that was widely underrated. Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Jon Voight, and Liev Schreiber star in the 2004 story of a sleeper agent, a film that played a lot differently in a scary post-9/11 world.

Parasite

Year: 2019

Runtime: 2h 12m

Director: Bong Joon-ho

Remember not that long ago before the world changed, and we could all rally around a South Korean film becoming the first foreign flick ever to win the Oscar for Best Picture? It really was a crazy time. Thanks to Hulu’s relationship with distributor Neon, the streamer was the only place you’ll find Bong Joon-ho’s hysterical and thrilling study of class conflict for a long time, but the beloved thriller has now dropped on Max too.

Pulp Fiction

Year: 1994

Runtime: 2h 35m

Director: Quentin Tarantino

There are certain tentpoles of American film history that changed the form — and the industry — forever, and this is undeniably one. Heck, we’re still getting Tarantino riffs almost thirty years later, as everyone wants to make a movie as effortlessly cool as his masterpiece. What more could possibly be written about Pulp Fiction? Nothing: Just watch it.

The Searchers

Year: 1956

Runtime: 1h 59m

Director: John Ford

John Ford and John Wayne took a hard look at the genre that made them household names with this instant classic. Wayne plays a man who has devoted his life to finding his niece (Natalie Wood), kidnapped during the Texas-Indian Wars. Not only is The Searchers arguably Wayne’s best performance, but it digs deeper into the genre than the Western was typically allowed to do, opening it up to new visions by revealing it as something capable of doing more than shoot-outs and horse chases.

A Serious Man

Year: 2009

Runtime: 1h 46m

Director: Joen Coen, Ethan Coen

Joel and Ethan Coen wrote and directed this period-comedy that introduced most people to Michael Stuhlbarg. The star of Call Me By Your Name and Shirley plays a Minnesota Jewish man in 1967 whose life falls apart in a way that leads to a crisis of faith.

Comedy

Barbie

Year: 2023

Runtime: 1h 55m

Director: Greta Gerwig

One of the biggest films of 2023 has already landed on Max in the form or Greta Gerwig’s daring blockbuster, a comedy that works both as a reminder of the power imagination and the fight for equality. Anyone who thinks this movie is anti-male isn’t paying any attention. The theme of the movie is that no one — not even Barbie or Ken — should be defined by traditional roles. We should all be free to play however we want. It’s a wonderful film that will truly stand the test of time.

Dr. Strangelove

Year: 1964

Runtime: 1h 35m

Director: Stanley Kubrick

The large fan base of Stanley Kubrick often mentions dark pieces of work like 2001, A Clockwork Orange, and The Shining, but one of his best and most influential films is a comedy about the end of the world. Satirizing the Cold War this aggressively way back in 1964, Kubrick rewrote the textbook for political comedy and presented viewers with an instant classic that was both hysterical and terrifying.

Election

Year: 1999

Runtime: 1h 43m

Director: Alexander Payne

What a great movie. The writer/director of Nebraska and The Descendants adapted Tom Perrotta’s novel of the same name and produced arguably his best film to date. Reese Witherspoon is amazing as Tracy Flick, an overachieving student who really aggravates a high school teacher named Jim McAllister, played by Matthew Broderick. So much so that he sabotages her run for student government president in a film that understands the intersection of the political and the personal in ways that movies actually set in D.C. rarely do.

Fargo

Year: 1996

Runtime: 1h 38m

Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Joel and Ethan Coen’s masterpiece is only one of the best films ever made, a story of violence and redemption in the great American North. The Coens won Best Original Screenplay and Frances McDormand took her first Oscar home for playing the unforgettable Marge Gunderson, a Minnesotan cop who gets entangled in a car salesman’s deeply inept foray into the criminal world.

Legally Blonde

Year: 2001

Runtime: 1h 36m

Director: Robert Luketic

Long before she won an Oscar or worked magic with The Morning Show, Reese Witherspoon turned a ditzy blonde into a comedy star in this 2001 romantic comedy from director Robert Luketic. It could be stretching it to call this silly fluff “great” but what elevates the saga of Elle Woods from sorority queen to legal eagle is the total charm and commitment of Witherspoon herself. It’s one of her most likable and memorable performances.

**Singin’ in the Rain*

Year: 1952

Runtime: 1h 43m

Director: Stanley Done

Movies don’t get more delightful than this beloved classic about backstage drama on the advent of the talkie. Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor are as charming as charming can be, and Singin’ in the Rain contains some of the best choreography of its era, and not just in the titular number. It’s joyous from front to back. Honestly, you have to be kind of a jerk not to like this movie.

Action

**Inception*

Year: 2010

Runtime: 2h 29m

Director: Christopher Nolan

After the crazy success of The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan went and made one of the most ambitious blockbusters ever made, cementing himself as one of the most interesting auteurs working in the Hollywood system. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a man who leads a team into other people’s dreams for the purposes of corporate espionage at first. Of course, he brings some personal baggage with him. Inception is a reminder of Nolan’s incredible vision and robust filmmaking. One wishes there were more big-budget filmmakers taking these kind of risks.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Year: 2001

Runtime: 2h 58m

Director: Peter Jackson

The Oscar-winning franchise by Peter Jackson bounces around the streaming services with alarming regularity, now finding its way to Max for an indeterminate amount of time. Watch the entire saga of Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gange, and the rest of the Fellowship while you can.

Mad Max: Fury Road

Year: 2015

Runtime: 2h 1m

Director: George Miller

Have you seen the Furiosa trailer?! It’s insane and easily one of the most anticipated films of 2024. Go back to its predecessor, one of the best action movies ever made. This sequel rocked the world when it was released in 2015 on its way to winning multiple Oscars and really setting a new bar for practical action effects. George Miller went into the desert and returned with one of the most ambitious, insane, downright impossible action epics ever made.

Robocop

Year: 1987

Runtime: 1h 43m

Director: Paul Verhoeven

People like to point at ‘80s movies and say they were ahead of their time, but this may be most true about Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 masterpiece, a film that foretold how technology would impact law enforcement in ways that took decades to come true. A brilliant action satire, this is the story of a Detroit cop who is murdered and revived as the title character, a superhuman cyborg enforcer. It’s even more riveting and relevant almost four decades later. Note: Both original era sequels and the 2010s reboot are also on Max.

Horror

Carrie

Year: 1976

Runtime: 1h 39m

Director: Brian De Palma

Long before Stephen King was an entire industry, he was the guy who wrote Carrie, a 1974 novel about a bullied teen girl who unleashes hell on her classmates. Every once in a while, there’s a perfect combination of source material and creatives, and that’s what happened when King, De Palma, and Sissy Spacek combined forces here. Horror movie history would be made. Note: The underrated Chloe Grace Moretz remake is also on Max.

**Funny Games*

Year: 1997

Runtime: 1h 50m

Director: Michel Haneke

Michael Haneke is one of the most daring filmmakers alive, willing to shock viewers to make a point. Perhaps his most divisive film remains this 1997 shocker about a family who are essentially held hostage in their vacation home in Austria. Over the course of the day, the criminals basically torture this family, and through fourth-wall breaks, Haneke interrogates why people would even want to watch something like this, illuminating what art can reveal about the dark side of humanity.

Night of the Living Dead

Year: 1968

Runtime: 1h 36m

Director: George A. Romero

The movie that changed it all. It’s really hard to overstate the impact that George A. Romero’s classic black-and-white masterpiece had on not only the zombie genre, but DIY microbudget horror filmmaking. So many people have been chasing that game-changing impact of Night of the Living Dead in the half-century since it came out, but it’s the original that’s passed the test of time.

Scream

Year: 1996

Runtime: 1h 51m

Director: Wes Craven

The Ghostface killer came back in January 2022 with the release of Scream, the fifth film in this franchise and the first since the death of Wes Craven, and the fun continued with another sequel in 2023 (before the wheels came off in the pre-production of a seventh film). Even the makers of the new movies would suggest that fans go back and watch the original films to see how Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) got here. All four of the Craven films are available now on Max. The first movie is still a flat-out genre masterpiece.

Under the Skin

Year: 2014

Runtime: 1h 49m

Director: Jonathan Glazer

A trippy, sci-fi masterpiece, this flick stars Scarlett Johansson as an alien being exploring the world around her and, well, doing some terrifying things to the men she comes into contact with. Although that only scratches the surface of why this is a special movie, a terrifying tone piece that has more in common with Twin Peaks than Species. It’s unforgettable and brilliant, one of the best films of the ‘10s.

For Kids and Family

Spirited Away

Year: 2001

Runtime: 2h 4m

Director: Hayao Miyazaki

Almost all of the Studio Ghibli films are on Max, the now exclusive home to them when it comes to streaming. The truth is that we could devote about 10 percent of this list to Hayao Miyazaki and his colleagues, but we’ll give up some that space and just point you here to the ranking of the entire output of the most important modern animation studio in the world. Start with Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, and Castle in the Sky. You won’t stop.

The Wizard of Oz

Year: 1939

Runtime: 1h 41m

Director: Victor Fleming

Maybe you’ve heard of it? Seriously, what could possibly be written if you’re on the fence about The Wizard of Oz? Maybe you haven’t seen it since you were a little kid? Revisit the journey of Dorothy over the rainbow if that’s the case and appreciate this wonderful fantasy on a new level.

**Wonka*

Year: 2023

Runtime: 1h 57m

Director: Paul King

The quick turnaround from theatrical Warner Bros. releases to Max has been impressive. This family feature was still playing in some theaters when it dropped on Max. An origin story for the character created by Roald Dahl (and defined by Gene Wilder), this Timothee Chalamet vehicle plays well at home, the kind of charmer that can be used as background noise for the little ones or watched more closely on a family movie night. It’s not perfect, but it’s sweet in all the right places.

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