The Best Movies & Shows Released in 2023 on Max (HBO Max)
Find the best movies and show to watch from the year 2023. These handpicked recommendations are highly-rated by viewers and critics.
The story of the Von Erich family is excruciatingly sad, but Iron Claw doesn’t dive right into the tragedy. Instead, it takes care to paint a picture of a close-knit family that’s filled with just as much warmth, jealousy, affection, and resentment as the next bunch. Durkin masterfully draws you into their circle so that […]
Set in 1980s Hollywood, Winning Time doesn’t just borrow from the decade, it imbibes it in its very fiber. It’s dizzyingly fast-paced and dazzlingly glamorous, pulling out all the stops from the cinematography, which employs a hybrid of film and tube camera, to the all-star cast, which includes Sally Field, Adrien Brody, and Jason Segel. […]
This charming documentary about one of the most brilliant, groundbreaking comedians alive strikes a delicate balance between accessible and deeply appreciative, making it both a great gateway for those yet to be uninitiated into the Albert Brooks fan club and a satisfying retrospective for us confirmed devotees. It’s directed and fronted by Rob Reiner, celebrated […]
Who among us hasn’t committed a white lie to save a relationship? And who among us hasn’t yearned for the full and brutal truth? In You Hurt My Feelings, Nicole Holofcener digs into that paradox and delivers a film that is honest and funny in equal measure. Here, the writer-director doesn’t just use a hilarious […]
Biographical documentaries tend to depict exceptional people– people who are so great that everyone wants to know about them, and people who are so terrible that they serve as a warning. Great Photo, Lovely Life depicts a serial sexual abuser in photojournalist Amanda Mustard’s family, able to get away with nearly all his crimes each […]
The Boy and the Heron isn’t Hayao Miyazaki’s best film, nor is it his most accessible, seeing as the director himself has admitted to getting lost in the world he’s built here. But it is his most personal film to date (apparently he’s out of retirement!) and consequently, it’s one of the most complex Ghibli […]
“No one lives just one article or one headline of a life. There’s more.” Last Call may be a true-crime docuseries, but it doesn’t pigeonhole itself as such; the advocacy for humanizing LGBTQ+ people is undoubtedly at its helm. The series expands past the context of each crime, giving testimonials and evidence of the […]
The Harry Potter movies undoubtedly changed the lives of its young stars forever — but a stuntman whose future the films had more tragic consequences for is the deserved focus of this moving documentary. David Holmes was just 17 when he was hired as Daniel Radcliffe’s stunt double, a role he held throughout the series. […]
Comedy special John Early: Now More Than Ever is shot like a monumental concert documentary: it’s all nostalgic ‘70s cinematography, with intercutting backstage scenes that detail pretentious pre-show prayers and spikes of tension melodramatically flaring up between the performers. All this self-aggrandizement is the special’s overarching joke, though — it literalizes what Early does with […]
Bright, breezy, and refreshingly unburdened by the seriousness of so many live-action Superman shows and movies, this new animated series wipes the slate clean and boils down the titular hero to his most endearing qualities. Here, Clark Kent is still learning to be more in touch with his identity and emotions—most evident in his enigmatic […]
Generation-centric comedy is often of the “kids these days” variety — in which comedians make uninspired jibes about the youth of today while spectacularly lacking self-awareness of their own — but twenty-something stand-up Leo Reich thankfully upends that trend with his self-lampooning debut show. Reich takes a risk by unabashedly casting himself as a self-absorbed nepo […]
“Imagine a nightmare when you had to relive your adolescence,” says Cecilia Aldarondo at the beginning of her third film, You Were My First Boyfriend. Indeed, the scene recalls a teen prom that could easily be yours (if you were one of the unpopular girls): neon lights, prettier dresses that are never yours, disapproving looks, […]
Initially, A Revolution on Canvas is about the Nodjoumi family’s quest to retrieve the patriarch’s missing paintings in post-Islamic Revolution Iran. Necessarily, it goes through Nodjoumi’s troubled childhood and shocking life as a resilient revolutionary. But the documentary eventually evolves into a knotty and heartbreaking tale about family, specifically about the sacrifices the partner of […]
If you’re familiar with the upscale Chinese restaurant chain owner, or that Chinese boy in old 60s British films, or with his paintings, Aka Mr. Chow might surprise you because they’re one and the same. Born with two names, Zhou Yinghua and Michael Chow, Mr. Chow is just so cool that telling his life story […]
The particulars of the scandal are enough to shock, enrage, and move anyone, but the directors of BS High also put Johnson in the hot seat and skewer the guy until they wring all ego and delusion out of him. The result is a compelling and terrifying look into a con man’s mind. Johnson alternates […]
Directed by Steven Soderbergh (Oceans trilogy, Erin Brockovich, and more recently, Kimi), Full Circle is a twisty and stylish noir that takes a while to grasp, what with its epic ensemble and sweeping storylines, but once that first thread of connection is made, it becomes a series that’s very hard to leave. Each episode leaves […]
Featuring cannily edited filmography excerpts and interviews with friends and ex-lovers of Rock Hudson — the Golden Age matinee idol who became the first major celebrity to die of AIDS — this documentary lifts the lid on the closeted gay star’s double life. Though its first third draws chiefly on biographers to paint a serviceable […]
x2To call Going to Mars a somewhat shapeless documentary isn’t a criticism. If anything, its flexibility of structure feels entirely appropriate for the woman at its center, who doesn’t necessarily defy categorization so much as she remains on the pulse of history as it continues to shift in unexpected ways. Nikki Giovanni is a person […]
Bookie’s very premise is funny: it follows old-school bookmakers Danny (Sebastian Maniscalco) and Ray (Omar Dorsey) as they manage bets via phone calls and actual visits to their clients’ (swanky) whereabouts. They have to do all this the hard way because, in Los Angeles, gambling has yet to be legalized, so the sneaking around makes […]
Erin Lee Carr, the director of Britney vs Spears, returns with a scoop. Ringleader is not just another pop culture doc, because it features a first-time interview with the young woman at the center of The Bling Ring robberies in Hollywood, Rachel Lee. But this is not the kind of film that tries to pick […]
Self-proclaimed scumbag Sam Lipman-Stern opens the series by explaining how long he’s wanted to make a documentary on the telemarketing company Civil Development Group (CDG). What follows is a massive deep dive into how the CDG used lies and a happy-go-lucky/free-for-all work environment to scam everyday people out of money for a non-existent charity. The […]
As a psychological profile of its subject, this documentary about the so-called “mastermind” behind the Bling Ring burglaries isn’t as rigorous as it should be — but as a portrait of that hyper-materialistic era and our never-ending obsession with fame, it fares much better. Rachel Lee was identified as the “ringleader” of the teenagers’ crime […]
Last Stop Larrimah is the rare true-crime doc in which not a single tear is shed throughout its substantial two-hour runtime. That’s because the assumed-dead 70-year-old around whom it’s centered had a lot of enemies: nearly all of his neighbors in the titular tiny Outback outpost he lived in, in fact. As the doc reveals, […]
Alexandra, daughter of Nancy Pelosi, has been working as an documentary filmmaker for HBO for more than 20 years now and the theme of her newest work does not surprise. Turning the camera on several Jan Sixers, she asks them about that day, and whether their belief in Trump and the conservatives has changed following […]
Composed of archival footage of the titular musical legend and testimonials from those who worked with him or whose lives were profoundly impacted by his courage, Little Richard: I Am Everything feels comprehensive but is also oddly lacking. The documentary makes a bold, confident claim: that all popular music today can be directly traced to […]
x10With the tried-and-tested music and lyrics of Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray, this film adaptation of the Color Purple musical was practically guaranteed to have power in its key moments. And with a cast that includes tremendous vocalists like Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks (both of whom had previously played their respective characters […]
If you’ve ever been puzzled by “Greek life”, this documentary will go some way to demystifying that somewhat baffling phenomenon of American college culture. Bama Rush follows four hopefuls as they “rush” the University of Alabama’s sororities, a TikTok-viral weeklong recruitment process so cutthroat some candidates spend months preparing for it. The documentary digs deep […]
Whether or not its intentionally messy, erratically paced style resonates with you, there’s something undeniably special about having a show like Rain Dogs in our current television landscape. Almost aggressively opposed to the idea of comfort viewing and easily marketable drama, the series deals with characters who are at rock bottom for all eight episodes. […]
With a masterful sense of character and its finger firmly on the pulse of pop culture, this dark comedy—about two thirtysomething siblings desperately trying to hold on to success in the shadow of their teen brother’s fame—manages to be both incredibly specific and instantly timeless. As a comedy, there might not be another show with […]
In the saturated sphere of sci-fi and superhero movies, Gray Matter just doesn’t cut it. The film, which was produced as part of the filmmaking workshop/reality show Project Greenlight, doesn’t add anything new, much less its own spin, to a story we’ve heard countless times: that of a young kid learning to harness her supernatural […]
In the words of the journalist Christo Grozev, Alexei Navalny isn’t just a politician; he’s also an internet personality, reporter, investigator, lawyer, and opposition leader who’s up against one of the biggest regimes in the world. He’s a dangerous man, a top Kremlin target, and the documentary gives us incredible access into the ins and […]
Today’s comic book industry and cinematic universes are inextricable from popular culture, but the road to global recognition was long and arduous. Superpowered: The DC Story chronicles a fraction of that journey including the quiet beginnings of the publishing house as Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s response to being bullied, all the way to the […]
Succession centers in on a global mega-corporation called Waystar RoyCo (based loosely on Disney) and the Roy family that runs it, who might also evoke parallels to other well-known real-world dynasties. Following the declining health of Logan Roy, the pater familias played by Brian Cox, the company’s heir apparent Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) sees himself […]
If you spent any significant time on social media this year, you won’t have been able to avoid hearing about the eight-day-long trial revolving around a ski crash in which actor and Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow was involved. The trial played out via Tiktok livestreams and Twitter memes for its duration; with a reported 30 […]
You just wouldn’t expect yet another superhero show from The CW to carry the sort of emotional weight typically reserved for prestige melodramas, but Superman & Lois gets close. In contrast to recent darker portrayals of the Man of Steel, this series allows Clark Kent to remain a nerdy, wholesome dad, whose greatest challenges come […]
At its core, this series is a socio-economic commentary wrapped in heavy discrimination of poor and queer communities with a sprinkle of Disney Channel music numbers. It tackles issues like gentrification, climate change, the refugee crisis, and homophobia, but even for a teen drama, this all feels like too much, especially since it forwards a […]
Crass, violent, and deeply unserious, this adult animated series gets around its rough edges by acknowledging its title character’s reputation. Often seen only in the context of her twisted romance with a much more recognizable villain, Harley Quinn tends to be viewed as merely victim or vixen. But this show has her break free and […]
This comedy created by and starring Danny McBride is about a dysfunctional family of superstar televangelists. He plays the eldest son who gets blackmailed with a video from one of his not-so-virtuous nights. Watch it for easy laughs, especially if you’re used to McBride’s brand of humor, but maybe skip it if not. Also with […]
