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In the sad modern reality with the flood that the streaming industry has become, even a gold-plated gem can sink to the bottom before it has its time. Max, or HBO Max, is no exception to this phenomenon. While the platform has become synonymous with impeccable shows thanks to cultural behemoths like Succession, The White Lotus, and Game of Thrones, it’s also a treasure trove of woefully underrated series that, for one reason or another, didn’t get the limelight they deserved.
Max is known to operate on the principle creative freedom. Ignoring the known models of narration, it lets its shows dive into themes that others shy away from. This means complex antiheroes, nuanced storytelling, and scenes that make you sit back in disbelief and awe.
So if you’ve been stuck rewatching the same few shows for the billionth time, take this as a wake-up call. From prison drama epics and vivid coming-of-age stories to political thrillers and supernatural suspense, these shows may have flown under the radar, but they’re ready to hijack your weekend.
Are you ready to press play?
Oz (1997-2003) on HBO Max
Before shows like The Last of Us or Game of Thrones stole the scene, HBO had already warped television norms with its now underrated gem, Oz. A gripping and gruesome prison drama that bulldozed the mechanics of TV, reinventing it completely. Set in the brutal world of Oswald State Correctional Facility, Oz introduces viewers to a brutal, depraved society behind bars, where race, religion, power, and survival clash with humanity and morality every day. Each block is a kingdom, and every inmate plays a dangerous game of loyalty, betrayal, and sheer will.
But what truly sets Oz apart is the fear that creeps in not from external dangers, but within the psyche of the characters themselves. J.K. Simmons stuns in his career defining role as Vernon Schillinger, a sadistic Aryan Brotherhood leader whose reign of terror is as psychological as it is physical. Long before prestige television was a label, Oz was redefining what TV could dare to be. A raw, poetic, and unforgiving dialogue that interacts with the minds of its audience like never before.
Despite being HBO’s first original drama, Oz remains criminally overlooked in the modern binge era. So, for anyone craving a series that will hit you like a gut punch, staying with you long after, Oz deserves a premium spot on your binge list tonight.
High Maintenance (2016 - 2020) on HBO Max
Some shows don’t shout, but hum quietly in your ear, and High Maintenance is one such gem. This overlooked HBO Max anthology is a love letter to New York City told through the hazy, meandering routes of a weed delivery guy simply known as “The Guy.” But don’t expect stoner comedy clichés. High Maintenance offers a far more potent, kaleidoscopic view into many different lives in New York City, all told from the perspective of one man on a bicycle and a carefully rolled joint.
Each episode is like a short story in itself, shrewdly observant, and dramatically charged. One minute you’re laughing, the next you're awestruck by a reflection on grief or self-acceptance. The pacing is perfect, never lingering too long in one place, with every detour feeling like a necessary choice.
The genius of High Maintenance lies in its ingrained empathy, where no one is too insignificant, too weird, or too fleeting to deserve a chance to tell their story.
Tokyo Vice (2022-2024) on HBO Max
If neo-noir thrillers with soul, style, and moral complexity are your vibe, Tokyo Vice is the severely underrated binge-worthy show you’ve been sleeping on. This HBO Max original, inspired by journalist Jake Adelstein’s 2009 memoir, throws you headfirst into the neon-soaked underworld of Tokyo’s yakuza, all through the eyes of a wide-eyed American reporter fresh from Missouri.
Running for just two razor-sharp seasons before being unjustly axed, Tokyo Vice was created by J.T. Rogers (Oslo) and executive produced by Heat mastermind Michael Mann (who even directed the pilot). The series simmers with tension, trading bullets and blood for sharp pens and whispered threats in back alleys.
Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe are electric, playing an unlikely duo navigating language barriers, personal demons, and institutional rot. It’s journalism meets the underworld, wrapped in cinematic beauty and cultural friction. Though the show met an untimely end, its legacy is far from over. Tokyo Vice is a must-watch thriller that proves truth really is stranger and far more dangerous than fiction.
Angels in America (2003) on HBO Max
Before “prestige TV” became a buzzword, HBO dropped a six-part masterpiece that dared to dream bigger, feel deeper, and speak louder, Angels in America. Based on Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, this terrifying, hallucinatory miniseries is set during the height of the 1980s AIDS crisis, weaving the personal and political into a spiritual fever dream. The cast? Flautingly stacked with the likes of Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, Emma Thompson, and Jeffrey Wright, each actor delivers a performance that is pure remembered till date.
Directed by Mike Nichols with an operatic flair, the series blends biting wit with devastating emotion. It’s intimate and cosmic all at once, with a cutting humour. Angels in America was quite popular when it aired, but time has buried this treasure of a series beneath louder, shinier hits, which is a tragedy, because its themes about illness, identity, love, and justice are still resonate with contemporary issues.
If you’ve never seen it, consider this as your sign. And if you have? Watch it again. These angels still have a lot to say.
We Own This City (2022) on HBO Max
If The Wire was a slow-burning Greek tragedy of a broken system, We Own This City is its explosive, grief-soaked epilogue. In just six tight, unflinching episodes, creator David Simon returns to Baltimore, not to repeat himself, but to dig even deeper. This time, it’s not just the corner boys and corrupt politics under fire, but the very foundation of American policing.
At the rotten core stands Jon Bernthal, magnetic and terrifying as Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, the golden boy of the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force, until he's not. Charged with racketeering, Jenkins becomes the face of a real-life scandal so wild it feels like fiction: dirty cops robbing civilians, planting evidence, and racking up overtime while the city bleeds.
We Own This City doesn't ask for your validation. It commands attention. A gripping, brutal tale of systemic rot that unspools like a modern-day noir, wrapped in legal red tape and bullet casings. And with only six episodes? You’ll binge it over a weekend, but the moral mess will haunt you long after the credits roll.
My Brilliant Friend (2018-2024) on HBO Max
Here’s a gem that speaks fluent Italian and universal heartbreak. My Brilliant Friend waltzed right past popular media with the quiet elegance of a literary masterpiece in the making. This vibrant adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels happens across four seasons, chronicling the difficult friendship between Elena and Lila, two girls from post-war Naples whose connection is as passionate as it is painful.
Beginning in the shadowed, poverty stricken alleys of the 50s, the show pans decades, transforming into a layered analogy between identity and womanhood. The show speaks with its use of silence, letting glances speak volumes, or diving into the chaotic, spectacular contradictions of female friendships.
Each season deals with one book, and the result is a rare, fully adapted narrative. You’ll emerge wiser, a little more broken, and incredibly moved, and yet, unable to look away.
Doom Patrol (2020-2023) on HBO Max
If your taste veers toward the bizarre, the brilliant, and the utterly bonkers, then Doom Patrol might just be your next obsession. Spun from DC’s lesser-known corners and born during the blink-and-you-miss-it era of the DC Universe streaming service, this show was always destined to be an underdog. But what a glorious underdog it is. With a lineup that includes a woman with 64 personalities (each with its own superpower), a race car-driving robot man voiced by Brendan Fraser, a radioactive mummy of a man struggling with identity, and a teleporting sentient street named Danny, Doom Patrol doesn’t just embrace the weird; it worships it.
When the show transitioned to HBO Max, hopes were high that it might finally get the mainstream love it deserved. Alas, the mainstream never quite showed up. But those who did? They got treated to one of the smartest, most subversive superhero shows in recent memory. It’s meta, tragic, and hysterically funny. And somehow, through all the madness, deeply human. Don’t let this misfit masterpiece pass you by. Press play, and prepare for the unexpected.
The Night Of (2016) on HBO Max
Have you ever made one bad choice that spins your entire world off its axis? The Night Of begins with just that. One fateful night in New York City, college student Nasir “Naz” Khan borrows his father’s cab to attend a party he was never supposed to be at. He picks up a mysterious girl. They drink, they do drugs, they hook up. And the next morning, she’s dead. Murdered and stabbed. There is blood everywhere, and Naz has no memory, and no alibi. And guess who’s the prime suspect?
We get to see a titillating peek into the American judicial system, its biases, blind spots, and bureaucracy. Riz Ahmed devastates us in his deeply moving performance as Naz, while John Turturro shines in his role as his defense attorney with a heart of gold, giving the show its gripping moral dilemma.
Los Espookys (2019-2022) on HBO Max
Imagine if your love for horror films, latex blood, and fog machines could become your full-time job. That’s exactly what Los Espookys dares to dream, and deliriously delivers. This surreal Spanish-language comedy, executive produced by Fred Armisen, follows a group of friends in a dreamily vague Latin American countryside who turn their obsession with all things macabre into a niche side hustle: staging supernatural hoaxes for paying clients. At the center of it all is Renaldo, a goth sweetheart with impeccable hair and a heart of pure monster-loving gold.
The humor? Deadpan. The aesthetic? Tim Burton meets telenovela. The vibe? Offbeat brilliance with a twist of supernatural satire. Los Espookys revels in the weird, with characters like a repressed heir haunted by a cursed mirror, and a tooth fairy bureaucrat navigating government red tape. The reality of this show follows no rules, and it's perfectly fine.
Despite being untimely cancelled after just two seasons, Los Espookys remains a cult classic piece that glares with originality. It’s a spooky little comedy that never quite got the spotlight it deserved, but has definitely earned a place on your must-binge list tonight.
I May Destroy You (2020) on HBO Max
There are shows that make you cry, and shows that make you laugh, and then there are some shows that you simply can't shake off. I May Destroy You makes you feel like ever before while completely subverting expectations. Michaela Coel’s genre defying genius wasn’t just a show, it was a cultural reckoning. Coel being the mastermind behind this impeccably searing limited series from BBC One and HBO is one of the boldest and most emotionally raw dramas of the decade, yet it somehow slipped through the mainstream radar.
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The story centres around Arabella, a young writer in London whose life and sense of self are uprooted after a sexual assault. What unfolds is a dark, funny yet deeply personal reclaimation of consent, identity, and moving on, all inspired by Coel’s own real experiences. No easy answers. No feel-good resolutions. Just an honest conversation about trauma in all its murky complexity.
Coel's narration is charismatic and dynamic, layered with shifting timelines, unreliable recollections, and intense reveals. I May Destroy You is a required watch. Miss this one, and you're skipping a cultural landmark in modern storytelling.
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