7 incredible HBO shows that aren't Game of Thrones that you can enjoy with Max's $2.99 Black Friday deal

Black Friday weekend is here! Plus some of the best Black Friday streaming deals. There are savings across the TV streaming landscape, but one of my favorites is the Black Friday Max deal, which offers a whopping 70% off for six months, meaning you’ll only pay $2.99 each month. It may not be the cheapest deal on the market, but its trump card is that Max is the streaming home of HBO.

HBO practically invented prestige television. In fact, this article could probably consist of 100+ entries before we dip below 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, but everyone needs a starting point. With binge-watching season upon us, here are some of the best HBO series Max has to offer, and none of them require you to travel to Westeros. For more information on the best discounts right now, check out our Black Friday entertainment deals live blog.

Get the Black Friday deal on your Max subscriptions before you start streaming

The leftovers

The former is as much a meditation on grief, isolation and trauma as it is a classic Damon Lindleof puzzle box Lost The author’s adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s novel is sometimes dark, but sometimes powerfully uplifting. Set in a world where 2% of the population disappeared in an instant, the series follows a small group of characters surrounding the Garvey family as they struggle to come to terms with The Departure years after the event. Mysteries are raised and questions are raised, but the answers are not clear. Is there a scientific explanation? Was it the rapture? Supported by powerful performances from Justin Theroux, Carrie Coon, Christopher Ecclestone, Ann Dowd and more, it’s a show that will keep you thinking long after the credits roll.

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The Last of Us

Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie smile on a balcony in a post-apocalyptic setting in The Last of Us Season 1

(Image credit: HBO/Max)

The Last of Us takes an already phenomenal feat of video game storytelling and gives it the big-budget HBO treatment. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world where a fungal infection has decimated humanity and turned those infected into zombie-like creatures. The story centers on the reluctant father-daughter dynamic of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) as they travel across the United States and their initially frosty relationship develops into one of love and acceptance. There’s plenty of action along the way, but it’s the series’ quieter moments that create the feeling, particularly the Nick Offerman-led third episode, which tells a quiet, devastating love story in the apocalypse. Season 2 is on the way, but in the meantime, the first season is a perfectly satisfying single serving.

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Band of brothers

In “Band of Brothers,” injured Second Lieutenant Carwood Lipton (Donnie Walhberg) is cared for in the heat of battle

(Image credit: HBO/Max)

Created by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, a World War II drama Band of brothers follows the “Easy” Company of the 101st Airborne Division as they begin their campaign through Europe. Starting the story in basic training is a brilliant move, giving us time to love our characters before they fall behind enemy lines in France on the night before D-Day. From then on, the action is relentless, and the seemingly endless struggle the company faced is depicted in the kind of visceral detail Speilberg pioneered Saving Private Ryan is saved. The stellar ensemble cast includes Damien Lewis, Dexter Fletcher, Ron Livingston, Michael Culditz, Neal McDonough and more, with appearances from artists such as Michael Fassbender, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Graham, James McAvoy and Tom Hardy “before they were famous.” For an unflinching portrayal of war, the series is surprisingly comforting in its portrayal of brotherhood and friendship, and as the characters become “the unfortunates” over the course of the series, you’ll feel the loss just as the men of “Easy” did.

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Big little lies

(L-R) Shailene Woodley as Jane Chapman, Zoë Kravitz as Bonnie Carlson, Reese Witherspoon as Madeline Mackenzie, Nicole Kidman as Celeste Wright and Laura Dern as Renata Klein crowd together conspiratorially in “Big Little Lies,” Season 2

(Image credit: HBO/Max)

The big attraction for Big little lies is his outstanding main ensemble. The drama, which brings together the Avengers-like group of Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Zoë Kravitz, Laura Dern and Shailene Woodley, begins with a mysterious death at a school fundraiser and then tells the story of how we ended up there. The series peels back the facade of the seemingly perfect lives of upper-class mothers in a small California beach town and explores themes of identity in motherhood, the politics of friendship, and the twisted nature of abusive relationships. Season 1 is an adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s novel of the same name, and while the less engaging Season 2 goes a little off-piste, it does feature a phenomenal performance from Meryl Streep. Shocking, addictive and darkly hilarious, Big little lies is a twisted tale you shouldn’t miss.

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The sample

Nathan Fielder stands in a domestic Christmas setting in “The Rehearsal.”

(Image credit: HBO/Max)

Ostensibly a comedic documentary, the opening episodes will be familiar to anyone who has seen Nathan Fielder’s previous show. Nathan for you. This time, instead of helping small businesses, Fielder’s goal is to give people the opportunity to rehearse important moments in their lives before they actually experience them. However, when participant Anglea is given the opportunity to rehearse the accelerated raising of a child from newborn to 18, Nathan finds himself drawn ever deeper into the scenario. To say more would spoil the surprises, but what begins as another of the filmmaker’s wacky social experiments ends up becoming a moving meditation on the things we wish we had done, with an emotional rawness from Fielder that has only been glimpsed before has seen. The authenticity of what transpires is hotly debated, but when you get lost in the narrative it’s sometimes devastatingly beautiful.

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Chernobyl

(LR) Jared Harris as Valery Legasov and Stellan Skarsgård as Boris Shcherbina step out of a helicopter in Chernobyl

(Image credit: HBO/Max)

Proof that you should never be judged based on your past work, Chernobyl comes from Superhero film And Scary movie 3 Writer Craig Mazin. Historically accurate and breathtakingly exciting, the show documents the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and the subsequent efforts to clean up (and cover up). The series was praised for its historical accuracy and received no fewer than 19 Emmy nominations, including awards for writing and directing. And rightly so – it is a powerful depiction of a catastrophe that could only have happened at such a specific time and place and could only have been resolved in this way. The entire show moves at breakneck speed as various parties struggle to solve the disaster, but some of the specific scenes are chilling, even more so when you know they are based on true events. The breathless descent into the facility after the disaster, the frantic cleanup of the irradiated substance, and the shocking demise of a firefighter serving as a first responder are all images that will stay with you long after the five episodes have ended.

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How To with John Wilson

John Wilson wears a cap and white t-shirt and holds a camera on his shoulder in

(Image credit: HBO/Max)

A socially awkward filmmaker’s attempts to document some of life’s most mundane tasks doesn’t sound like a recipe for some of the best television in recent years, however How To with John Wilson takes viewers on a journey through some of society’s most interesting areas, creating a heartwarming show about life, relationships and just about everything else that makes us human. The entire show was shot and edited by Wilson, although he is rarely seen on camera. What we get is an almost omnipresent voiceover of him, endearingly rambling and stuttering over the montage shots of New York City. While each episode begins with a “How To…” question, it’s the topics Wilson explores in search of an answer that make the series so worth watching. The search for how to remember our dreams leads us to one Avatar While trying to figure out how to watch the game, a gathering of vacuum cleaner enthusiasts occurs, leading to a surprisingly emotional conclusion. It’s life-affirming stuff and worth watching just to see what crazy journeys (physical and emotional) each episode will take you on.

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7 incredible HBO shows that aren’t Game of Thrones that you can enjoy with Max’s $2.99 Black Friday deal

ByAmelia Journalton

Get the Black Friday deal on your Max subscriptions before you start streaming

The leftovers

By Amelia Journalton

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