Most Watched HBO Max TV Shows of 2023! There are plenty of good shows on HBO, even some outstanding ones. The platform has earned its premium TV rank, and its streaming service includes typical favorites like Friends and modern Emmy-winning classics like Succession and The White Lotus.
There’s a lot of good content to choose from. Here’s our pick of the top HBO Max shows to get you started.
Also Read: Most Watched HBO Max Movies of 2023!
The Last of Us
The Last of Us, one of the most remarkable videogame-to-screen adaptations ever, rewrote the rulebook for what a live-action adaptation of a game may be. When you take a game with a well-worn premise, give it the budget and creators of shows of an HBO prestige drama, and cast it with an actor known for playing a stoic father figure with a heart of gold beside an appealing fiery teenager, you’re going to get enjoyable television no matter what.
Combine all that with a willingness to let the show do its very own thing and not stick too tightly to the game’s canon, and you’re on to a winner. With season 2 on the way, The Last of Us has become one of the most-watched TV shows in 2023.
Love and Death
True crime series, whether factual or scripted, has become a hallmark of the 2020s, and Candy Montgomery, the Texan housewife suspected of murdering her friend Betty Gore with an axe, is the focus of the second miniseries in two years.
Montgomery was played by Jessica Biel in the first miniseries Candy and Elizabeth Olsen in Love & Death. Candy develops feelings for fellow churchgoer Allan Gore (Jesse Plemons), and the two start an affair.
Candy ends up killing Allan’s wife, Betty (Lily Rabe), with an axe and is tried for her murder, despite her claims that she acted in self-defense.
While Love & Death follows the usual beats of a suburban true crime story, the main characters’ performances, particularly Olsen’s, make Love & Death a compelling watch.
Our Flag Means Death
Our Flag Means Death was the first pirate romantic comedy series, but season 2 featured more than enough drama. Max’s incredibly funny 18th-century pirate comedy series, Our Flag Means Death.
Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) is a wealthy guy living in Barbados who becomes unhappy with his daily life and becomes a pirate. Bonnet sets out on the Revenge with an odd group and has a wild series of adventures, including a run-in with the famous pirate Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard (Taika Waititi).
Our Flag Meets Death sounds like sheer escapism, and it is, but the show has also received a lot of attention for its broad LGBTQ+ portrayal since Our Flag Means Death has three gay relationships. Aside from that, it’s simply one of the funniest and finest shows on Max.
Rain Dogs
Rain Dogs is a touching black comedy from the United Kingdom that depicts a single mother fighting to make ends meet while supporting her adolescent daughter. The unusual family drama, starring Daisy May Cooper, mixes dark gallows humor to significant effect.
The series received critical acclaim and was named the top-rated new show in the United States for the first half of 2023. Despite stiff competition, Rain Dogs is clearly among Max‘s top comedic TV series.
Warriors
Warrior was the last Cinemax original series, and it was renewed for a third season on Max. This is one of the best martial arts shows in the past few years. Season 3 began during the San Francisco Chinatown riots, as Ah Sahm (Andrew Koji), Young Jun (Jason Tobin), and the rest of their Tong tried to live.
Beyond the action scenes, this drama takes place in the 1870s and has a more intricate story. This season, for example, had Mai Ling (Dianne Doan) attempting to spread her influence in the legal corners of San Francisco’s high society, only to discover that even she has limits in the twenty-first century. This drama is about power, and the battles are often brutal on the streets.
