The Best Movies To Stream On HBO Max This Weekend

Each weekend, HBO Max adds a bevy of movies to its already massive digital library. Which means you’ll always have a slew of new movies to choose from in addition to thousands of other films you’re waiting to discover.

But how to do navigate all of these movie options? Obviously, it’s a daunting task—but hopefully this article can help.

To help narrow down the search, this article will highlight two movies that will be newly added to HBO Max this weekend, as well as three other movies I recommend you check out.

New Movies

Between the World and Me (2020)

Ta-Nehisi Coates made a huge splash in 2015 with his book Between the World and Me. And now that story has become an HBO special that will premiere this weekend. This presentation will include readings from Coates’ herald book, as well as incorporate footage from the actors’ home life, archival footage, and animation.

This movie will premiere on HBO Max tomorrow.

Underwater (2020)

Movies released in the year of 2020 are sort of hard to come by. Unless the film released in the early months of this year, it likely got pushed to 2021. Luckily, Underwater made its debut back in January. This horror film centers on an underwater drilling station that’s leaking water. The workers must then fight for their lives as mysterious, deadly creatures attack.

This movie will premiere on HBO Max tomorrow.

Other Movie Recommendations

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

A few days ago around 11 a.m., I started up the movie Picnic at Hanging Rock. I watched the first half of the movie…and I found it very strange. In a bad way. I simply couldn’t get into the flow and feel of the movie, so I turned it off.

Then later that night, once my wife had gone to bed, I decided to give the movie another go—and everything changed.

Suddenly I understood the themes and ideas being expressed in the movie; how all of the characters desperately wavered between the routine of the world as we know it and the fantasy of the world that could be if we give ourselves over to it.

So, after I finished the second half, I started the movie over right then and there and watched the entire thing again (this is the first time I’ve ever done that, by the way). That night ended up being one of the truly most delightful, transcendent experiences I’ve ever had with a film. So, obviously, I recommend giving yourself over and falling into this one.

A Prairie Home Companion (2006)

I love Robert Altman to death. McCabe and Mrs. Miller is one of the best westerns ever. I’m absolutely charmed by Popeye. And Nashville has always been one of my favorite movies ever.

But if I was going to recommend any newcomer to watch an Altman movie, then I’d choose A Prairie Home Companion. At the ripe age of 81 years old, Altman crafted what may have been the most mesmerizing, compelling film in his entire filmography. And to boot, he extracted some incredible performances from his all-star cast.

The movie centers on the final broadcast of the famous radio program “A Prairie Home Companion,” which is going off the air. Music, power dynamics, inappropriate jokes, ghosts—yeah, this movie’s got it all.

Can’t Buy Me Love (1987)

Oh! Patrick Dempsey! So dreamy, right? Well, for a while, all I knew was the chiseled 50-year-old Patrick Dempsey who is apparently a vampire because see seems incapable of aging?

But if you head back to the 1980s, you’ll find a young-and-incredibly-skinny Dempsey who was poised to become one of Hollywood’s next big stars. And while the actor would never find the kind of success he would later find with Grey’s Anatomy in the television field, he did star in what is probably his most cherished film as a rising celebrity: Can’t Buy Me Love.

This movie does that weird thing (that actually happens quite often in these sort of teen comedies) where you cannot make someone fall in love with you without some sort of bet or bribery being involved. So for Can’t Buy Me Love, Dempsey’s nerdy character Ronald agrees to help out cheerleader Cindy if she agrees to “date” him for one month.

As you can guess, she actually starts to fall for Ronald—that is until popularity starts to go to Ronald’s head. This is about as charming as movies get.