What to Watch on HBO Max: ‘Gossip Girl’ 2.0, ‘Space Jam’ and New Steven Soderbergh


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HBO and Warner Bros. unusual 2021 release strategy has seen films debut on the service, then disappear after a month — only to debut again as they normally would after a traditional theatrical run. It’s confusing, but it also means you often don’t have to wait that long to catch something like the great Judas and the Black Messiah, which makes its return to the service this month.

But it’s not just a case of everything old being new again on HBO Max in July. There’s plenty of new stuff that’s just, well, new, like a sequel to a fondly remembered 1996 team-up between the NBA and Looney Tunes and a new series from Mike White. Here’s a few of the most promising options for the month.

Watch all of these shows and films for free with a subscription to HBO Max. An HBO Max subscription costs $14.99/month (in line with pricing for Netflix or the popular $13.99 Disney Bundle). See full HBO Max sign-up details here.


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Judas and the Black Messiah (July 1)

Best known for directing smart TV comedies like High Maintenance and Shrill, director Shaka King takes a hard left turn with this instantly acclaimed historical drama about Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), the Chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party who died at the hands of the Chicago police in 1969. Lakeith Stanfield stars as William O’Neal, the man who joined the Black Panthers as an informant for the FBI. (The “Judas” isn’t in the title by accident.)

Married to the Mob (July 1)

Whether directing comedies, thrillers, dramas, literary adaptations, or concert movies, Jonathan Damme brought a sense of humanity and community to his films like no other director. This 1988 comedy starring Michelle Pfeiffer as a mob wife trying to leave the world of crime behind and start a life of her own is one of Demme’s best, balancing fun with a sense of danger and never forgetting how much starting over means to its heroine. Dean Stockwell picked up a well-deserved Oscar nomination for his work as mob boss Tony “The Tiger” Russo.

Westworld (July 1)

Fans of the HBO series Westworld may not know what to make of the Michael Crichton-directed movie from 1973 that inspired it, a film that offers far fewer twists on the concept of an amusement park filled with robots easily mistaken for humans. It’s still a fun, scary movie however, highlighted by Yul Brynner’s chilling work as “The Gunslinger,” a pitiless, cowboy hat-wearing killing machine.

No Sudden Move (July 1)

The latest from Steven Soderbergh finds a cast of the director’s regulars (Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro) and newcomers to the Soderbergh fold (Amy Seimetz, David Harbour, and Jon Hamm) uniting for a crime story set against the backdrop of a troubled 1950s Detroit. If the cast alone wasn’t intriguing enough, the last time Soderbergh went to Detroit the result was Out of Sight.

Let Him Go (July 3)

What can you do if your son’s widow marries into a violent family taking your grandson with her? If you’re George (Kevin Costner) and Margaret Blackledge (Diane Lane), you do whatever you can to get him back. Costner and Lane previously played Superman’s adoptive parents in Man of Steel. Here, however, they have to fend for themselves as they go up against the Weboy clan, a much-feared bunch headed by a mean matriarch played by The Phantom Thread’s Leslie Manville. At once a gripping thriller and a measured depiction of a lived-in marriage, this is another pandemic-era release that deserves to find a wider audience now that it’s easier to find.

Shiva Baby (July 7)

Director Emma Selligman announced her arrival in a big way with this intimate comedy about an aimless college senior named Danielle (Rachel Sennott) who unwittingly attends a shiva that brings her into contact with the man who’s been playing sugar daddy to her — and his wife and child. It only gets more awkward from there. Selligman and Sennott play the situation for laughs without losing sight of the emotions at play making it easy to hope for the best for Danielle even as she makes one bad choice after another.

Gossip Girl (July 8)

One of the signature shows of the 2000s returns, this time with a focus on a new generation of New York teens getting into trouble against a backdrop of wealth and privilege. Kristen Bell still narrates as the unseen Gossip Girl, a character whose blog apparently survived all the changes that have swept through online media in the past decade.

The White Lotus (July 11)

With Enlightened, writer/director Mike White mixed satire with a deft character study via the story of a self-destructive woman (Laura Dern) trying her best to live a meaningful life. That series ended too soon, running just two seasons, but White is making a return to HBO with this miniseries set at an exclusive tropical resort designed to pamper the privileged. Murray Bartlett (Looking) heads an ensemble cast that includes Connie Britton, Steve Zahn, and Alexandra Daddario.

Space Jam: A New Legacy (July 16)

Apparently each generation must send an NBA superstar off to play alongside classic Looney Tunes characters. In this sequel to the 1996 hit, LeBron James takes over for Michael Jordan, this time doing battle against an evil computer intelligence named Al-G Rhythm (Don Cheadle). Expect plenty of cameos from fictional characters from Looney Tunes and elsewhere and real basketball stars (and a lot of wisecracks and catchphrases). (This film debuts in theaters simultaneously.)

Freaky (July 24)

What if Freaky Friday was a horror movie? That’s the intriguing central premise of this new Blumhouse-produced film starring Kathryn Newton (Big Little Lies) as a high schooler who swaps bodies with a serial killer (Vince Vaughn). As with his Happy Death Day films, director Christopher Landon strikes just the right balance between comedy and scares and Vaughn delivers a surprisingly sensitive performance as a misfit teen girl trapped in a brute’s body.


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