If you’re an HBO Max subscriber in the U.S. who’s been spending your evenings cycling through the same rewatches—The Pitt, White Lotus, or letting Last Week Tonight drone in the background while you pretend to fold laundry—then I’ve got a few suggestions to run by you.
As May begins to wind down, it still has some exciting new and new-ish shows to sink your teeth into, including a hilarious stand-up special, a brilliant new French-language thriller series, a new season of Jason Momoa and his wanderlust, and an absolutely insane tornado-chasing series from Discovery. Let’s go!
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Ramy Youssef: In Love
The comedian’s warmest, most personal hour yet
It’s always great to start the week off with some laughs, and comedian/actor/director Ramy Youssef’s stand-up special, Ramy Youssef: In Love, is a great way to do it. For the unfamiliar, the Egyptian-American comedian has so far ticked a ton of boxes off his career to-do list—he’s a three-time Emmy nominee (for his Hulu comedy series Ramy and for directing an episode of The Bear), he’s hosted SNL, and he was in an Oscar-winning film (Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, with Emma Stone).
Now, in his third HBO stand-up special, Youssef gets back to his comedy roots with a performance recorded live at the intimate Hideout, a prohibition-era bar in Chicago. Youssef’s act spans topics such as domestic married life, religion, modern politics, being a pandemic dog parent, and the absurdities of technology like Grok, and AI-generated content. Directed by The Bear creator Christopher Storer, it’s a hilarious way to spend an hour.
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Privileges
A French thriller about a second chance gone wrong
A brand-new series to HBO and HBO Max, the six-part French-language thriller Privileges has been getting a lot of comparisons to other HBO staples like Industry and White Lotus, which is not a bad thing at all—it’s actually grittier and with a more intense sense of danger. The show follows Adèle Charki (Manon Bresch), a young woman serving time for attempted murder, who takes a work release job at a luxury Paris hotel called the Citadel.
But it turns out that the hotel’s powerful, and dodgy, director, Edouard Galzain, has chosen Adèle because, a) she’s a criminal, and b) she’s disposable. These are all perfect attributes for the scheming, lying, spying, and whatever other chores Edouard wants her to do—whether it’s involving the hotel’s wealthy guests or the criminal network Edouard’s tied up in. So far, Privileges doesn’t have a Rotten Tomatoes score, but Bresch is fabulous, and the series has been critically praised across Europe after debuting in March.
Quiz
HBO Max movies and shows
Trivia challenge
From Westeros to the ER — how well do you know HBO Max’s biggest hits and most talked-about originals?
DramaComedyFantasyMoviesCharacters
In The Pitt, what type of medical facility serves as the primary setting for the series?
Correct! The Pitt is set in a Pittsburgh hospital emergency room and follows the staff through a single grueling 15-hour shift. The show stars Noah Wyle and was created as a spiritual successor to the classic ER.
Not quite. The Pitt takes place in a Pittsburgh hospital emergency room, not a surgery wing or clinic. The show unfolds in real time over one intense 15-hour shift, giving it a grounded, unrelenting pace.
In Hacks, what is the profession of Deborah Vance, the character played by Jean Smart?
Correct! Deborah Vance is a legendary Las Vegas stand-up comedian who reluctantly teams up with a young, struggling comedy writer named Ava. Jean Smart’s performance earned her widespread critical acclaim and multiple Emmy Awards.
Not quite. Deborah Vance is a veteran stand-up comedian — a Las Vegas legend who is forced to collaborate with a younger comedy writer to reinvent her act. Jean Smart won Emmy Awards for the role.
House of the Dragon is a prequel to Game of Thrones — approximately how many years before the events of Game of Thrones does it take place?
Correct! House of the Dragon is set roughly 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones. It depicts the Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons, a catastrophic conflict over succession to the Iron Throne.
Not quite. House of the Dragon is set approximately 200 years before Game of Thrones, not 50 or 100 years. The series is based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood and covers the Targaryen dynasty at the height of its power.
In the 2025 horror film Sinners, directed by Ryan Coogler, what supernatural threat do twin brothers face in the Deep South?
Correct! Sinners features vampires as the central supernatural threat. Ryan Coogler’s film stars Michael B. Jordan in a dual role as the twin brothers, and blends horror with themes of race, music, and history in 1930s Mississippi.
Not quite. The supernatural menace in Sinners is vampires. Director Ryan Coogler crafted the film as a genre-bending horror story set in 1930s Mississippi, starring Michael B. Jordan as twin brothers caught in a terrifying night of violence.
Weapons, the 2025 horror anthology film on Max, was written and directed by which filmmaker?
Correct! Weapons was written and directed by Zach Cregger, who previously broke out with the acclaimed horror film Barbarian in 2022. The anthology follows multiple interconnected stories tied together by a disturbing central mystery.
Not quite. Weapons was directed by Zach Cregger, best known for directing Barbarian. Cregger has quickly established himself as one of the most exciting voices in modern horror, and Weapons continued that momentum on Max.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight is another Game of Thrones prequel series — which character does it primarily follow?
Correct! The series centers on Ser Duncan the Tall, a hedge knight, and his young squire Egg — who is secretly the young prince Aegon Targaryen. The story is based on George R.R. Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas.
Not quite. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms follows Ser Duncan the Tall, a wandering hedge knight, alongside his squire Egg. The show is adapted from George R.R. Martin’s beloved Dunk and Egg novellas set a century before Game of Thrones.
One Battle After Another, the 2025 Max limited series, is based on a novel by which author?
Correct! One Battle After Another is adapted from Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland. The series marks a rare screen adaptation of Pynchon’s notoriously complex work, and generated significant buzz for its ambitious literary source material.
Not quite. The series is based on the work of Thomas Pynchon, one of American literature’s most elusive and celebrated novelists. Adapting Pynchon for television is a rare and ambitious undertaking given the dense, layered nature of his writing.
In Euphoria, what substance addiction is central to the storyline of the main character, Rue, played by Zendaya?
Correct! Rue’s battle with opioid addiction is a core thread running through Euphoria. The show uses her struggle as a lens to explore trauma, identity, and mental health among teenagers, and Zendaya won Emmy Awards for her portrayal.
Not quite. Rue struggles primarily with opioid addiction throughout Euphoria. Creator Sam Levinson drew on personal experience to shape her character, and Zendaya’s raw, emotionally powerful performance earned her back-to-back Emmy wins.
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On the Roam (season 2)
Jason Momoa hits the road again on his passion quest
If you follow Jason Momoa on social media, you know that the charismatic Hollywood actor-turned-entrepreneur, director, and producer has a wild and inspiring thirst for life, and has more fingers in more pies than he actually has fingers for. There are too many to get into here, but it’s these passions for artisanship, outdoor culture, craftsmanship, and environmentalism that drive his series On the Roam, now in its second season on HBO Max, as of May 14.
Season one’s eight episodes followed the Game of Thrones and Dune star from Hawaii to North Carolina as he (among other things) deep dived with vintage motorcycle builders, and met with Slash and Les Claypool to explore legendary Gibson and Fender guitars, respectively. For season two, with episodes releasing every Thursday until June 18, Jason continues to explore passion and friendship, with episodes spent with Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, Painter Julian Schnabel, and punk band The Bobby Lees, whom Momoa highlights in the season premiere.
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In the Eye of the Storm: Chasers
An absolutely insane tornado-chasing series
Set your faces to “stunned” for this Discovery docuseries that just arrived on HBO Max this month, and features some absolutely devastating tornado footage captured in Tornado Alley by the chasers that this series is the focus of. A spinoff of Discovery’s hit disaster show In Eye of the Storm, which focused on eyewitness accounts of some of the country’s deadliest storms, the new six-part series In the Eye of the Storm: Chasers instead shifts the spotlight to 12 teams of professional storm chasers and certified weather spotters as they self-shoot their own encounters with some monster twisters.
Veterans storm chaser Reed Timmer, Randy Hicks, and Brandon Copic team up with the next generation of their kind, including Tanner Charles, Freddy McKinney, Sarah Kassabian, and Connor Croff, to track and learn about tornadoes and weather systems while helping warn communities and pitch in with local first responders. One of the show’s highlights is the absolutely mind-boggling footage of a historic EF-5 category tornado in Enderlin, North Dakota, the rarest, most intense, and most destructive category of them all, with winds capable of up to 200 mph. Chasers premiered on May 17 on HBO Max, with weekly episodes coming every Sunday at 10:00 pm.
Something for everyone
If your watchlist has been stagnant lately, this is a great week to give it a jolt with some laughs, thrills, passion, and devastating tornado destruction. For more ways to fill the queue, How-To Geek also runs regular roundups across every major streamer, so there’s always another batch of picks waiting when you’ve burned through these.
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