Television has evolved a lot over the course of the last 25 years. The success of shows like “The Sopranos,” “The Wire” and “Breaking Bad” throughout the late ’90s, 2000s and early 2010s made many viewers start taking the medium and its possibilities a lot more seriously than they did before. That, combined with the explosion of streaming services in the 2010s, resulted in a boom of expensive, complex, ambitious and sometimes star-studded ongoing and limited series.
That means most streaming platforms are bursting with countless worthwhile prestige dramas for you to watch. Here are seven of the best that you can stream right now on HBO Max.
“Station Eleven” (2021)
The best dystopian sci-fi series of the last many years, “Station Eleven” was the victim of bad timing. Coming less than two years after the breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., the series, about a global pandemic that leaves humanity’s few survivors wandering around a dilapidated Earth, was not the kind of escapist entertainment many were seeking in late 2021. Those who skipped it, however, missed out on a limited series that felt transcendent and — perhaps most surprising of all — genuinely healing.
“Station Eleven” deftly avoids nearly every post-apocalyptic fiction cliche. It is a series not about the worst of humanity but the best. Based on Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 novel of the same name, it is a moving examination of the power of art, the importance of compassion and the difficult but necessary process of seeing beyond our own past traumas in order to connect with those around us again. It’s not hyperbole; “Station Eleven” is a revelation.
“The Leftovers” (2014)
Like “Station Eleven,” “The Leftovers” takes place in a world rocked by a global event. Based on a 2011 novel by Tom Perotta, the series follows several characters, including a struggling police chief (Justin Theroux), a grieving matriarch (Carrie Coon) and her reverend brother (Christopher Eccleston), as their lives and the lives of others intersect in the wake of the sudden disappearance of 2% of the world’s population. The series, which comes from Perrotta and “Lost” co-creator Damon Lindelof, spends most of its first season dwelling in its characters’ bare, ugly pain. Its second and third seasons, however, see “The Leftovers” embrace dark humor, romance and surreality.
The result is a show that started out strong and became, in its final two seasons, remarkable. Featuring career-best, breathtaking performances by Coon, Theroux, Eccleston and Amy Brenneman, “The Leftovers” is a powerful and, at times, mind-bending TV series. Less classifiable than even “Lost,” it’s a series about the two-way nature of grief and learning to embrace the unknowable parts of life, no matter how painful or inexplicable they may be.
“Chernobyl” (2019)
Rarely has a true-life tragedy inspired a piece of media as scathing, measured or haunting as “Chernobyl.” “The Last of Us” showrunner Craig Mazin‘s historical drama explores the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986 and the Soviet Union’s subsequent clean-up and cover-up efforts. It is an unflinching depiction of the real-life consequences of government corruption, irresponsible leadership and scientific skepticism. Pulling from multiple historical documents and real-life accounts of the disaster, “Chernobyl” crafts a damning portrait of the carelessness that caused its central meltdown and the politically-minded thinking that very nearly made it even worse.
As it charts the efforts of multiple scientists and government officials to contain the deadly radioactive effects of the Chernobyl nuclear plant’s destruction, the series repeatedly spotlights the human toll that the disaster wrought. Constructed with masterful control and confidence by both Mazin and director Johan Renck, “Chernobyl” is a timeless series that asks in both its very first line of dialogue and in every minute that follows, “What is the cost of lies?”
“Show Me a Hero” (2015)
David Simon will always be best known for creating “The Wire,” despite the fact that he has spent the past two decades making equally important, dramatically compelling shows. Of those, few are as underrated or affecting as “Show Me a Hero.” Based on a 1999 nonfiction book of the same name, the limited series follows Yonkers mayor Nick Wasicsko (Oscar Isaac) as he ends up caught in the late 1980s at the center of a conflict instigated by a group of middle-class white residents who are passionately opposed to the city’s new, federally-mandated affordable public housing developments.
“Show Me a Hero” is, in other words, not all that different from Simon’s other, more well-known projects. It is a series about the importance of local government and city planning, the racial and class tensions that have long kept America divided and the uncaring, soul-killing nature of the country’s bureaucratic machine. Anchored by a reliably commanding lead performance from Oscar Isaac, “Show Me a Hero” functions as both an involving and rousing tale of governmental victory and an American tragedy. It is, as Simon told Charlie Rose in 2015, a series about what happens when “everybody doesn’t feel like they share at least some sense of the same America.”
“Sharp Objects” (2018)
An unfairly forgotten entry in the Prestige TV boom of the late 2010s, “Sharp Objects” is a surreal and engrossing Southern Gothic thriller. Based on “Gone Girl” author Gillian Flynn’s debut novel of the same name, the Martin Noxon-created miniseries follows Camille Preaker (Amy Adams), a reporter prone to self-harm who is sent back to her Missouri hometown to investigate the murders of two young local girls. Once there, she is reunited with her hypercritical, controlling mother (Patricia Clarkson) and finds herself haunted by traumatic childhood memories.
Directed with dreamlike, elliptical style by the late Jean-Marc Vallée, “Sharp Objects” is a disturbingly mesmerizing cross between a family drama, serial killer mystery and a swampy summertime horror story. It is a lot of things, but it is held together at all times by Adams’ fierce, thorny central performance, which ranks high as one of the best she’s ever given. Still streaming on HBO Max, those who catch up on “Sharp Objects” now will also be treated to a memorable guest performance by a young, pre-“Euphoria” Sydney Sweeney in an episode that hits with the emotional force of a freight train.
“The Knick” (2014)
“The Knick” is one of the hidden gems of the mid-2010s Prestige TV surge. Created by Jack Amiel and Michael Begler and directed entirely by “Ocean’s Eleven” filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, the series follows a doctor (Clive Owen) working at a New York City hospital in the early 20th century and the fellow doctors and nurses who are lured in by his brilliance and also caught in the wreckage of his self-destructive, reckless tendencies. Thanks to its unflinching, often bloody reenactments of turn-of-the-century medical procedures, the series is most definitely not for the easily squeamish or faint of heart.
That, coupled with the fact that it aired its two seasons originally on Cinemax of all networks in 2014 and 2015, resulted in “The Knick” flying under most mainstream TV viewers’ radars. It deserves to be more widely known and discussed, though. Premiering the same year as “True Detective” Season 1, the series was an early indicator of the star-and-director-driven era of Prestige TV that would soon follow it. Directed with economic, assured style by Soderbergh, who remains as gifted a technical craftsman as practically any other working director, “The Knick” is a deeply immersive, surprisingly entertaining drama.
“Scavengers Reign” (2023)
When TV viewers think about prestige dramas, animated shows — for better or worse — do not usually come to mind. But if there is any animated series that definitely qualifies as a “prestige drama,” it is “Scavengers Reign.” This adult sci-fi series from creators Joseph Bennett and Charles Huettner follows the survivors of a damaged interstellar cargo ship mission who end up stranded on an alien planet covered in strange, symbiotic plant life and populated by dangerous creatures the likes of which they have never encountered before.
Bursting with moments of awe-inspiring sci-fi wonder and chilling, terrifying cosmic horror, “Scavengers Reign” is a hypnotic, mesmerizing series. It is full of mind-bending sequences that, much like the flora and creatures featured on its central planet, defy expectation and explanation. The series received a late surge of critical acclaim and fan support months after its initial premiere in October 2023, but that did not stop Max from canceling it after just one season in early 2024. As disappointing as that is, it does not detract from the power of “Scavengers Reign,” a series that entrances, unnerves and keeps your eyes locked on it from its opening moments all the way to its last.
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