Credit: Lucas Gouveia/How-To GeekWith most of HBO Max‘s July highlights, like Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, landing in the last ten days of the month, and House of the Dragon painstakingly dropping only once a week, now’s an excellent time to raid one of the deepest catalogs in streaming.
For this week, we’re spotlighting three shows (in descending order based on Rotten Tomatoes score) you can stream right now, in their entirety if you like: a painfully honest comedy about a man’s dream of making it as a stand-up, a legendary series from a notoriously petty legend, and a gorgeous animated multiverse trip from the Adventure Time people.
3
Crashing
Pete Holmes’ semi-autobiographical series is a joy
Pete Holmes is easily one of my favorite stand-up comedians. His quirky, existential takes on life and unflinchingly positive vibe (it’s gold when he laughs at his own jokes) are infectious. So when he fired up his own semi-autobiographical series, Crashing, on HBO in 2017, I was all-in.
Built around Holmes’ own worst year, with Judd Apatow (Knocked Up) producing and directing episodes across its three seasons (2017-2019), Crashing doubles as both a moving-on story and a love letter to New York’s stand-up scene. Holmes plays Pete, a sheltered, relentlessly nice aspiring comedian whose life implodes when his wife, Jess (Lauren Lapkus, Orange Is the New Black), leaves him for another man. Suddenly homeless, Pete crashes on the couches of other working comics on the scene—Artie Lange, T.J. Miller, and Sarah Silverman play warped versions of themselves—while grinding through open mic nights and soul-crushing bombing.
Crashing mines Holmes’ real post-divorce years for laughs that sneak up on you, but it’s his sincerity and genuinely sweet moments that will make you cheer for him. Crashing has a 90% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Network
Channel 4
Cast
Pete Holmes, George Basil, Jamie Lee, Artie Lange, Lauren Lapkus, Dov Davidoff, Zach Cherry, Jermaine Fowler, Madeline Wise, Henry Zebrowski, Rachel Feinstein, Aparna Nancherla, Dan Naturman, Greer Barnes, Keith Robinson, Estee Adoram, Dave Attell, Jessica Kirson, Joyelle Johnson, Jason Huslin, John Mulaney
Directors
George Kane
Main Genre
Comedy
Creator(s)
Pete Holmes
Producers
Kenton Allen, Matthew Justice, Josh Cole
Seasons
3
Streaming Service(s)
M
2
Curb Your Enthusiasm
12 seasons of Larry David’s magnificently petty social warfare
With Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness currently rewriting American history on HBO, I thought now would be a great time to revisit the mothership of cringe. Seinfeld co-creator Larry David’s largely improvised comedy (do I even have to say its name?) Curb Your Enthusiasm ran for 12 seasons from 2000 to 2024, winning a Golden Globe, racking up 55 Emmy nominations (but, shocking, only two wins!), and influencing basically every awkward cringe comedy show since.
For those who haven’t indulged in its brilliance, Larry plays a heightened version of himself—a wealthy, semi-retired TV writer bumbling around Los Angeles, turning minor social infractions—an unreturned phone call, sampling more than two ice cream flavors, the chat-and-cut to butt into a long line—into scorched-earth feuds of epic proportions.
Quiz
Name the Iconic HBO legacy TV shows
Trivia challenge
From mob bosses to fantasy kingdoms — can you name these legendary HBO
series from their clues?
DramaCharactersCreatorsPremieresSettings
Characters
Which HBO show features a New Jersey mob boss who sees a psychiatrist to deal with
panic attacks and family stress?
as he balances running a crime family with his personal anxieties. The show ran from 1999 to 2007 and is
widely considered one of the greatest TV dramas ever made.
with Dr. Melfi became one of the show’s most iconic elements, blending dark comedy with raw drama across
six acclaimed seasons.
Settings
Which HBO series is set primarily in the fictional city of Baltimore and explores
the drug trade, politics, and law enforcement?
dissect American institutions across five seasons. Each season focused on a different facet of the city,
from the docks to the school system.
as a Baltimore journalist to craft one of the most realistic and socially conscious dramas in television
history.
Drama
Which HBO show was the first major prestige drama to depict life inside a maximum
security prison from the inmates’ perspective?
series. Set in the fictional Oswald State Correctional Facility, it was groundbreaking for its
unflinching depiction of prison violence, race, and redemption.
for cable television and paved the way for the prestige drama era that followed with shows like The
Sopranos and The Wire.
Creators
Which legendary HBO fantasy series was based on George R.R. Martin’s book series ‘A
Song of Ice and Fire’?
beginning in 2011, running for eight seasons. The show became a global cultural phenomenon, though its
final season proved divisive among fans.
D.B. Weiss adapted George R.R. Martin’s books into one of the most-watched TV series of all time before
the story outpaced the source novels.
Premieres
Which HBO dramedy, premiering in 1998, follows the lives of four female friends
navigating love and relationships in New York City?
starred Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw. It ran for six seasons and became a defining pop
culture touchstone of the late 1990s and 2000s.
and revolutionized how women’s stories were told on television, spawning two theatrical films and a
later revival series called And Just Like That.
Characters
In which HBO series does a funeral home family, the Fishers, confront mortality both
professionally and in their personal lives?
opened each episode with a death that set the tone for that week’s story. It is remembered for one of
the most acclaimed series finales in television history.
wrote American Beauty, and he brought the same meditative examination of death and family dysfunction to
this acclaimed HBO drama.
Settings
Which HBO Western series is set in a lawless South Dakota gold rush town and stars
Timothy Olyphant as a newly appointed sheriff?
is famed for its rich language, complex characters, and historical authenticity. A wrap-up film,
Deadwood: The Movie, was released in 2019.
Deadwood in the Dakota Territory, the show blended fact and fiction to portray the raw, brutal birth of
civilization on the American frontier.
Drama
Which HBO series, set in ancient Rome, follows two soldiers — Lucius Vorenus and
Titus Pullo — amid the fall of the Republic?
to 2007. Its massive production budget and lavish recreation of ancient Roman life made it one of the
most expensive television series ever made at the time.
and the BBC, and its enormous production costs led to its cancellation after just two seasons despite
critical acclaim and a devoted fanbase.
Your Score
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Cheryl Hines plays Larry’s long-suffering wife, Jeff Garlin (The Goldbergs) his enabling manager, and comedian J.B. Smoove plays Leon, the houseguest who never leaves. There’s also a who’s-who of revolving guest stars, including an incredible seven-episode Seinfeld reunion arc that brings the whole gang back together. Pick any season; the pettiness is timeless. Curb is a must-see binge that has a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Network
HBO Max
Cast
Larry David, Jeff Garlin, Cheryl Hines, Susie Essman, J.B. Smoove, Richard Lewis, Ted Danson, Bob Einstein, Ashly Holloway, Shelley Berman
Showrunner
Jeff Schaffer
Directors
Robert B. Weide, Larry Charles, David Steinberg, Bryan Gordon, Alec Berg, Andy Ackerman, David Mandel, Barry Gordon, Cheryl Hines, Dean Parisot
Writers
Jeff Schaffer, Larry David
Main Genre
Comedy
Creator(s)
Larry David
Producers
Gavin Polone, Jeff Garlin, Jeff Schaffer, Larry David, Laura Streicher, Alan Zweibel, Dale Stern, Erin O’Malley, Megan Murphy, Sandy Chanley, Scott Butler, Tim Gibbons, Tom Bull, Linda Balaban
Seasons
12
Streaming Service(s)
M
1
Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake
A multiverse animated adventure with a perfect RT score
The lone animated pick here earned a perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes approval rating for its first season, and it’s easy to see why. A spin-off of Cartoon Network’s iconic Adventure Time (2010-2018), this HBO Max original is all about the adventures of best friends Fionna the Human and Cake the Cat—the gender-swapped versions of AT’s Finn and Jake who debuted as in-universe fan fiction written by the Ice King back in 2011.
Set after the original Adventure Time series finale, it finds Fionna (Madeleine Martin, Californication) working a dead-end job in a drab, magic-less reality where her beloved Cake (Roz Ryan, Hercules) is just an ordinary house cat. When magic comes crashing back, the duo hops across the multiverse with Simon Petrikov (Tom Kenny, SpongeBob SquarePants), the tragic former Ice King, while dodging a cosmic entity called the Scarab bent on erasing them.
With two seasons now streaming, Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake is aimed squarely at the grown-ups who grew up on Ooo.
Network
HBO Max
Cast
Madeleine Martin, Roz Ryan, Tom Kenny
Showrunner
Adam Muto
Franchise(s)
Adventure Time
Seasons
2
Story By
Pendelton Ward
Streaming Service(s)
M
No new shows, no problem
New shows are great, especially on HBO Max, but when you’ve got a plethora of legacy series and more recent gems to flip through when there’s nothing of-the-moment to check out, you could do much worse. And as always, if you’re looking for more, check out our streaming section.
Subscription with ads
Yes, $10.99/month
Simultaneous streams
2 or 4
HBO Max is a subscription-based streaming service offering content from HBO, Warner Bros., DC, and more. In 2025, the service re-branded itself as HBO Max after having previously cut “HBO” from its name.
Live TV
Live sports available in Standard and Premium plans
Price
Starting at $10.99/month or $109.99/year
