The best TV shows you can stream on Max in Australia

Comedian Nathan Fielder has built a career "helping" struggling small businesses turn things around with unhinged and elaborate schemes. If Fielder proved anything over four seasons of Nathan for You, it's that he's utterly obsessed with upping the stakes with every subsequent episode and season.

And that's never been truer than it is with season 2 of The Rehearsal. 

An extension of his work on Nathan for You, The Rehearsal aims to help improve the personal lives of his curious subjects through a series of meticulously planned out rehearsals. The first season saw someone coming clean about a long-standing white lie, another confronting a sibling about a disagreement over inheritance, and an extensive training regimen for a hopeful parent, all with mixed results. The second season ratchets up the stakes when Fielder becomes obsessed with airline safety and fixing an evident communication issue between pilots and their first officers through, you guessed it, a series of meticulously planned rehearsals. Despite how absurd it sounds, you can't help but feel like Fielder is actually onto something, even when his methods are questionable at best. 

Whether you're a longtime fan of the games or a more recent convert, The Last of Us delivered not just one of the most exciting video game adaptations to date but one of 2023's most thrilling TV shows. In 2025, the second season was released, covering parts of the second game. 

The Last of Us Part II is much longer than the first game and took place over a longer period of time, and it appears the same will be true of the television show, with a third season set to continue covering its expansive narrative.

For the second season, Kaitlyn Dever joins the cast as the deuteragonist, Abby. Other newcomers included Jeffrey Wright (Westworld), Catherine O'Hara (The Studio), Isabela Merced (Alien: Romulus), Young Mazino (Beef), and Danny Ramirez (On My Block).

What’s there to say about Game of Thrones that hasn’t been said already? It’s the most popular drama in history, and if you’re reading this list, you’ve probably already seen it. If the TV show’s divisive ending left a bad taste in your mouth, we’d recommend revisiting the show’s glory days (roughly seasons 1 to 4).

If the disappointment of the final season is still too raw after that, consider checking out the spin-off House of the Dragon, also streaming on Max. 

Damon Lindelof cut his teeth on Lost, where he proved he wasn't afraid to leave some questions unanswered (for better or worse). But none of Lindelof's work will leave you with as many questions as The Leftovers. Not loose-end questions– the manufactured intrigue that Lost was criticised for– questions you're happy to explore and continue exploring long after the credits have rolled. We're now a few years out from The Leftovers Season 3 finale, and it's still a show I think about constantly. A lot of people dropped off after the first season but I can't recommend persevering enough. Season 2 and 3 go beyond the novel's source material into some truly wild and fascinating places (including the Australian outback for the majority of Season 3).

After six seasons, two god-awful movies and one spin-off that nobody remembers, you would think that the Sex and the City fountain had truly run dry but against all common sense, the HBO reboot series And Just Like That... went ahead without the series' sex positive MVP, Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) in 2021. Sure, there were some long overdue changes made for the reboot, not the least of which added a bit of diversity to the main cast; Sara Ramirez's Che Diaz a "non-binary, queer stand-up comedian who hosts a podcast," but it sometimes feels too little too late.

The release of the reboot got us in the mood to binge all six seasons of the pro-Samantha Jones original series (potentially followed by a wine-fuelled hate watch of the two movies).

The entire original Sex and the City and the reboot series And Just Like That... are both available to stream on Max in Australia.

Dramas about rich people's problems aren’t typically my cup of tea, and there was nothing about Succession’s initial marketing that convinced me it wasn’t just another Billions. What I didn’t realise until consuming the first two seasons over a single week was that Succession doesn’t actually glorify the wealthy elite, but rather tears them apart limb from limb with whip-smart satire and a healthy serving of schadenfreude.

Brian Cox is perfectly cast as a Super Saiyan-level bastard, Logan Roy, the family patriarch and co-founder of a fictional media giant Waystar Royco, that is maybe definitely based on Murdoch’s media empire.

While it didn't reach the dizzying heights of Game of Thrones in terms of viewership, Succession was, hands-down, HBO's best replacement for Game of Thrones. 

The Penguin picks up just a week after The Batman's end and shows Oswald Cobb officially attempting to assert leadership over the Falcone Crime Syndicate.

However, as more suitors emerge from the shadows, including Falcone's own son and daughter (recently rehabilitated Arkham patient, Sofia Falcone), the Penguin's shaky alliances are more fragile than ever. 

The Penguin only has one season, but it's a chilling watch and will tide you over until Part Two of Matt Reeves' The Batman. 

With the end nigh, it's high time to check out all four seasons of the hilarious Righteous Gemstones.

Imagine if you set Succession in South Carolina and replaced the 24/7 news network with a family of successful televangelists, and you're halfway to The Righteous Gemstones. It's nowhere near as serious as Succession but it's just as funny (it was created by Eastbound and Down's Danny McBride, after all.) 

Come for Danny McBride's razor-sharp putdowns and stay for Walton Goggins' outrageous shyster Baby Billy Freeman. 

Mike White's The White Lotus is a dark comedy about the unbalanced power dynamics of elite tourism.

Imagine the messiness of a Bravo reality show spliced into a prestige drama with the satirical edge of Succession, and you've got the idea.

Originally imagined as a six-part limited series, Season One of The White Lotus takes place at a Hawaiian resort of the same name. Told over the course of a week, the plot tracks the hijinks, horniness and thorniness between the various privileged guests staying at the hotel and the poor staff who have to deal with their unchecked privilege.

The second season of The White Lotus moved the action to a Sicilian version of the titular resort, while the third season travels to Thailand for some fun with two sons. 

If The Sopranos’ near-unanimous praise hasn’t been enough to get you tied up in Tony’s troubled and twisted family crime-drama, then it’s time to pull out the gabagool (capicola,) whipped cream, Neapolitan ice cream and buckle up for a Bada Binge.

Every season of the HBO classic is now streaming on Max in Australia.

Sam Levinson's surreal and strikingly cinematic high-school drama was one of the most-talked HBO original series in years when it first released. Since the arrival of the second season in 2022, Euphoria has continued to explode in popularity.

The series follows a group of friends at a modern American high school, led by Zendaya's Rue, a young woman struggling to navigate her first relationship while recovering from a dangerous and destructive drug addiction.

While there are echoes of other series where edgey high school-aged characters push on the boundaries of likability and audience comfort (see also: Skins) here, Euphoria's diverse cast, mesmerizing cinematography, compelling performances and undiluted commitment to be extremely extra all of the time help it appeal to those who usually wouldn't bother with it given the genre and setting.

The first two seasons of Euphoria are now streaming on Max with a third in production and set to arrive in 2026.

Georgia Dixon