Image via HBO
Published Aug 16, 2026, 5:26 AM EDT
Liam Gaughan is a film and TV writer at Collider. He has been writing film reviews and news coverage for ten years. Between relentlessly adding new titles to his watchlist and attending as many screenings as he can, Liam is always watching new movies and television shows.
In addition to reviewing, writing, and commentating on both new and old releases, Liam has interviewed talent such as Mark Wahlberg, Jesse Plemons, Sam Mendes, Billy Eichner, Dylan O'Brien, Luke Wilson, and B.J. Novak. Liam aims to get his spec scripts produced and currently writes short films and stage plays. He lives in Allentown, PA.
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HBO has produced more quality television than any other network, and holds its creators to an impressively high standard. Not only did HBO break new ground by developing gritty, thoughtful shows that elevated what the medium of television could be, but it started developing projects that attracted A-list actors and serious filmmaking talent.
HBO has an incredible library of shows, but many might be daunting to start because of how epic they are in length. While everyone deserves the chance to experience The Sopranos at least once in their life, sitting down for six seasons can be a challenge, given how much there is to watch. Thankfully, HBO also has a number of shows that offer a shorter commitment and can be binged in just one weekend. They offer a shorter, but just as meaningful experience for serious television buffs.
10 'Band of Brothers' (2001)
Image via HBOBand of Brothers might be the single greatest miniseries of all time because it perfectly captured the entirety of World War II by showing many of the most pivotal moments from the perspective of multiple characters who served in the Allied Forces. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks had previously worked together to create the best World War II film ever made with Saving Private Ryan, and they reunited to produce Band of Brothers, which was equally acclaimed for its realism and authenticity.
Band of Brothers is more than just a war show because it is an incredible story about the heroism of an entire generation, and contains sequences of military action that rival anything that has been seen in war films in the 25 years since it was released. It’s not just a powerful work of filmmaking, but an important educational tool.
9 'The Pacific' (2010)
Image via HBOThe Pacific is the perfect companion piece to Band of Brothers because it took a different approach to World War II by exploring the experiences of soldiers who served in the Pacific Theater, which was perhaps even more bloody and disturbing than the conflict in Europe. While Band of Brothers is entirely composed of events that take place during the war itself, The Pacific explores the time leading up to the soldiers’ recruitment, as well as their experiences after their service when they dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder.
The Pacific is a darker series that reflected the theme of “war as hell,” but it also included a number of amazing performances. Rami Malek and Joseph Mazzello made for a particularly effective onscreen team, eight years before they would reunite to star in the Academy Award-winning biopic Bohemian Rhapsody together.
8 'Angels in America' (2003)
Image via HBOAngels in America is a miniseries like no other because it was based on the acclaimed stage play of the same name by Tony Kushner, who wrote a powerful exploration of the AIDS crisis and the devastating effect that it had upon the LGBTQ community in the 1980s. There’s a reason that Angels in America looks and feels like a cinematic experience, and it has everything to do with director Mike Nichols, one of the finest directors ever; Nichols had already won numerous accolades for his work in film, including the Academy Award for Best Director for The Graduate, and Angels in America was just as ambitious an effort.
Angels in America is a story that needs to be told as LGBTQ people continue to face injustice around the world, and includes some of the greatest performances ever from Al Pacino and Meryl Streep.
7 'Watchmen' (2019)
Image via HBOWatchmen is the single greatest superhero television show because it wasn’t a straight-up adaptation of Alan Moore’s legendary graphic novel of the same name, but a continuation and reinterpretation that treated the original source material as the historical text for a modern story. Although Watchmen delved into some important aspects of American history, including the horrific destruction of “Black Wall Street” in the 1920s, it also tied back into the graphic novel in clever ways that offered new takes on some of the classic characters and images.
Every single episode of Watchmen is a masterpiece, with the black-and-white episode “This Extraordinary Being” being a standout because of the genius ways that it retold the origin story of “Hooded Justice,” a character who had been shrouded in mystery and subjected to fan theories ever since Moore created him in 1985.
6 'John Adams' (2008)
Image via HBOJohn Adams is a timeless American epic in which Paul Giamatti gives an amazing performance as the second President of the United States, who also helped to lead the fight for independence in the Continental Congress during the early days of the American Revolutionary War. Impressively, John Adams is able to cover an extraordinary amount of its subject’s life by exploring the consequences of the Boston Massacre, his role within the formation of the American Union, and his tenure as President and failed re-election.
John Adams offers a fair and balanced perspective on one of the greatest leaders in American history, but the story is more than just one man; Laura Linney gives an equally amazing performance as Abigail Adams, who both played an important role in the revolution and became her husband's most trusted advisor throughout his political career.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz
Which Action Hero Would Be
Your Perfect Partner?
Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn't work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
FIND YOUR PARTNER →
01
You're dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
ASomeone who already has three contingency plans running and is calmly working through all of them. BSomeone who reads the terrain instinctively and knows exactly how to use it against the enemy. CSomeone who keeps their nerve and their sense of humour when everything is falling apart. DSomeone who knows the history of wherever we are and what we're walking into. ESomeone with the right contact, the right cover identity, and the right exit already arranged.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
AOn foot through terrain no one else would attempt — I move where vehicles can't follow. BOn a motorcycle, a cargo plane, or anything else that gets me there before I think too hard about it. CIn something that belongs to someone else — borrowed, stolen, or improvised under fire. DFirst class, with a cover identity and a gadget that does something I won't explain until it's needed. EBy whatever means are available — I've driven, flown, and once arrived by camel. The destination matters, not the method.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
You're pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
ADisappears into the environment, flanks them silently, and ends it before I've reloaded. BCracks a one-liner, grabs a fire extinguisher or a chair, and improvises something that somehow works. CProduces a gadget specifically designed for this exact scenario and uses it with infuriating precision. DPulls out a whip, a pistol, and an archaeological insight that somehow gets us out alive. ENeutralises the threat with maximum efficiency and minimum words — they were already three moves ahead.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
AA bar with terrible lighting, cold beer, and absolutely no questions about feelings. BThe finest restaurant in the city, a bottle of something expensive, and a conversation that is equal parts brilliant and exhausting. CA local dig site, a museum after hours, or a long story about why that particular artefact matters to human civilisation. DPizza. Bad TV. Falling asleep halfway through a movie neither of you were watching anyway. EA debrief that turns into three hours of contingency planning that somehow becomes the most fun you've had all week.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
APrecise and minimal — tell me what I need to know and nothing else. Every word has a cost. BDeadpan and dry — keeping it light keeps me sharp, even when everything is on fire. CEnthusiastic and slightly chaotic — but always with useful information buried somewhere in the noise. DCalm and controlled through an earpiece, with a plan that covers every variable I haven't thought of yet. EBarely at all — silence is a language and they speak it fluently.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
AInfiltrate their inner circle, learn everything, and dismantle them from inside out before they know we're there. BStudy the historical pattern — every villain of this type has a weakness written somewhere in the past. CGet them talking. The more they monologue, the more time I have to figure out how to beat them. DGo through them. Directly. With as much force as the terrain allows. EFind the one thing they haven't accounted for — there's always one thing — and make sure we're holding it.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
Things go badly wrong and you're captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
ACome in alone, quietly, and get me out before anyone knows they were there. BHave already been working on the extraction since the moment I disappeared — the plan is already running. CCome in loud, come in fast, and worry about the collateral damage later — I'd do the same for them. DUse every resource, every contact, and bend every rule until I'm out — they don't leave people behind. ECharm their way in somehow, bluff through the hard part, and still manage to look good doing it.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn't replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn't know you had.
ATechnology that shouldn't exist yet and the training to use it under any conditions. BSurvival instinct so refined it borders on supernatural — and the scars to prove it's been tested. CKnowledge of history, language, and culture that makes them invaluable in places where force is useless. DThe ability to walk into any room in the world and immediately become the most trusted person in it. EStubbornness that refuses to accept a situation is hopeless — and the improvisational skill to back it up.
NEXT QUESTION →
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
AA partner who never fully switches off — always watching exits, always calculating threats, even at dinner. BA partner who gets the job done brilliantly but has the emotional availability of a locked filing cabinet. CA partner who makes everything ten times more complicated than it needs to be — but who always comes through. DA partner who gets personally attached to every relic, ruin, and artefact we encounter, which slows everything down. EA partner who was not built for this and knows it — but shows up anyway, every time, without being asked.
NEXT QUESTION →
10
It's the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
AOne line. Absolutely dry. Delivered like the world isn't ending. Then we move. BNothing said at all — just a look that means we both already know what has to happen. CA plan I don't fully understand that somehow accounts for everything, delivered in thirty seconds flat. DA piece of historical context that reframes the entire situation and tells us exactly what to do next. ESomeone who steps forward instead of back — because that's who they've always been.
REVEAL MY PARTNER →
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn't talk much, doesn't need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you've finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You'll never need to ask if he has your back. You'll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it'll take you a moment to remember what's actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You'll never be bored. You'll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar's eye and a brawler's instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn't matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you'll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren't so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you've finished reading the briefing, and the plan he's settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn't exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
5 'The Young Pope' (2017)
Gianni Fiorito/© HBO/courtesy Everett CollectionThe Young Pope is a show that was ahead of its time, as it aired during a time in which the notion of the first American pope in history seemed like a novelty that would never happen. The series from master filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino examines the political game of chess that goes on behind the scenes in determining the makeup of the Catholic Church, offering a modern meditation on religion that is both thought-provoking and transgressive.
The Young Pope is a singular work of art of incredible imagination, and there simply isn’t another series that has such bold and exciting storytelling. Although it is arguably Sorrentino who has the strongest influence on the series because of his auteur sensibilities, Jude Law also gives one of the greatest performances of his career as a prickly character who ends up being surprisingly empathetic.
4 'Station Eleven' (2021–2022)
Image via HBO MaxStation Eleven is another series that was ahead of its time, as it had already begun production by the time that the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world and forced society to remain insular. A series with subject material that is so dour had the possibility to be a completely hopeless experience, but Station Eleven is remarkably honest about humanity and uses its non-linear narrative techniques to show how the power of love reverberates across generations.
Station Eleven is powerful as an expression of how art has the power to heal, as it celebrates the art of storytelling through theater, music, writing, and visuals. While the series will certainly have power for those who have read the book and understand how clever it is as a feat of adaptation, it’s also a great work of psychological drama that doesn’t require preordained knowledge.
3 'Show Me a Hero' (2015)
Image via HBOShow Me a Hero is among the most underrated shows in the history of HBO, as it came from The Wire creator David Simon. Simon has often told stories about American politics and society, as he is a former journalist who spent over a decade writing about crime and events, and Show Me a Hero is a pitch-perfect deconstruction of legislative issues within mayoral infrastructure.
Show Me a Hero has a number of great performances, including Winona Ryder right before she got a comeback with Stranger Things, but the series is stolen by Oscar Isaac’s lead performance, which is one of the best of his entire career. Isaac has often been thought of as potentially being “the next Al Pacino” because of what a dynamic and engaging leading man he is, and Show Me a Hero offers evidence that this is definitely the case.
2 'Chernobyl' (2019)
Image via HBOChernobyl is a perfect, but completely brutal miniseries based on the horrific nuclear meltdown that caused significant environmental damage, signifying to the world that the price of lies was unsustainable. The series was developed by Craig Mazin, who would go on to develop the HBO adaptation of The Last of Us, and it earned high praise from scientists, historians, and survivors who were involved with the breakdown when it happened.
Chernobyl is a piece of history that comes to life because of how palpable it is emotionally, and how effectively Mazin explores the system of checks and balances that caused such a horrific event. While the sheer amount of disturbing content ensures that Chernobyl is by no means an easy series to watch, it offers insights that are so valuable that its importance as a historical landmark cannot be understated.
1 'DTF St. Louis' (2026)
Image via HBODTF St. Louis is a show that probably only could have been made by HBO because it is equally funny, sad, and surprising without ever committing to just one genre. Creator Steven Conrad had a talent for writing offbeat stories about troubled people, and DTF St. Louis is a beguiling crime mystery that ends up being a powerful examination of middle-aged malaise and the silent battles people wage for their mental health.
DTF St. Louis is the rare show that can invoke both laughter and tears, as it includes both hilarious moments of raunchy comedy and overwhelmingly melancholy moments of human emotion. It’s a series that is made to be discussed and features a trio of excellent performances, and the fact that it is a limited event that does not have the possibility of a Season 2 makes its ending even more powerful.
DTF St. Louis
Release Date 2026 - 2026-00-00
Network HBO
Showrunner Steve Conrad
Directors Steven Conrad
English (US) ·