HBO Max Just Added an 8-Part War Thriller for ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Fans

5 days ago 28

Published Oct 24, 2026, 10:30 AM EDT

Rohan Naahar is a News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he'll watch anything once.

He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

Fans of political thrillers are in for a treat, as HBO Max recently added a limited series about a contentious geopolitical issue. The eight-episode series originally aired on TNT from September 13 to October 4, having received largely positive reviews. The show comes on the heels of Netflix's Unabomber, with which it shares a manhunt-driven narrative. While one half of Unabomber follows the hunt for the domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski, the new TNT series traces the events surrounding one of the most intense manhunts of the 21st century. Apart from Unabomber, the series will also appeal to fans of Kathryn Bigelow's widely acclaimed political thriller Zero Dark Thirty, which follows the decade-long quest to locate Osama bin Laden.

Much of the new series unfolds in parallel to the plot of Zero Dark Thirty. The events — America's War on Terror and its subsequent invasion of Iraq — are closely linked. In fact, the protagonist of the show grapples with the actions of his country, unsure if the invasion was even justified. The show's protagonist, played by Joel Kinnaman, is based on a real-life CIA officer whose book served as the show's foundation. Kinnaman is having a major year, especially on the small screen. He began 2026 with the Netflix thriller series Jo Nesbø's Detective Hole.

The Political Thriller Received Mostly Positive Reviews

Kinnaman's TNT series is titled High Value Target: The Hunt for Saddam. Created by Daniel Stiepleman and Jonathan Wakeham, the show also features Waleed Zuaiter as former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who was apprehended in 2003. According to FlixPatrol, the show emerged as an instant hit on HBO Max following its addition to the platform's library. It holds a 71% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. High Value Target arrives only a few months after Netflix's four-part documentary series American Manhunt: Osama bin Laden. Fans may also be interested in checking out The Looming Tower, a Hulu limited series about America's fraught relationship with bin Laden in the years leading up to the September 11 attacks. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.