Movies

The Best TV Shows And Movies Coming To HBO Max In April 2023

Wile E. Coyote in Looney Tunes Cartoons HBO Max
By Sandy Schaefer/

Spring has finally arrived, though you wouldn't know it from the snow flurries battering my house as I write this. Fortunately, there are plenty in the way of options to choose from, should you find yourself, like me, looking for something you can stream from the comfort of your home while you wait for the weather to get its act together. Or perhaps you don't really do the whole "leaving the house" thing very much, even when it is agreeable and sunny outside. Believe me, I get it, my fellow creatures of the dark.

In case you need further incentive to chill at home: HBO Max will be streaming the final season of "Succession" throughout April and it sounds as though the trainwreck that is the Roy family civil war remains as entertaining as ever, judging by Shania Russell's rapturous review of season 4 for /Film. The "Doctor Who" special "The Power of the Doctor" — marking Jodie Whittaker's final regular appearance as the eponymous wayward Time Lord — will also be dropping on the streamer that month, along with the latest season premiere for "A Black Lady Sketch Show" and the mid-season premiere of the final season of "Titans." (R.I.P. to the old HBO Max DC TV multiverse.) Meanwhile, Elizabeth Olsen will be starring in director Lesli Linka Glatter and writer David E. Kelley's own take on the true-crime story of Candy Montgomery, "Love & Death" (if you're into that sort of thing).

Here are some special picks for April, along with everything else coming to HBO Max that month.

Coraline

Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning) in Coraline Focus Features

You know the law around these parts: Every season is Scary Season, so far as we're concerned. So why not spend April watching "Coraline"? Henry Selick's marvelously macabre stop-motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman's fanciful, creepy children's novel is more than just a fun way to traumatize kids, it's a great way to innoculate them against our every-scarier real world. There's just as much to appreciate for adults, too, from Bruno Coulais' fiendish score (complete with eerily catchy nonsense lyrics sung by the Children's Choir of Nice) to the wondrous visuals. Not to mention, the way it reminds all of us grown-ups what it's like to be a restless, impatient youngin' who doesn't really get why we spend our days huddled over our computers or tending to our gardens.

If you find yourself craving more gleefully morbid stop-motion goodness afterwards, Selick's "Wendell & Wild" is right over there, waiting for you to finally (?) watch it on Netflix. I'm just saying.

Tangerine

Kitana Kiki Rodriguez in Tangerine Magnolia Pictures

With anti-LGBTQ+ bills primarily targeting trans people pouring in across the U.S., Sean Baker's acclaimed 2015 dramedy about a pair of Hollywood-based transgender sex workers — Kitana Kiki Rodriguez as Sin-Dee Rella and Mya Taylor as Alexandra — seeking payback against one of the duo's unfaithful boyfriend/procurer (James Ransone) remains just as relevant and radical as it was eight years ago. "Tangerine" dares to treat the trans women at the heart of its story as real people, just as messy and confused as anyone else and fueled by dreams and desires all their own.

When it bowed at the Sundance Film Festival in 2015, much of the discourse around "Tangerine" centered on the fact that Baker shot the whole thing using three iPhone 5S phones. So-called iPhone movies are less of a novelty nowadays (almost entirely because of Steven Soderbergh if we're being real), yet "Tangerine" stands the test of time just as much aesthetically as it does in terms of subject matter. With pleasingly grainy visuals and steady-handed camerawork, it looks more stylized than a lot of studio movies with price tags far exceeding its own micro-budget.

Looney Tunes Cartoons (Season 5)

Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny in Looney Tunes Cartoons HBO Max

If you watched Patrick H. Willems' excellent recent video about the "Looney Tunes" and their place in pop culture over the decades, then you're aware HBO Max has a hidden treasure trove of modern cartoon shorts featuring Bugs Bunny and the gang just waiting to be discovered. "Looney Tunes Cartoons" will premiere its fifth season in April, making now as good a time as any to, er, tune in and see what you've been missing.

Writing about the show back in 2020, /Film's Ethan Anderton noted "Looney Tunes Cartoons" keeps "the spirit and style" of WB animation legends like Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones, and Tex Avery far more "satisfyingly intact" than just about any other attempt to update the "Looney Tunes" over the last 30-plus years. Sure, it may take a moment for older fans to adjust to tweaks like Elmer Fudd swapping out his trademark rifle/shotgun for other weapons (all of which still serve to symbolize his insecurity about his own masculinity). But beyond that, these new "Tunes" are just as weird, anarchic, and packed with incredibly effective comedy-driven storytelling (also, ACME explosive devices) as the many classic shorts that came before them.

Barry (Season 4)

Bill Hader in Barry season 4 HBO Max

"Succession" isn't the only prestigious HBO dark comedy show readying to pack it in after its fourth season. Creator Alec Berg and co-creator/star Bill Hader's "Barry" will also be calling it a day after season 4, having long since evolved from "that comedy series about a hitman taking acting lessons" into, to quote /FIlm's Chris Evangelista from his review of season 3, "a brilliant, disturbing, existential series boasting cinematic filmmaking and a revelatory performance from Hader." Heck, nowadays, it's easy to forget "Barry" is still technically a (decidedly bleak) comedy show at its core.

Season 4 will pick up with Hader's titular character in prison and prepared to go on the warpath after the shocking twists and turns of the "Barry" season 3 finale. (Are we laughing yet?) We don't know much about the overarching plot beyond that, though Hader has teased viewers can expect something pretty dramatically different from seasons past. "What happens in season 4 is structurally radical in some ways, but it made sense for what I think the characters needed to go through," he explained in an interview ahead of the show's final bow.

Moonage Daydream

David Bowie in Moonage Daydream Neon

Non-fiction films like "All That Breathes" (which is now streaming on HBO Max — hint, hint) show it's possible to make a documentary that avoids the cliché of the format, forgoing talking heads for visually lyrical interludes and fly-on-the-wall observational storytelling that actually benefits the narrative it's aspiring to construct. Brett Morgen's "Moonage Daydream" is cut from a similar cloth in the way it combines historical concert footage with never-before-seen clips from David Bowie's personal archives and miscellaneous interview material to construct a Bowie biopic as unconventional and mercurial as the inventive artist himself.

In his "Moonage Daydream" review for /Film, Rafael Motamayor praised Morgan for being less interested in assembling a by-the-book documentary about the man behind Ziggy Stardust and The Thin White Duke, and more focused on making an ethereal concert film that honors the spirit of "the androgynous, bisexual alien who helped make it okay to be weird, who never stopped reimagining his artistic process." Would we ask for anything less than that for an icon as groundbreaking and experimental in their creative expression?

Movies and TV shows coming to HBO Max in April 2023

Elizabeth Olsen in Love & Death HBO Max

Available April 1, 2023:

  • The Blue Lagoon, 1980
  • Breathe, 2017 (HBO)
  • The Brother's Warner, 2007
  • The Circle, 2017 (HBO)
  • Clean and Sober, 1988 (HBO)
  • The Cold Light of Day, 2012 (HBO)
  • Coraline, 2009 (HBO)
  • City by the Sea, 2002 (HBO)
  • Dark Blue, 2002 (HBO)
  • Drive Angry, 2011 (HBO)
  • Dumb & Dumber To, 2014 (HBO)
  • Enter the Warrior's Gate, 2016 (HBO)
  • Entertainment, 2015 (HBO)
  • Evan Almighty, 2007 (HBO)
  • Experimenter, 2015 (HBO)
  • Ghost, 1990 (HBO)
  • The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, 2009 (HBO)
  • Harriet The Spy, 1996 (HBO)
  • Hit & Run, 2012 (HBO)
  • Homegrown, Season 3
  • The Host, 2007 (HBO)
  • House at the End of the Street, 2012 (HBO)
  • The House Bunny, 2008
  • Hunter Killer, 2018 (HBO)
  • I Am Love, 2009 (HBO)
  • Iris, 2014 (HBO)
  • The Kid, 2019 (HBO)
  • Kiss the Girls, 1997 (HBO)
  • Knowing, 2009 (HBO)
  • Land of the Pharaohs, 1955
  • The Last Circus, 2010 (HBO)
  • The Last Days on Mars, 2013 (HBO)
  • Lemon, 2017 (HBO)
  • Let's Be Cops, 2014 (HBO)
  • Letters To Juliet, 2010 (HBO)
  • A Lion is in the Streets, 1953
  • The Long Riders, 1980 (HBO)
  • Lucy, 2014 (HBO)
  • Monos, 2019 (HBO)
  • Mud, 2013 (HBO)
  • Music Within, 2007 (HBO)
  • Mystic Pizza, 1988 (HBO)
  • Noma: My Perfect Storm, 2015 (HBO)
  • No Way Out, 1987 (HBO)
  • One Missed Call, 2008 (HBO)
  • Outlaws, 2017 (HBO)
  • Outrage, 2009 (HBO)
  • The Piece Maker, Season 1 (Magnolia)
  • Push, 2009 (HBO)
  • Rachel, Rachel, 1968
  • Results, 2015 (HBO)
  • Safe Haven, 2013 (HBO)
  • Safe in Hell, 1931
  • School Life, 2016 (HBO)
  • Smokin' Aces, 2006 (HBO)
  • The Smurfs 2, 2013
  • The Smurfs Movie, 2011
  • The Soloist, 2009 (HBO)
  • Spring Breakers, 2012 (HBO)
  • Storm Warning, 1951
  • The Strawberry Blonde, 1941
  • Taken 3, 2014 (HBO)
  • Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, 2006
  • Tangerine, 2015 (HBO)
  • Trespass Against Us, 2016 (HBO)
  • Un Gallo Con Muchos Huevos (Aka A Brave Little Rooster), 2015 (HBO)
  • Valkyrie, 2008 (HBO)
  • Walker: Independence, 2023
  • The Wave, 2016 (HBO)
  • We Are The Best!, 2014 (HBO)
  • White God, 2014 (HBO)
  • Whitey: United States Of America V. James J. Bulger, 2014 (HBO)

Available April 3, 2023:

  • Royal Crackers, Season 1
  • Available April 4, 2023:
  • Craig of the Creek, Season 4E

Available April 6, 2023:

  • Looney Tunes Cartoons, Max Original Season 5 Premiere
  • The Winchesters, Season 1

Available April 7, 2023:

  • Kung Fu, Season 3
  • Music Box: Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed (HBO)

Available April 9, 2023:

  • Happy to be Home with the Benkos, Season 1

Available April 11, 2023:

  • U.S. Women's Soccer vs. Republic of Ireland
  • Highlights: U.S. Women's Soccer vs. Republic of Ireland
  • The Last Ship, 2014

Available April 13, 2023:

  • Titans, Max Original Season 4, Mid-Season Premiere

Available April 14, 2023:

  • A Black Lady Sketch Show, Season 4 Premiere (HBO)
  • #BringBackAlice, Max Original Season 1 Premiere
  • Clone High, 2002

Available April 16, 2023:

  • 100 Foot Wave, Season 2 Premiere (HBO)
  • Barry, Season 4 Premiere (HBO)

Available April 17, 2023:

  • Para – We Are King (Para – Wir Sind King), Max Original Season 2 Premiere

Available April 18, 2023:

  • Bugs Bunny Builders, Season 1D

Available April 19, 2023:

  • U.S. Men's Soccer vs. Mexico
  • Highlights: U.S. Men's Soccer vs. Mexico

Available April 20, 2023:

  • Fired on Mars, Max Original Season 1 Premiere

Available April 21, 2023:

  • Diary of an Old Home, Season 2
  • Who's Talking to Chris Wallace?, Season 3

Available April 23, 2023:

  • Doctor Who: Power of the Doctor, Special
  • Somebody Somewhere, Season 2 Premiere (HBO)

Available April 27, 2023:

  • The Dog House: UK, Max Original Season 4 Premiere
  • Love & Death, Max Original Limited Series Premiere

Available April 28, 2023:

  • Headless Chickens (Pollos sin cabeza), Max Original
  • Warner Bros. 100 Years, Max Original Docu Series Premiere

Available April 29, 2023:

  • Moonage Daydream, 2022

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