The Best TV Shows And Movies Coming To Max In September 2023
Streaming services shake up their catalogs every month, but few rounds of TV and film musical chairs tend to be as rewarding as the ones that take place each fall. That's because we're entering spooky season, a time in which horror fans attempt to tackle ambitious watchlists and scaredy-cats dip their toes into the horror waters in the spirit of all things autumnal.
In keeping with this tradition, a large chunk of the movies making their way to Max (formerly HBO Max) this September are, if not outright scary, at least vaguely within the boundaries of the horror genre. Sure, there are some comedy classics ("Friday"), historical epics ("Gangs of New York"), and brand new docuseries ("Megan Thee Stallion vs. Tory Lanez: Five Shots") worth tuning into, but for my money, nearly all the best Max picks next month fall under the Halloween watchlist-adjacent umbrella.
You shouldn't have to wade through six "Children of the Corn" sequels to find something good to watch, so we've got you covered with a rundown of all the best the streamer has to offer come September. Let's kick it off with an entirely un-spooky recommendation for anyone who doesn't want to celebrate the season, then get scarier as we go, shall we?
Starstruck season 3
Rose Matafeo's brilliant rom-com "Starstruck" is a delight every season, and in September it's set to return for a third go-round beginning September 28, 2023. For the uninitiated, the show follows Jessie (Matafeo), an outspoken and very funny New Zealander living in London who becomes entangled in an unexpected love affair with a movie star, Tom (Nikesh Patel). The series starts out like a modern-day "Notting Hill" with a twist — Jessie has no clue Tom is famous when they hook up — and quickly evolves into something even lovelier (and more hilariously chaotic).
The first two seasons of "Starstruck" saw Jessie and Tom navigate their tricky relationship with good humor, but the show is also startlingly and at times painfully honest about the ups and downs of new relationships. The pair choose one another again and again, and the romance of their story comes not from the sweeping, cinematic rom-com moments that they often stumble through or muck up, but from their decision to return to one another after moments (or months) of indecision, frustration, and self-consciousness. If most rom-coms feature a big, silly argument or misunderstanding, "Starstruck" is largely about what realistically happens after that.
Season 3 of the show is set to explore a surprising path, as the trailer reveals that Tom and Jessie have once again broken up — and Tom's gotten engaged — since we last saw them professing their love for one another.
Cat People (1942)
Decades before Paul Schrader made the sexual subtext of "Cat People" into straight-up text with his 1982 remake, Jacques Tourneur took a slightly subtler (though still provocative, for its time) approach to the fantastical story of a newlywed trying to hide her identity as a shapeshifter. Simone Simon stars in 1942's "Cat People" as Irena Dubrovna, a Serbian woman working in the fashion industry who meets and hits it off with marine Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) at the beginning of the film. The pair soon wed, but before they do, Irena warns Oliver that she's descended from a long line of cat people — women who become black panthers at the height of passion.
"Cat People" (which hits Max September 1) takes an utterly campy premise and makes it look (mostly) sleek and intriguing, baking a sense of strange, quasi-eroticized danger into several scenes of the Hays Code-era black and white movie. The movie is sometimes mentioned in the same breath as other monster flicks of its time — "Phantom of the Opera," "Frankenstein," and the like — but it's just as much a kindred spirit with shadowier horror films like "Rebecca," which also fixates on unorthodox secrets and danger within a new relationship.
Like "Rebecca," "Cat People" has often been the subject of queer readings over the years, with Irena's sex and identity-related secret calling to mind the pressures queer and trans people have historically faced to adhere to the status quo for their own safety, despite an urge to act as their true selves. "Cat People" may not scare modern viewers (though it features a great, early example of the jump scare), but it will certainly make you think. Chase it with Schrader's remake, available to rent on PVOD, for a seedier take on the same story.
Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire
If you haven't already gotten on board with one of the best shows of last year, now's your chance: for a limited time beginning September 1, 2023, the AMC series "Interview with the Vampire" will be available to stream on Max. Whether you've read Rice's books, seen the Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise-led film adaptation, or are coming in cold, this version of "Interview with the Vampire" is essential viewing.
The series follows Louis ("Game of Thrones" alum Jacob Anderson), a Black brothel owner living in New Orleans in the early 1900s. From the opening episode, Louis seems to be on a fated collision course with Lestat (Sam Reid, "Belle"), a bold Frenchman who turns out to be a vampire — one who's enamored with Louis. The pair almost immediately turn into a powder keg of toxicity and violence, but their unholy union is presented with dark humor and a delicious sense of drama that walks the fine line between camp and emotional authenticity.
The show is framed by a narrative set over a century later, in which a now-vampiric Louis tells a journalist named Daniel ("Succession" actor Eric Bogosian) his twisted, melodramatic, darkly sexy life story. "Interview with the Vampire" is a lush, aesthetically decadent series that's impossible not to be enamored with, even as the body count surrounding its central couple rises. An upcoming second season will properly introduce Armand (Assad Zaman), another vampire who's set to ratchet up the drama tenfold.
It (2017)
For a few years in the 2010s, the internet was abuzz with talk of a "Golden Age of Stephen King adaptations." As someone who contributed to the chatter myself, I think with five years' retrospect, it's now safe to say that the Golden Age pretty much began and ended with "It: Chapter One." Sure, some great King adaptations like "Doctor Sleep" and "The Outsider" eked through in the years that followed, but no other works quite reached the zeitgeist-smashing heights of Andy Muschietti's killer clown blockbuster.
If you're partial to the second half of the story of Pennywise and The Losers' Club, that's coming to Max on September 1, too, but I recommend ignoring the film's overstuffed sequel and instead losing yourself in the summer of 1989, when the kids of Derry, Maine came together to fight their adolescent fears with the power of friendship. While it might be a tough sell for a movie whose advertising campaign hinged completely on Bill Skarsgard's sharp-toothed clown demon, "It" actually functions first and foremost as an excellent coming-of-age story.
In between the film's copious jump scares (which are structured and punctual enough to escape with a simple fast-forward, if you're feeling skittish), there's a beautiful story here about companionship in the face of adversity. In typical King fashion, the film's real monsters are abuse, racism, illness anxiety, loneliness, and a number of other fears that tend to cast a large shadow over kids who are still figuring it all out. The entire cast is pretty stellar, but Finn Wolfhard and Jack Dylan Grazer in particular are uproariously funny together — and with kids getting eaten left and right in this film, the comedy breaks are especially welcome.
The Exorcist
Filmmaker William Friedkin died in August at the age of 87, and at the time of his passing, movie fans were irked by the fact that the majority of his filmography was impossible to find on streaming. This still seems to be true, but Max is remedying at least one streaming-era blindspot come September 1 when "The Exorcist" descends upon the platform just in time for the ramp-up to Halloween.
Among the most infamous horror films of all time, "The Exorcist" tells the harrowing tale of a girl named Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) who begins exhibiting symptoms of demonic possession. The movie introduces audiences to the demon Pazuzu early on, so that by the time two priests (Father William O'Malley and Max von Sydow) appear on the MacNeil family doorstep, audiences know they're in for the scare of their lives.
Half a century after its release, "The Exorcist" still maintains an almost outsized cultural footprint. The film famously made audience members worldwide pass out, lose their lunch, and experience an almost PTSD-like anxiety that persisted long after the credits rolled. As the popular pop cultural debunking podcast "You're Wrong About" has reported, it's also responsible for a lot of what most people think they know about exorcism, not to mention a prominent rise in requests for the religious act. The movie also gained notoriety for behind-the-scenes complications, including related lawsuits, competing cuts of the film, and the traumatizing experiences of then-child actor Linda Blair.
Is it possible for "The Exorcist" to live up to five decades of hype in the eyes of new viewers? Maybe not. Is it a classic that's well worth watching (or re-watching) regardless? Absolutely.
Movies and shows coming to Max in October 2023
September 1
42 (2013)
A Discovery of Witches, Seasons 1-3
Aliens in the Attic (2009)
Anna (2019)
Annabelle (2014)
Annabelle: Creation (2017)
Annabelle Comes Home (2019)
Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, Season 1
Be Kind Rewind (2008)
Blade (1998)
Blade II (2002)
Blade: Trinity (2004)
Boyz n the Hood (1991)
Bullet To The Head (2013)
Carrie (1976)
Carrie (2013)
Cat People (1942)
Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1993)
Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995)
Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996)
Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998)
Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return (1999)
Children of the Corn: Revelation (2001)
A Cinderella Story (2004)
Class Action (1991)
Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)
Critters (1986)
The Curse of La Llorona (2019)
Dark Winds, Season 1 (2022)
Date Night (2010)
Design Defined, Season 1
Doctor Sleep (2019)
Drive Me Crazy (1999)
Dutch (1991)
The Exorcist (1973)
Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
Fast Food Nation (2006)
Fear the Walking Dead, Seasons 1-7
Fire in the Sky (1993)
Firestorm (1998)
Friday (1995)
Friday the 13th (1980)
Friday the 13th Part II (1981)
Friday the 13th Part III (1982)
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)
Gangs of London, Seasons 1-2
Gangs of New York (2002)
Georgia Rule (2007)
The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)
Heartburn (1986)
It (2017)
It: Chapter Two (2019)
Juice (1992)
Just Like Heaven (2005)
Killing Eve, Seasons 1-4
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
The Mask (1994)
MI-5 (2015)
Millennium (1989)
Mommie Dearest (1981)
Ordinary Love (2020)
Out of the Furnace (2013)
Philomena (2013)
Post Grad (2009)
The Rage: Carrie 2 (1992)
Restoring Galveston, Season 4B
Ride with Norman Reedus, Seasons 1-5
The Roads Not Taken (2020)
Sabrina (1995)
Scooby-Doo (2002)
Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004)
She's Funny That Way (2015)
Six Days, Seven Nights (1998)
Snitch (2013)
Source Code (2011)
Spy (2015)
Sunset Strip (2000)
Tears of the Sun (2003)
THX 1138 (1971)
Time After Time (1979)
Unfaithfully Yours (1984)
XXX (2002)
XXX: State of the Union (2005)
September 2
The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart (2023)
September 4
Megan Thee Stallion vs Tory Lanez: Five Shots, Season 1 (2023)
Tough Love With Hilary Farr, Season 2
September 5
My Big Fat Fabulous Life, Season 11
See It Loud: The History of Black Television
Welcome To Plathville, Season 5
September 6
Crime Scene Confidential, Season 2
Max (2015)
September 7
Devil's Road: The True Story of Ed and Lorraine Warren (2020)
Does Murder Sleep?
Ghost Adventures: Horror at Joe Exotic Zoo
Ghost Brothers, Seasons 1-2
Ghost Loop, Season 1
Halloween Baking Championship, Seasons 1-8
Haunting in the Heartland, Season 1
Kids Halloween Baking Championship
Most Terrifying Places in America, 2 Seasons
Most Terrifying with Jason Hawes, Season 1
My Horror Story, Season 1
The Dead Files, Season 15B
September 8
Tiny Toons Looniversity, Season 1
September 9
Ambient Swim, Season 2
September 10
FLCL: Grunge, Season 4
Love & Marriage: Detroit
Unsellable Houses, Season 4
September 11
Halloween Baking Championship, Season 9
The Faking Dead
September 13
Donyale Luna: Supermodel
Halloween Cake-Off
Halloween Cookie Challenge
Halloween Wars, Season 1-12
Outrageous Pumpkins, Seasons 1-3
September 14
No Demo Reno, Season 3
September 15
Teen Titans Go!, Season 8C
WB 100th Behind The Shield
September 16
Batwheels, Season 1G
Gold Rush: Mine Rescue with Freddy & Juan, Season 1B
September 17
Building Roots
Halloween Wars, Season 13
September 18
Chico Virtual (2023)
Double Cultura (2023)
El Carrito (2023)
Keep/Delete (2023)
La Macana (2023)
Thank You, Have A Nice Day (Short, 2023)
Un Pequeño Corte (2023)
September 20
Naked Attraction
September 21
American Sniper (2014)
Blippi Wonders, Season 3
Expedition X, Season 4A
Young Love
September 22
Ed Stafford: First Man Out, Seasons 1-2
Guy's All-American Road Trip, Season 2
Marooned with Ed Stafford
Naked and Marooned with Ed Stafford
Nancy Drew, Season 4
September 23
Paris Can Wait (2017)
September 24
Outrageous Pumpkins, Season 4
September 25
American Masters: Marilyn Monroe: Still Life
Halloween Cookie Challenge, Season 2
Kids Baking Championship: Bloodcurdling Bakes
September 26
Chopped: Volume 3
Savior Complex
September 27
Crimes Gone Viral, Season 3
September 28
Starstruck, Season 3
The Ghost Town Terror, Season 2
September 29
Who's Talking To Chris Wallace?, Season 4
September 30
Hot Dish With Franco