Max is rolling out a refreshingly varied slate this week, led by a buzzy Sundance dark comedy, a salt‑sprayed docuseries set off Canada’s coast, and a lavish Brazilian telenovela with the kind of scale streamers rarely attempt. It’s complemented by a first‑of‑the‑month wave of film classics and modern awards favorites that make queue triage a real challenge—in a good way.
Anchoring the lineup is If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, a character‑driven spiral headlined by Rose Byrne, followed closely by The Last Captains, a look at the precarious economics and family tradition of fishing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Rounding out the new programming is Madam Beja, a 40‑episode melodrama that leans into the enduring global appeal of long‑form, high‑gloss romance and intrigue.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You Leads With Festival Heat
Premiering with strong festival chatter, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You pairs Rose Byrne with director Mary Bronstein for a darkly comic dive into crisis management and maternal grit. Byrne plays a psychotherapist forced into a grim motel after an apartment disaster while caring for a daughter reliant on a feeding tube—an intimate setup that gradually widens into a sharp, uncomfortable portrait of how people cope when systems fail.
The film’s tone—deadpan, nervy, unexpectedly tender—should resonate with fans of A24’s off‑kilter prestige lane. Expect conversation around Byrne’s performance in particular; she’s long been a skilled chameleon, and early reactions positioned this as one of her most layered turns. The Sundance Film Festival’s track record for surfacing breakout, actor‑driven indies only raises the intrigue here.
The Last Captains Brings High‑Seas Reality
Set among the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, The Last Captains embeds with multigenerational fishing families targeting crab, scallop, and lobster. The series pairs cinematic, weather‑beaten vistas with the unforgiving math of quotas, competition, and maintenance costs—a reminder that a single blown engine or missed haul can upend a season.
The stakes here are real, not manufactured. Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans has repeatedly flagged how warming waters and stock variability complicate planning for coastal communities, and this series places those macro forces in the wheelhouse. If you appreciate the authenticity of occupation‑driven docs—think skill, risk, and a community’s identity on the line—this looks like appointment viewing.
Madam Beja Is A Bold Telenovela‑Scale Swing
Madam Beja arrives as a big, glossy Brazilian drama about a woman abducted by a powerful official who later reclaims her autonomy and status by opening a brothel, upending the social order that tried to shame her. It’s a remake of an ’80s phenomenon, now rebuilt with modern production values and a sprawling 40‑episode canvas that invites deep binge habits.
For Max, still often called HBO Max by longtime users, the play makes strategic sense: Parrot Analytics has documented sustained global demand growth for non‑English‑language drama, including Portuguese‑ and Spanish‑language novelas. With stars Rita Pereira and Pedro Carvalho leading, this is engineered for momentum—romance, revenge, and power games that evolve week after week.
A Big Library Wave For Cinephiles This Month
The top‑of‑month movie drop is stacked. Highlights include The Shape of Water (Best Picture winner, per the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (two Oscars), Life of Pi (four Oscars), and Malcolm X (a landmark Denzel Washington performance). Classic‑Hollywood devotees get riches too: Mildred Pierce, Now, Voyager, Wuthering Heights, Key Largo, and Captains Courageous—Spencer Tracy’s Best Actor turn that dovetails nicely with this week’s nautical theme.
There’s range for every mood: contemporary crowd‑pleasers like The Spectacular Now, Love & Basketball, and Get Him to the Greek (both cuts), alongside glossy adventures like Robin Hood and durable genre entries from Insidious: Chapter 3 to Open Water. If your plan is to build a mini‑festival at home, pair The Picture of Dorian Gray with The Shape of Water for a Gothic‑to‑modern creature feature thread, or take Mildred Pierce into Jezebel and Mrs. Miniver for a mid‑century studio‑era arc anchored by powerhouse female leads.
Also Arriving For Reality And True Crime Fans
Unscripted staples are in the mix. Wardens of the North returns with more boots‑on‑the‑ground conservation enforcement. 90 Day Fiancé The Other Way Pillow Talk continues its fan‑favorite commentary format, a reliable social‑media engine for the franchise. And The Murder Tapes delivers another season of body‑cam and interrogation‑room storytelling that true‑crime viewers track closely. Warner Bros. Discovery’s cross‑genre pipeline remains a Max differentiator, keeping carousel variety high between prestige premieres.
Bottom Line: Range And Depth Define Max’s Big Week
This is a week where Max’s range is the point: a festival‑stamped indie led by Rose Byrne, a rugged maritime docuseries with real‑world stakes, a supersized telenovela event, and a film library refresh rich with Oscar pedigree and Golden Age treasures. If your watchlist needs both something new and something canonical, you’ll find it here.
