The 9 Best Things Coming to Max in May

‘Hacks’ is back! Plus indie gems, fantastic music documentaries and LOL comedy specials to put on your watch list

Tracey Minkin,

AARP

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En español

Published January 30, 2024

/ Updated April 30, 2024

Jean Smart and Mark Indelicato talking to each other in a scene in Hacks

(Left to right) Jean Smart and Mark Indelicato in Season 3 of "Hacks."

Max

All rise: Jean Smart’s Deborah Vance is back in the spotlight! Hacks, the whip-smart comedy about an unsinkable Vegas comic, is back on Max for its third season, and that is reason alone to put down the garden shears and pick up the remote. Read on for the nine best things you need to be watching on Max in May.

Coming May 1

The Florida Project (2017, R)

Writer/director Sean Baker’s critically acclaimed slice-of-life glimpse into the ironically magical world of young children in poverty in a residence motel on the fringes of Florida’s Magic Kingdom features a richly empathetic Willem Dafoe, 68, as the manager of the Magic Castle motel (for which he earned an Oscar nomination). But it’s the young actors, including Brooklynn Prince, then 8 years old, who give the film its delicate heft and poignancy without ever straying into melodrama. A gem of a film.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017, R)

This boundary-stretching, absurdist horror film by Yorgos Lanthimos, 50 (Poor Things, The Favourite), introduced the world to Barry Keoghan long before he charmed in The Banshees of Inisherin and danced naked in Saltburn. Teenager Martin (Keoghan), whose father has died, is invited into the home of a cardiothoracic surgeon and his wife (Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman, 56). It gets very weird and artfully disturbing from there.

Coming May 2

Hacks, Season 3

The world needs more Deborah Vance, the Joan Rivers-esque, unsinkable comedian wisecracking her way through the slings and arrows of aging while headlining in Vegas. And the world definitely needs more Jean Smart, 72, the Emmy winner who inhabits Vance with elan and venom in equal measure. In the third season, the achingly millennial comedy writer Ava Daniels (Laraine Newman’s daughter, Hannah Einbinder) reunites with her unlikely mentor.

Don’t miss this: Jean Smart dishes why she prefers drama over comedy

Turtles All the Way Down, PG-13

Here’s a good one to watch, and talk about, with the tweens and teens in your life. Based on John Green’s best-selling 2017 novel, Turtles follows Aza Holmes (Isabela Merced), a 16-year-old with obsessive-compulsive disorder who confronts the emotional challenges of love in a landscape of mental illness when she reconnects with Davis (Felix Mallard), a crush from her childhood.

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Coming May 3

Stop Making Sense (2023, PG)

As marvelously kinetic and joyful as the year it debuted (1984), director Jonathan Demme’s perfect concert film chronicles the high-water mark of the band Talking Heads over three nights on stage at Hollywood’s Pantages Theater. For the 40th anniversary of the film in 2023, A24 released a 4K restored version. So the theatrical lighting, close-ups of front man David Byrne, 71 (and bandmates and every musician on stage), and his iconic Big Suit have never looked better.

Coming May 10

The Iron Claw (2023, R)

If you love professional wrestling, this is the movie for you — a dramatic chronicle of the real-life Van Erich family and how tragedy dogged two generations of grapplers. And even if smackdowns aren’t your idea of a great Saturday night, this is a movie about fathers and sons, legacy and love. It also features the return of teen heartthrob Zac Efron, all grown up, alongside 2023’s TV heartthrob, Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) as brothers Kevin and Kerry Van Erich. Maura Tierney, 59 (ER), adds gravitas as the mother amid the whirling drama in and out of the ring.

Coming May 11

Nikki Glaser: Someday You’ll Die

Continuing to battle with Netflix to be the streamer of choice for stand-up comedy, this new HBO Comedy Special records Glaser’s sold-out show at Seattle’s Moore Theater last year. Tune in for her takes on aging (she’s 39!), sexual fantasies and plans for her own death.

Coming May 20

Courtesy HBO

STAX: Soulsville, U.S.A.

If you came of age loving soul music from the likes of Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Booker T. & the M.G.’s and The Staple Singers, then you have this groundbreaking underdog Memphis record label to thank for helping those great artists find their audiences. This four-part HBO Original Documentary Series directed by Jamila Wignot (Ailey) features rare and never-before-seen archive material to explore how race, geography, musical traditions and the vagaries of the recording industry made Stax the legend it remains today. Turn up the volume.

Coming May 29

MoviePass, MovieCrash

Remember MoviePass? If the film-fanatic’s subscription service seemed too good to be true, turns out it was, losing more than $150 million in 2017 alone. In the tradition of can’t-turn-away, boom-bust documentaries, MoviePass, MovieCrash pulls the theater curtain back on the company’s creative beginnings, spectacular rise and precipitous collapse fueled by mismanagement and greed. Muta’Ali (Cassius X: Becoming Ali) directs.

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Tracey Minkin is a writer and editor for Coastal Living, Veranda, Southern Living, Travel+Leisure, Outside, Food & Wine, Men’s Journal and AARP.

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