25 Best HBO Original Movies You Can't Watch Anywhere Else

There was a time when HBO was little more than a premium subscription network. Back then, its main selling point was that, before streaming services, DVDs, or even widespread VCRs were the norm, they broadcast popular feature films without the content restrictions of major networks. It didn't take long before HBO saw the potential in original content, however. In 1982, HBO aired "The Deadly Game," a made-for-TV thriller the network co-produced. The following year brought the biopic "The Terry Fox Story." Finally, in 1984, HBO released its first in-house theatrical film, the action-thriller "Flashpoint."

While "Flashpoint" didn't exactly impress critics, HBO's original films improved over the years. In particular, the network slowly became known for making successful films out of stories other studios considered too controversial, dry, or cerebral to tackle. The advent of HBO Max has only expanded the list of great HBO films, with no sign of a slow-down in sight. In celebration of this storied past and bright future, we present the 25 best HBO original films, from portrayals of political power to raucous road comedies.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Hughes (Meryl Streep) isn't in the best of health, so when it's time for her to cross the pond in order to accept a literary prize, she skips the airport in favor of a cabin aboard the Queen Mary 2. But she doesn't go alone: Her nephew Tyler (Lucas Hedges) comes along, as do old friends Susan (Dianne Wiest) and Roberta (Candice Bergen). The latter woman is chomping at the bit to confront Alice for, Roberta believes, using her life as fodder for her writing. Alice's agent Karen (Gemma Chan) secretly comes aboard as well — she wants to figure out exactly what Alice is working on, in the hopes that it's a sequel to her bestselling book, "You Always/You Never."

"Let Them All Talk" is one of director Steven Soderbergh's best films. Impressively, most of the movie's dialogue was improvised by the actors. This gives the film a natural, light feel, well-supported by the talents of acting legends Streep, Wiest, and Bergen.

2009's "Grey Gardens" drew awards to it like moths to a beacon, including a stunning 17 Primetime Emmy Award nominations and six wins. 

The film follows the lives of mother-daughter pair Edith Bouvier Beale, who goes by "Little Edie" (Drew Barrymore), and Edith Ewing Bouvier, or "Big Edie" (Jessica Lange). The story goes back and forth between the New York socialites' glorious heyday in the '30s, filled with Gatsby-esque parties and plenty of romantic drama, to the '70s, which finds the aging duo hiding away in Grey Gardens, their crumbling Hamptons mansion. There, they live an impoverished life among stray cats and raccoons, eventually becoming the subject of the 1975 documentary that shares the movie's title.

As The Hollywood Reporter's Randee Dawn writes, Lange and Barrymore "give fearless performances of intriguing luminescence" both as younger women drinking up every ounce of spotlight they can, and as older recluses. While her appearance is brief, their cousin Jackie Kennedy eventually enters the narrative. She's played by Jeanne Tripplehorn, who gives a performance that DVD Talk's Jason Bailey calls "wonderfully understated."

Queen Latifah may have started out as a rapper, but she inhabits an earlier musical era in HBO's acclaimed 2015 biopic "Bessie." Latifah stars as Bessie Smith, a legendary singer of the Jazz Age nicknamed the "Empress of Blues."

"Bessie" brings to life Smith's struggles, passions, and fiery relationships. She comes under the mentorship of Ma Rainey, who soon grows jealous of Smith's success. We follow her through two marriages and more lovers, often at the same time. All the while, we're regaled with the music that earned Smith her empire, which she performs while fighting off affluent bigots and even an attack by the Ku Klux Klan. 

Some critics complain that "Bessie," unlike its heroine, hits only the most predictable notes. Yet even these detractors agree it nonetheless proves poignant. Even the lesser parts of the film are uplifted by Latifah's amazing performance, which might just be one of the high points of her dazzling career.

On a cold October night in 1998, 22 year old Matthew Shepard was savagely beaten and left to die. It took 18 hours for Shepard to be discovered. Six days after the attack, he died from his injuries. 

A month after Shepard's murder, 10 members of New York City's Tectonic Theater Project, led by including artistic director Moisés Kaufman, went to Laramie, Wyoming and interviewed over 80 people about the murder and its aftermath. From those interviews came 2002's "The Laramie Project," which boasts an ensemble cast including Laura Linney, Steve Buscemi, Christina Ricci, Peter Fonda, Jeremy Davies, Dylan Baker, Nestor Carbonell, and many more.

Kaufman's process makes the voices of "The Laramie Project" seem utterly real — because, of course, they are real. Woven together, they create, as Rob Gonsalves writes on eFilmCritic.com, "a fascinating chorus of outrage and sadness, hatred and hope." It's one you'll never forget.

Gia Carangi was one of the first women to be referred to as a "supermodel." Super or not, her story didn't last as long as it should have. Carangi became addicted to heroin after her career took off, and in 1986, the 26-year-old died of AIDS-related complications. In 1998, HBO cast Angelina Jolie as the late supermodel in "Gia," giving viewers a sad and unflinching look at her complex life.

While Jolie had won a Golden Globe for her performance in the previous year's TNT mini-series "George Wallace," her turn as the titular lead in "Gia" is what broke her through to celebrity status. She puts everything into her performance as the tortured, defiant, and thrill-seeking model. Decades after the film premiered, Jolie still reminds you why she became a household name in this role. "Gia" also features the superb talents of Faye Dunaway as Gia's agent Wilhelmina Cooper, Mercedes Ruehl as the supermodel's mother, and Elizabeth Mitchell as Gia's lover, Linda.

Part of what sets 2014's "The Normal Heart" apart from other films about the early days of the AIDS crisis is its tangible rage. Chiefly, this is expressed through Ned Meeks (Mark Ruffalo), a fictional stand-in for activist Larry Kramer, who wrote the play upon which the film is based. 

The film opens during the summer of 1981, when Meeks reads a newspaper article referring to a kind of cancer developing in gay men. From there, we see the disease begin to rip through New York City's gay community, and like Meeks, we are infuriated at the larger society that doesn't seem to care. 

In his review for Vulture, Matt Zoller Seitz writes that politically, the point of "The Normal Heart" is to make sure no one forgets "life during an epidemic that might have been less brutal, or at least more dignified, had public officials behaved with more bravery, honesty, and compassion." It succeeds at this goal, and then some.

In the years since his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has taken on an almost mythical air of meaning in our society. Whenever a new voice emerges demanding social justice for underrepresented people, they are almost always judged against King's example — or our often misguided perception of King's example — and they rarely measure up. 

One of the greatest gifts Peter Kunhardt gives us in his 2018 documentary "King in the Wilderness" is that he forces us to see King as a man. While we're used to seeing King at pulpits and podiums, "King in the Wilderness" strives to show us the moments between the grandeur. We listen to conversations between him and his loved ones, see him feeling awkward waiting for the slap of a clapperboard, and hear him laugh at the gag gifts he receives at what proves to be his final birthday party. This de-mystifying of King not only gives us a clearer picture of one of the greatest Americans to walk the Earth, it helps us see the love he fought so hard for.

With his many frilly, sparkling stage outfits and his flamboyant air, Liberace often found himself serving as the butt of stand-up comics' jokes. A big part of what shifted the public's perception of the singer, pianist, and actor was Steven Soderbergh's 2013 film, "Behind the Candelabra." Based on a memoir by Liberace's lover, Scott Thorson, this film offers a frank vision of Liberace's life, particularly in terms of his strange and turbulent relationship with Thorson. Passionate, tender, and extremely entertaining, "Behind the Candelabra" is a must-see with contenders for career-best performances from Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as Thorson.

"Behind the Candelabra" is also a testament to the undeniable talent and vision of Soderbergh. The director actually claimed to be retiring from filmmaking the same year "Behind the Candelabra" was released, though thankfully, he went back on his promise. Part of his frustration stemmed from other studios passing on his Liberace biopic because, per the Guardian, they feared it would be "too gay" for the moviegoing public.

Surf movies rarely become stone-cold cinematic classics, but one stunning exception is 2018's "Momentum Generation." Directed by Jeff and Michael Zimbalist, the documentary focuses on a legendary group of surfers who rose to fame in the '90s.

In some ways, "Momentum Generation" feels like a classic rock group biopic. Our "musicians" begin their careers in impoverished brotherhood, rise to fame, and eventually find their success is tearing them apart. The surfers of "Momentum Generation" feel like an inseparable found family. But as the professional surfing world pits them against each other, their idyllic tribe implodes with friendships and romantic relationships crippled or destroyed, and things sometimes devolving into violence. Unlike a music biopic, however, "Momentum Generation" gives us archival footage and interviews that let us get as close to the truth as possible. 

Along with its gripping story, "Momentum Generation" also offers gorgeous surfing footage. This is not only pleasing to the eye, it highlights the dangers surfers face while riding the waves.

The American psyche has taken a long time to resolve the crimes, cruelty, and defeat of the Vietnam War. While World War II acts as fodder for movies featuring portrayals of unblemished American heroes, the conflict in Vietnam mostly inspires tales of soldiers who, at best, struggle with the rightness of their actions. At worst, they lose their minds completely.

Rather than soldiers, the 2002 political drama "Path to War" focuses on the men who made the war what it became. Michael Gambon stars as President Lyndon B. Johnson, who wants his "Great Society" to act as his legacy, but becomes defined by his role in escalating Vietnam. Johnson is ping-ponged chiefly between two advisers: Clark M. Clifford (Donald Sutherland), who pleads with Johnson to get out of Vietnam, and Robert McNamara (Alec Baldwin), the secretary of defense who convinces Johnson that the only way out is to pound the Viet Cong into submission. With stellar performances by all three actors, "Path to War" comes off like a profoundly emotional Shakespearean tragedy, albeit with less stabbing (at least of the literal kind).

It would be challenging to find a more quietly disturbing film than "Conspiracy." In 1942, with World War II raging, high-ranking German officials met to solidify the cooperation of the Reich's departments in what they called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." Using a transcript from the actual meeting, "Conspiracy" shows us the unthinkably casual brutality that sealed the fate of millions.

Most of "Conspiracy" unfolds as the ensemble cast — including Kenneth Branagh as the manipulative Reinhard Heydrich, Stanley Tucci as the cold and cruel Adolf Eichmann, and Colin Firth as the heavy-handed Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart — happily smokes, eats, and drinks around a conference table. With the sole exception Dr. Wilhelm Kritzinger (David Threlfall), who stops short of any true dissension, there is no voice of reason or morality. The assembled officers, politicians, and intellectuals bicker over things like  jurisdiction and priority, but almost no one dares to suggest anything against the proposed genocide. It's chilling in its officiousness, and an important lesson for anyone who doesn't believe pure evil exists.

In 1993, HBO completed the Herculean task of adapting Randy Shilts' landmark book "And the Band Played On." This tome chronicles the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and the incompetence, bureaucracy, and bigotry (among other elements) that turned a bad situation into a full-blown crisis.

The film is blessed with a massive ensemble cast led by Matthew Modine as the CDC's Dr. Don Francis, who combats the epidemic with no support. Modine is joined by Alan Alda, Phil Collins, Richard Gere, Anjelica Huston, Steve Martin, and many more talents. "And the Band Played On" is epic in its scope, with Dr. Francis traveling all across the US and points beyond, meeting almost nothing but unmoving walls of resistance at every turn. Along with making the emotional and physical toll of HIV and AIDS clear, "And the Band Played On" is an undeniable condemnation of the government's apathy in the face of disaster.