Leaving HBO Max in August 2022: Four great dramas to watch before they skip the platform

The Last Duel
(Image credit: 20th Century Studios)

Given it's owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, HBO Max's vast library of movies and shows tends to stay pretty consistent, but it does occasionally dabble in things made by other people and those things will leave at some point. 

A big chunk of those is down to a deal reached between Disney and WarnerMedia, HBO’s parent company, to let select 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures films stream on Disney PlusHulu and HBO Max. As a result, HBO Max gets many of the latest releases, but they won't be on the platform for all eternity. 

As well as that, HBO Max shows movies from other studios, but those movies are on limited-time deals and many are coming to an end at the end of this month. 

We've got a full guide to everything leaving HBO Max here, but, with a slew of great movies leaving at the end of August, we've also rounded four of the best of them. Don't miss these...

Adventureland

Adventureland

(Image credit: Miramax)

A true coming-of-age drama, Adventureland went a little under the radar when it was first released in 2009, with it billed as a palette cleanser for star Kristen Stewart between Twilight movies. 

Starring Stewart, Jesse Eisenberg and Ryan Reynolds, Adventureland is based on writer/director Greg Mottola's real-life summer job in the late 1980s working in a run-down amusement park. 

Set in 1987, Eisenberg plays James, who had planned to have a summer vacation in Europe, but, after his parents tell him money is too tight for them to pay for him to go, he's forced to foot the bill himself and gets a summer job at Adventureland, a run-down amusement park in western Pennsylvania. 

Once there he meets Stewart's Emily, with whom he strikes an instant bond, but the pair's relationship quickly becomes complicated as Emily is having an affair with a married man. 

Tenderly written, superbly cast and really affecting, this is well worth your time. 

When is it leaving HBO Max? 

August 31

Bronson

Bronson

(Image credit: Film4)

Before he made Drive and Only God Forgives, director Nicolas Winding Refn brought the life of Charles Bronson to the big screen in one of Tom Hardy's first major roles. 

Bronson is widely considered to the UK's most violent criminal and has been in prison on and off for almost 50 years. As part of that, he has been responsible for more than a dozen or so cases of hostage taking while incarcerated

For this role, Hardy gained 3 stone in muscle for the role, doing 2500 press-ups a day for five weeks in the process and met up with Bronson numerous times before filming begun.

The film shows Winding Refn’s love of blending the comic with the brutally violent with Hardy providing humorous narration between scenes. It’s uncompromising and very very good.

When is it leaving HBO Max?

August 31

The Last Duel

The Last Duel

(Image credit: 20th Century Studios)

Ridley Scott's epic historic drama failed to catch fire at the box office, but it's a rip-roaring that you should not miss. 

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck lead the cast, with Harriet Walter, Adam Driver, Nathaniel Parker and Jodie Comer also in key roles. 

Set in 14th century France, the film pits best friends Damon's Jean de Carrouges and Adam Driver's Jacques Le Gris against each other as the pair are ordered to fight to the death after Carrouges accuses Le Gris of raping his wife. 

Damon and Affleck have provided the script, adapting Eric Jager's The Last Duel: A True Story of Trial by Combat in Medieval France.

Scott does this terrain really well. It's a lavish, widescreen and daring drama, with Comer in particular on top form. 

When is it leaving HBO Max?

August 31

The Reader

The Reader

(Image credit: The Weinstein Company)

Kate Winslet earned herself a Best Actress Oscar for the role in this emotionally-wrought drama, which was first released in 2008. 

Set in 1958, in post-war Germany, The Reader stars Winslet and David Kross. The movie follows Kross's Michael Berg, a young man who has an affair with Winslet's Hanna, a bus conductor who is significantly older than he is. 

The relationship ends abruptly when Hanna moves away and the action then cuts to 1966, with Michael now at Law School. As part of his studies, Michael and his classmates are tasked with observing a trial of several former SS guards accused of letting 300 Jewish women and children die in a burning church. At the trial, it turns out Hanna is one of the defendants. 

Quickly, Michael realizes that Hanna is keeping a secret, a secret that could help her at the trial, leaving him torn as to whether to reveal it or not...

When is it leaving HBO Max?

August 31

Tom Goodwyn
Freelance Entertainment Writer

Tom Goodwyn was formerly TechRadar's Senior Entertainment Editor. He's now a freelancer writing about TV shows, documentaries and movies across streaming services, theaters and beyond. Based in East London, he loves nothing more than spending all day in a movie theater, well, he did before he had two small children…