3 Unmissable HBO Max Movies to Stream in May 2026, Ranked by IMDb Score, Including A Complete Unknown

HBO Max quietly stacked May with some legit movie nights. Beyond the splashy new arrivals - Margot Robbie's Wuthering Heights and Charli XCX's The Moment - the service also slipped in a trio of biographical dramas about complicated men pushing against their time. I used IMDb scores as a quick yardstick and ranked the three new-to-HBO Max picks below. Honestly, all three are worth pressing play on.

1. Walk the Line (2005) - IMDb 7.8

   Johnny Cash did not have an easy ride, which is exactly why the music hits and the legend stuck. Walk the Line leans into the rough edges and the swagger that turned the Man in Black into country music's outlaw poet. The movie also knows that the beating heart of his story is June Carter. Reese Witherspoon plays June as sharp, funny, and tougher than her wholesome image, and she walked away with an Oscar for it. Joaquin Phoenix matches her beat for beat as Cash, a guy dangerously good at sabotaging himself.

   The film nails the 60s and 70s moment when Nashville let a rebel thrive, showing how Cash's charisma, chaos, and vulnerability all fed the myth. It also does not dodge the mess: the pills, the self-destruction, and the fact that there is a wife at home he will not actually leave. It is a classic biopic for a reason, and it still plays.

2. A Complete Unknown (2025 ) - IMDb 7.3

   I still do not know how Timothee Chalamet did not snag an Oscar for this. He drops into 1961 as a young Bob Dylan stepping off the bus in New York with a guitar, a head full of songs, and a voice that somehow sounds like the moment. He slides into the early 60s folk world, rubbing shoulders with Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), and his rise is fast. The twist, of course, is that he wants to plug in, and going electric makes some of his biggest boosters turn on him.

   Director James Mangold and co-writer Jay Cooks make the smart call to focus on the early years rather than trying to cover Dylan's entire life in one go. The movie nails that brief window when the counterculture went mainstream and certain scene-makers got treated like prophets with maybe more wisdom projected onto them than they actually had. Chalamet does more than a surface-level impression; he gets the vibe and the enigma. The title is a clue to the whole thing: try to pin Dylan down and you miss why people were obsessed in the first place.

3. The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) - IMDb 7.2

   1860s Paris medicine meant leeches and surgeons who did not wash their hands. Radical chemist Louis Pasteur, played by Paul Muni, is the guy trying to drag everyone into the modern age with actual data. The gatekeepers do not take it well. He gets mocked, stonewalled, even threatened, but he keeps pushing because he knows the work will save lives, including the ones closest to him.

   This was a big Warner Bros. hit back in 1936, and it went to the Oscars with a Best Picture nomination. Muni - think 1930s-level shape-shifter commitment - won Best Actor for the role. Yes, parts feel dated now: the Paris streets read like a studio backlot, and the personal-life material can be a little thin. But the core story is gripping, and the pace is brisk, especially for a Depression-era biopic. Also, it is only 87 minutes long, which feels borderline miraculous for a movie like this.

Bottom line: if you are browsing HBO Max this month, you have the two headline newbies in Wuthering Heights and The Moment, and then you have these three character studies about men crashing into their eras. Different decades, same fight. Pick your flavor.