HBO Max: The Best Movies and TV Shows for Diversity
Whether you like cinema classics, sketch comedy, or science fiction, HBO Max has something for you! Check out our top picks for diversity and representation.

Moored on the Chicago River between Clark St and LaSalle, The Eastland begins boarding and thousands of Western Electric employees and their families climb the ramp, excited for their annual company outing. Overflowing with passengers about to depart, the boat leans port – and doesn’t lean back. Within minutes, cries fill the air, families are torn apart and unexpected heroes emerge to rescue dozens of Chicagoans from a watery end. Artistic Director Andrew White (Of One Blood, 1984) resurrects the ghosts of America’s forgotten tragedy in this Lookingglass Original musical, with music by Artistic Associate Andre Pluess and Ben Sussman, the team behind the score of Lookingglass Alice, 1984, Metamorphoses, Hard Times, and The Secret in the Wings, as well as the acclaimed Winesburg, Ohio. Directed by Amanda Dehnert (Peter Pan: A Play). Inspired in part by Jay Bonansinga’s The Sinking of the Eastland: America’s Forgotten Tragedy
Whether you like cinema classics, sketch comedy, or science fiction, HBO Max has something for you! Check out our top picks for diversity and representation.
The relationship between the characters is what makes this film stand out, and it’s just all-around fun.
A 2022 remake of the previous films of the same name, but with a more diverse cast, increasing representation and diversity.
Nightbooks, the newest entry in children's horror, honors classic horror films, focuses on themes of acceptance, and has awesome production design.
An artistic approach to the impact of Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”.
What seems like such a simple story of survival is so much more than that—it’s a story of family, and of war, and of destruction. It’s painful to watch, but not in a bad way. It makes its audience reflect on their own actions, and in how they are complicit in the sufferings of others as the adults in this film are. Grave of the Fireflies does not hold back from being heartbreaking, and it shouldn’t. It tells a message that needs to be heard decades after the war, and a story that cannot be forgotten by history.