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Recently, Disney+Hotstar announced that from March 31 onwards, HBO content will be unavailable to stream on the platform. If you're among those who has been searching "movies leaving Hotstar", we're here to help. Fan favourites such as Game of Thrones, The Last of Us and Girls and a host of beloved titles will be leaving the OTT platform. Subscribers of Disney+ Hotstar will also lose access to upcoming seasons of House of Dragon and Succession. In the spirit of making the most out of this unfortunate situation, we’ve picked the most popular titles from the network’s expansive array of films and series, so that you can catch them before it’s too late.
Here’s the best of HBO, currently streaming on Disney+Hotstar:
Kate Winslet's raw, grief-stricken turn as a detective struggling to piece together a case as her own life falls apart won her the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress and elevated the standard tropes of investigative fiction. "Mare does not have the luxury of time to be either reflexive or reflective. You cannot bear to watch her quiet, lonely suffering," we wrote in our review of the show here. Also, look out for Evan Peters and keep some tissue handy while watching episode five.
Season Two of this sharp satire skewered the one-percenters who flock to exotic locations to forget their worries, only to discover they're stuck with themselves. The web series, which was a breakout hit with its first season, switched gears from a class war to the battle of sexes, but stayed no less gleefully riveting. “Money can’t buy happiness, this season suggests, but it sure can secure a stunning view against which to drape yourself and cry,” is what we said in our review here.
Starring comedy legend Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep follows former senator Selina Meyer as she learns that being Vice President of the United States is not how she imagined it. The humour is absurd and fascinating and the plot exposes the tragedy that is American politics while bravely retaining hope for a better future.
Created by Jesse Armstrong, Succession follows a media conglomerate-owning family that navigates disarray after their father falls ill. With complex characters that orchestrate mayhem at every possible opportunity, and are always a breath away from tearing each other apart, Succession is obnoxiously funny and entertaining. Read our love letter to the series, here.
Insecure sheds light on the trials and tribulations of black women in the USA. Created by and starring Issa Rae, the show portrays the experiences of two close friends from college as they steer through personal and professional adventures. Insecure is insightful and crisp, and examines a larger social narrative through its protagonists.
When a reporter returns to her hometown to look into the murder of two young girls, she is compelled to face ghosts from her past. Based on a novel of the same name by Gillian Flynn, the series is rendered compelling thanks to the internal conflicts of Amy Adams' character. And while the show is a slow burn, the unfolding of the truth is more electrifying because of it.
Michaela Coel's fearless series, which navigated the journey of a woman struggling to remember the night she was date-raped, ended thrice, the different conclusions suggesting that there are no neat answers to the cruelties of life. "It's a sprawling, expansive exploration of consent, sexuality, racism and ideas of freedom, family, friendship," is what we wrote about the show here.
Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain brought their lived-in chemistry to their adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's 1973 Swedish miniseries chronicling the slow dissolution of a couple's marriage. Episodes began with the actors themselves getting ready for the shot, blurring the lines between real and reel and questioning if all relationships were simply a performance piece.
During the Great Depression, Mildred Pierce finds herself separated from her husband, establishing her own restaurant and falling in love with someone while trying to gain her daughter’s respect. Directed by Todd Haynes and starring Kate Winslet, Mildred Pierce is loyal to James M. Cain’s 1941 novel on which it is based. The series pays close attention to the details of the time it is set in, and depicts Mildred, not as a victim but as a woman determined to prove herself.
Lena Dunham’s Girls authentically portrays a group of women in their early twenties. The series is the opposite of aspirational, we see their downs more than their ups, and in that lies its strength. Professional missteps, failed relationships, day drinking, and life-altering friendships – Girls is all this and more.
Directed by Sam Levinson, the series revolves around a group of high school students. Featuring an ensemble cast with Zendaya, Hunter Schafer, Angus Cloud and Jacob Elordi, Euphoria’s signature dish is “the melange of teens and hormones”. Each character’s present behaviour is justified by their past, discouraging us from reducing them to puberty-ridden menaces. “If not sympathy, it evokes pity for them, at the very least,” is what we wrote in our review for season 2 of Euphoria here.
Recently released, the drama thriller The Last of Us has been receiving a lot of love for being one of the best – if not the best – video game adaptations ever. Starring the internet’s favourite foster dad, Pedro Pascal plays a hardened survivor of a post-apocalyptical world who must smuggle a 14-year-old to safety. Notwithstanding the divisive ending to season 1, The Last of Us remains one of the most memorable titles of 2023.
The eight-season historical fantasy was big-budget storytelling at its best, blending palace intrigue, a hundred painstakingly laid plotlines and dragons — all of which made actors like Emilia Clarke household names. Water-cooler television will never quite be the same. "It's easy enough to dunk on anachronistic coffee cups and stills of (the otherwise one-armed) Jaime Lannister with both arms intact around his sister. In a better season, these would've become just more meme-able content. In this one, they're further 'proof' of the showrunners' apathy," is what we wrote about season 8 here.
The carefully manicured lives of four women shattered with thrilling ferocity in the compulsively watchable season 1 of Big Little Lies, and less so in season 2, which explored the aftermath of them being embroiled in a murder investigation. Even so, "the show brought out deep-rooted misogyny and sexism, the harm inflicted by misguided power struggles, and the far-reaching impact of dysfunctional families," is what one of our readers wrote here.
The award-winning HBO limited series – a tense, incredibly sharp dramatization of the 1986 Russian nuclear accident – is arguably the finest prototype of modern television. Every second scene is haunting, the writing lives (and dies) in the moment, and the performances – mostly by British and European actors – are second to none.
Barry, a darkly humorous take on a hitman turning into an actor, could have been played off for laughs. But the writing, along with Bill Hader’s pitch-perfect performance, balances this humour with a sobering poignancy – a true masterclass in shifting tonality.
When real-life buddies Mattew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson decided to move to the small screen to play partners in solving crime, nobody had expected it to become the cultural phenomenon it did. Even less expected was its sudden fall from fame with the release of season 2. With the final and third season somewhat bridging the chasm between its predecessors, True Detective has had its share of ups and downs. Don’t let that stop you from binging the crime drama.
Perhaps the most audacious experiments with science fiction, Westworld revolves around a futuristic amusement park consisting of android hosts built to entertain their customers’ sadistic and deadly demands. When the androids begin to deviate from their scripts, it turns into an all-out war.
Considered to be one of the best detective shows of all time, The Wire revolves around the sprawling drug epidemic in the city of Baltimore, as drug kingpins and law enforcement lock horns.
The loose adaptation of the acclaimed 1986 graphic novel was a gripping commentary on race and power, who gets to wield it, and what the implications of that status quo are. It blended massive spectacle with intimate concerns, and it did so with a grace sorely lacking in current superhero narratives.
Based on the Pulitzer award-winning novel of the same name, the series follows the eponymous Olive Kitteridge, a stern retired high-school teacher, as she battles depression, marital woes and jealousy, one joke at a time.
A riveting mini-series on the quagmire that is the NYC criminal-justice system, The Night Of stars Riz Ahmed as a young Pakistan-American man accused of murdering a white woman. The series features eight taut episodes that unravel the intricacies of the murder and a legal battle that’s full of twists and turns.