HBO Max might be coming to the UK, but this key difference shows the US will still be ahead

I'm one of a big population of movie and TV-heads who've been waiting with bated breath for the arrival of HBO Max here in the UK. It's been years and years at this point, and now we're finally in the home stretch, with the service arriving on 26 March 2026. While I'm really excited for that switch-on, there's still one major difference between the UK and the US that means we'll lag behind our colleagues over the pond.

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While the TV side of things promises something extremely close to total parity between UK and US viewers, ensuring that shows like The Pitt are viewable for the first time, and that others like A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms come out on the same day (time difference allowing), where movies are concerned, there will be differences.

This is summed up pretty perfectly by last week's charts on JustWatch, which tracks which movies and shows have been most watched across a range of streaming platforms. I want to highlight some films that were in the top 10 in the US last week, namely: If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, One Battle After Another and Sinners.

These three were all available to subscribers via HBO Max in the US, but in the UK, they sum up a few different issues. The first is release calendars – If I Had Legs I'd Kick You is out on HBO Max in the US, but in the UK it doesn't even hit cinemas until later this week, with a streaming date presumably a couple of months later.

One Battle After Another, meanwhile, came out late last year, but here in the UK isn't streaming on any subscription yet – it's still only available to buy or rent. Finally, Sinners came out earlier in 2025 and can currently only be streamed in the UK through Sky Cinema or a Now Entertainment pass, where newer releases typically loiter for a while before heading to other streaming platforms.

That all basically means that the UK seems to get the short end of the stick in terms of release schedules pretty frequently. We're used to having to wait until January and February to actually see all the Oscar contenders the US enjoyed the previous year, but in the age of streaming, that's harder to swallow.

In particular, for a service like HBO Max now operating in both the UK and the US, it's going to create some annoying scenarios and asymmetric releases – making those VPNs look all the more alluring to some people.

There's likely no real way around this issue, either, with licensing and release calendars standing as incredibly complicated barriers stopping day-and-date worldwide releases. Hopefully, though, the fact that HBO Max will soon exist on our shores could encourage at least something closer to parity.