After years of waiting for its arrival, HBO Max has finally found its way to UK shores, and after all this time the question that’s on everyone’s lips is… how good is The Pitt?

But aside from that, what we’re more focused on here is whether HBO Max is worth subscribing to.

We’ve reviewed the app already, both in its US HBO Max and Max incarnations but we’ve not yet had a look at its UK incarnation.

Until we do, we can’t tell you all the ways in which it differs from its US counterpart but in the run up to the launch of HBO Max in the UK, we do have a few thoughts on whether you should be compelled to start a subscription.

There are many, many tiers

It used to be that when you subscribed to a streaming service, it was a one-size fits all package. Those days have disappeared and nowadays, we’re presented with a dizzying array of tiers that we have to comprehend, and HBO Max is possibly the most convulted of them all.

In the UK there’s a grand total of seven tiers that you could possibly subscribe to:

• Basic with Ads: £4.99/month
• Standard with Ads: £5.99/month
• Standard: £9.99/month
• Premium: £14.99/month
• Standard with Ads and TNT Sports: £36.98/month
• Standard and TNT Sports: £40.98/month
• Premium and TNT Sports: £45.98/month

This is because in the UK, HBO Max also carries with it TNT Sports, a joint venture between Warner Bros. Discovery and BT (who own 50% of TNT Sports).

Even so, there are more ‘regular’ tiers than you get in Europe, with the addition of the Standard with Ads tier.

4K HDR support only comes with the Premium Tier, and the difference between the Basic and Standard tiers is that the former doesn’t give you access to films that launched on the app after their cinema release, which seems a bit stingy and also pointless to us.

Exclusives not available anywhere else

While the likes of Game of Thrones, The Last of Us, The Penguin, and previously released shows will continue to be available to Sky customers through their subscription, Warner Bros. has held back some programming to launch exclusively within the app.

The Pitt is only available on HBO Max, so you will need to subscribe to the app to watch. Going forward series such as the new Harry Potter TV series, and anything else that’s “new” that’s coming from Warner Bros. will be through the HBO Max. For Sky customers, legacy content will still be available through their existing subscription.

It’s competitively price

We’ll focus on the cheapest and premium tiers but £4.99/month for Basic with Ads is less expensive that Netflix’s least expensive tier (£5.99/month) and Disney+ (£5.99/month.

The Premium tier matches Disney+ at £14.99/month but is less expensive than Netflix (£18.99/month). And arguably HBO Max’s library is as good as, if not better than either streaming service.

It is yet another streaming app

We’re not saying that streaming services should go through an era of consolidation, but HBO Max enters the UK market several years after others have, and right now it’s yet another app to join the legion of apps that currently exist.

That means having to fork out more cash, which is an issue that will affect Warner Bros. more than most. Factor in TNT Sports, which doesn’t have a spectacular subscription uptake according to various reports, and a monthly subscription is quite expensive on top of other outgoings, especially if you want to stream in 4K.

You’ve probably already seen it

While HBO Max is making a big splash in the UK with its launch, it’s more than like that you’ll have seen almost everything it has to offer already.

Films such as Harry Potter, Dune, The Matrix and the DC comic book series, plus TV series such as Friends, Game of Thrones, The Whites Lotus and Succession are likely titles people will have seen already.

There are gems that people haven’t seen, like Oz and (probably still) The Wire, The Larry Sanders Show and others.

If it’s older content that you’ve not seen, then HBO Max has a treasure trove of goodies. If it’s more recent, it’s likely you’ve probably seen it. However, with titles such as The Pitt that are new and exclusive, these are the types of programming that you’ll be tuning into watch going forward.

Is HBO Max worth subscribing to?

It really depends on what you want from the service.

HBO Max comes with a lot of content, a good chunk you’re likely to have seen already. However, the quality of this content is good – even the films and shows that don’t hit are interesting, and there’s plenty of stuff that people have forgotten about over the years, such as Boardwalk Empire or Treme.

The question is not really about the older programming as we know what HBO Max has done in the past. It’s about the value of programming coming to the service from now onwards. The Pitt has launched, and they’ll be a Harry Potter TV series coming at the end of 2026 but aside from returning shows such as House of the Dragon, The White Lotus, and The Last of Us, what new and original content will HBO Max be bringing to the UK?

That remains to be seen, but based on what’s available – whether you’re after a nostalgia watch or looking for something you’ve not seen before, we reckon it’s worth giving HBO Max a gander, though we’ll be able to give it a more thorough opinion once we’ve reviewed the UK version.