HBO is a treasure trove of excellent series across every genre, but a few top-tier thrillers have fallen through the cracks. This is somewhat surprising, as HBO has offered some of the best thriller shows in recent memory. The Kate Winslet-led Mare of Easttown has a shocking killer reveal that’s still wowing audiences, while The White Lotus‘s thrilling season finales keep providing premium watercooler discussions.
However, for ever buzzy series, HBO has just as many underrated thriller series. It’s hard to understand why, as many of these shows boast A-lists casts, are adaptations of buzzy bestselling novels, or have heaps of critical acclaim. If you’re a thriller fan who’s never caught the following shows, they should definitely be your next binge-watch.
The Outsider (2020)
Though not every Stephen King adaptation is good, most attract a sizable audience, whether it’s the recent It prequel series, Welcome to Derry or the Theo James-led feature film The Monkey, which released earlier this year. That’s what makes this 2020 HBO show such an anomaly, especially when The Outsider‘s cast boasts talented actors like Jason Bateman, Ben Mendelsohn, and Cynthia Erivo.
One of the rare King adaptations that’s not straight horror, The Outsider is a just as much a psychological thriller. It centers on the murder of a young boy in a small Geogia town, with the boy’s Little League coach, Terry Maitland (Bateman) arrested as the prime suspect. When Detective Ralph Anderson’s (Mendelsohn) evidence against Maitland begins to unravel, he enlists the help of King’s perennial investiagtor, Holly Gibney (Erivo).
The fact that The Outsider begins as a police procedural than a standard King horrorfest allows the HBO show to establish its nuanced characters and let the spectacular performances shine through. Sadly, this slow-burn approach may have been to The Outsider‘s detriment, especially for King fans looking for immediate supernatural scares. But by giving The Outsider a chance, you’re treating yourself to one of HBO’s best thrillers.
Love & Death (2023)
With its gripping true-crime premise and MCU’s Scarlet Witch actress Elizabeth Olsen leading the Love & Death cast, it’s astonishing that this thriller miniseries didn’t make more of a splash when it landed on HBO Max in 2023. All the ingredients for a great thriller are there: a small-town setting, secret affairs, and a horrifying murder.
In the true-story adaptation, Olsen plays Candy Montgomery, a Texan housewife who begins an affair with a married family friend and fellow churchgoer, Allan Gore (Jesse Plemons). Ultimately, Candy and Allan’s tryst leads to the brutal axe-murdering of Allan’s wife, Betty (Lily Rabe), which Candy is accused of and put on criminal trial for.
Though critics were split on Love & Death, Olsen’s performance was universally praised and Plemons was nominated for an Emmy Award. It’s possible that another adaptation of Candy Montgomery’s story, Candy starring Jessica Biel and Melanie Lynskey, took some spotlight away from this HBO miniseries, but it also went equally under the radar. However, Love & Death‘s recent arrival on Netflix may give the show a new audience.
The Undoing (2020)
The Undoing may have broken records for HBO in the UK, but in North America, it’s essentially been forgotten about. A domestic thriller set amongst New York City’s uppercrust society, The Undoing stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant as well-to-do married couple Grace and Jonathan Fraser, who have a young son named Henry (Noah Jupe).
Though the Frasers seemingly have the perfect life, things begin to fall apart for Grace when the mother of a boy who attends Henry’s private school turns up dead and a recently-vanished Jonathan becomes the prime suspect in her murder. For fans of Kidman’s TV thrillers in which she plays a rich woman with an odious husband, The Undoing sees her in top form.
Ironically, this may have been why the minisieries isn’t remembered as much as it deserves to be. When The Undoing premiered, it received a tepid response from critics, who compared it unfavorably to a more popular Kidman HBO thriller series, Big Little Lies. Since then, Kidman has starred in even more shows of the genre, notably Netflix’s The Perfect Couple, which may have resulted in The Undoing further being forgotten.
Sharp Objects (2018)
An explosive thriller and one of the most unforgettably disturbing Southern Gothic tales ever to be put to the screen, Sharp Objects deserved so much better than being lost among the titles of HBO’s back-catalog. It stars the incomparable Amy Adams and Patricia Clarkson in some of the best performances of their entire careers.
Like the wildly popular 2014 thriller film, Gone Girl, Sharp Objects is also an adaptation of a Gillian Flynn novel. The creatives behind the HBO thriller series also have a top pedigree, as Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s Marti Noxon is the creator, while the late Big Little Lies director Jean-Marc Vallée helmed every episode.
A vicious two-hander between Adams and Clarkson, Adams plays protagonist Camille Preaker, a self-harming journalist who leaves a psychiatric hospital to journey back to her hometown of Wind Gap, Missouri in order to investigate the murders of two local young girls. Camille stays in her childhood home where her the tensions of her toxic relationship with her mother Adora (Clarkson) ratchet up to a fever pitch.
Everything about Sharp Objects, from the performances of its main cast to the many shocking twists and turns to its dark, unsettling atmosphere was hailed by critics. Clarkson even won a Golden Globe for her work, but somehow, Sharp Objects vanished from the pop culture conversation without a trace. This is a shame as it’s one of the best thriller shows in HBO history.
