14 Must-Watch Sci-Fi TV Shows on HBO Max Right Now (March 2026): ‘The Swarm’ and More

Humanity has been dumping garbage in the oceans and over-fishing the sea life for decades. In The Swarm, the ocean fights back. There have been real-life incidents of orcas/killer whales attacking boats, but not as widespread or as deadly as the attacks in this show. Even the smaller sea creatures are getting in on the carnage.

Whale expert Leon Anawak (Joshua Odjick) and PHD student Charlie Wagner (Leonie Benesch) are among the few scientists worldwide who realize that someone or something has weaponized the sea against humanity. But this is one battle that humans won’t easily win, especially if they can’t directly fight back.

The Swarm is streaming on HBO Max.

Years and Years isn’t a sci-fi series in the traditional sense, but it definitely veers into science fiction. The show starts in 2019, as a nationalist politician, Vivienne Rook (Emma Thompson), begins her rise to power. Although Rook’s increasingly fascist policies change the United Kingdom, she’s rarely seen outside of her TV appearances on this show.

Instead, the spotlight falls on the Lyons family — Stephen (Rory Kinnear), Celeste (T’Nia Miller), Daniel (Russell Tovey), Edith (Jessica Hynes), Rosie (Ruth Madeley), Bethany (Lydia West) and Muriel (Anne Reid). As their lives flash forward to the future, Bethany is more and more entwined with technology, almost to the point of becoming a cyborg. The changes with her family are more subtle, but definitely not for the better. It’s not the increasingly unreal technology that ruined their lives. It was the people all along.

Years and Years is streaming on HBO Max.

There are some things in Station Eleven that seem very reminiscent of the pandemic. Regardless, Emily St. John Mandel released her novel in 2014, six years beforehand. Station Eleven tells the story of a world that fell to a flu pandemic. Multiple survivors are featured, but none more so than Kirsten Raymonde (Mackenzie Davis). 

In the present, Kirsten is a member of a traveling group of performers who encounter a deadly cult. In the past, young Kirsten (Matilda Lawler) was protected by a stranger, Jeevan Chaudhary (Himesh Patel). She is also obsessed with a graphic novel called Station Eleven, which is connected to some of the other survivors on the show.

Station Eleven is streaming on HBO Max.

Michael B. Jordan‘s love for anime paved the way for him to star in and produce the animated series Gen: Lock. In a dystopian future, Julian Chase (Jordan) is a pilot for an international coalition called The Polity. When New York is invaded by the Union, Julian is severely injured and believed dead.

Dr. Rufus Weller (David Tennant) can salvage what’s left of Julian’s mind and body to let him project a holographic persona and remotely pilot a giant mech called a Holon. Some of the other gen: LOCK recruits include Cameron ‘Cammie’ MacCloud (Maisie Williams) and Yasamin ‘Yaz’ Madrani (Golshifteh Farahani). Under Julian’s leadership, they might just turn the tide of the war against the Union.

Gen: Lock is streaming on HBO Max.

Avenue 5 is one of HBO’s rare forays into sci-fi, which doubles as a comedy from Armando Iannucci, the creator of Veep. House star Hugh Laurie headlines the show as Ryan Clark, the captain of a luxury cruise line spaceship called Avenue 5. Josh Gad costars as the ship’s billionaire owner, Herman Judd.

On a routine voyage, the Avenue 5 should be just as safe as any cruise liner on the ocean. On this trip, however, the ship’s engineer dies in an accident, and Avenue 5 is sent so far off course that it’s years away from making it back to Earth. Ryan is quickly exposed as a figurehead captain who has no idea how to fly the ship. But he and the crew better work it out fast, because they only have enough supplies for eight weeks.

Avenue 5 is streaming on HBO Max.

If you’ve ever read Bram Stoker‘s Dracula, the choice to name a starship Demeter 227 should have been an immediate red flag. Regardless, Scavenger’s Reign is one of the most ambitious HBO Max originals that truly embraced adult animation.

The series follows the surviving crew members from the Demeter 227 as they find themselves trapped on an alien world called Vesta. The planet is lush, beautiful and extremely hostile to its new human inhabitants. People don’t belong on this world, and as Vestra has a devastating effect on some of the survivors, humanity’s presence may also transform the world in terrible ways.

Scavenger’s Reign is streaming on HBO Max.

Peacemaker is one of the few DC properties to emerge from the recent reboot intact, as John Cena briefly reprised his title character in the new Superman movie. The first season forced Chris Smith (Cena) to come to terms with his past as a killer while placing him on a makeshift team to stop an alien invasion.

Season 2 reunites Chris with his team, including Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), John Economos (Steve Agee) and Vigilantee (Freddie Stroma). New threats await, and Chris even discovers a path into the multiverse where he can visit an alternate Earth that has almost everything he wants in his life.

Peacemaker is streaming on HBO Max.

For a show that was supposed to be the kid-friendly version of Batman, Batman Beyond took the franchise into some exciting new directions. This series maintained continuity with Batman: The Animated Series and took place decades later in a futuristic Gotham City where Bruce Wayne (Kevin Conroy) had long since retired from his role as the Dark Knight.

Teenager Terry McGinnis (Will Friedle) discovers Bruce’s secret past and becomes the new Batman to take down a conspiracy at Wayne’s company. As Bruce reluctantly becomes Terry’s mentor, Batman has to face a new generation of villains and a few threats that originated when Bruce was the Caped Crusader.

Batman Beyond is streaming on HBO Max.

After her mesmerizing turn in Logan, Dafne Keen headlined HBO and BBC’s ambitious adaptation of Philip Pullman‘s His Dark Materials. This series blends sci-fi and fantasy and features Keen as Lyra Belacqua, a young girl who emerges as a key figure in the battle for creation.

After years living as a ward of her uncle, Lord Asriel Belacqua (James McAvoy), Lyra is taken in by Mrs. Coulter (Ruth Wilson), a ruthless woman with a hidden agenda. As Lyra discovers her destiny, she will have to escape Mrs. Coulter and travel to alternate worlds.

His Dark Materials is streaming on HBO Max.

Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo director Shinichirō Watanabe‘s latest anime series, Lazarus, depicts a near-perfect future world where the wonder drug Hapna has cured humanity of almost every illness. After disappearing for years, Hapna’s creator, Dr. Deniz Skinner (David Matranga), resurfaces and claims that his drug is designed to kill people three-and-a-half years after they first took it. Skinner also puts forth a challenge for someone to find him in 30 days, or else a massive number of people will die.

Axel Gilberto (Jack Stansbury), Alexandra (Luci Christian) and three other outlaws have been recruited to the Lazarus team to locate Skinner before anyone else does. It’s an increasingly dangerous mission, and they’re already running short on time.

Lazarus is streaming on HBO Max.

Fans of the two recent Dune movies starring Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya will dig Dune: Prophecy, which mimics the look and tone of Denis Villeneuve’s epic take on Frank Herbert’s classic novel. 

Set 10,000 years before the first Dune, the series explores the origins of the mysterious Bene Gesserit, a secret organization populated by powerful women who exert control over the universe’s political, social and religious circles. Sisters and allies Valya (Emily Watson) and Tula Harkonnen (Olivia Williams) want to secure the safety of humanity, but can they withstand betrayals from within their own group as well as prepare for the “reckoning,” a prophecy that could end them all?

While Dune: Prophecy looks like its cinematic brethren, it feels more like Game of Thrones due to its emphasis on politics and power struggles among the elite. It doesn’t feel derivative, though, and Watson and Williams give the show the spark it needs to make you watch all of its six episodes. 

Dune: Prophecy is streaming on HBO Max.

Zombies were getting a bit stale when The Last of Us premiered in early 2023, but the show’s stellar acting and production values made them relevant again and gave star Pedro Pascal yet another iconic role. The first season was a relatively faithful adaptation of the massively popular 2013 Naughty Dog game, telling the story of outbreak survivors Joel (Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) as they cross a postapocalyptic United States while trying to avoid “the infected.”

Season 2 premiered in April 2025 and adapts the first half of the video game sequel, The Last of Us Part II. Ellie, now in her late teens, and Joel are still as world-weary as ever. Some major new characters this season include Isabel Merced as Ellie’s love interest Dina, Catherine O’Hara as Joel’s therapist and Kaitlyn Dever as the soldier Abby. The Last of Us isn’t just a great sci-fi series, it’s also one of the best shows streaming right now.

The Last of Us is streaming on HBO Max.

Shameless ripoffs can be good, and Paradise is better than it has any right to be. Set in early 1990s Spain, the supernatural show opens with the disappearance of three girls. No one knows where they went or who took them, but Javi (Pau Gimeno), the brother of one of the missing girls, thinks something sinister is at play. Together with his three friends, he decides to find out for himself what happened to his sister and her friends. 

Sound familiar? Paradise owes a lot to Stranger Things, right down to the shameless nostalgic pull of early ‘90s culture. But it all works, and the central mystery is intriguing enough to keep you guessing. The show ran for two seasons and wrapped things up in 15 easy-to-watch episodes.

Paradise is streaming on HBO Max.

Several super-powered outcasts band together to stop evildoers from taking over the world — no, it’s not the X-Men, it’s Doom Patrol. The short-lived Max show is based on the DC Vertigo comic of the same name and takes most of its inspiration from writer Grant Morrison’s genre-bending run on the series in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.

When team founder and leader Niles Caulder (Timothy Dalton) is kidnapped by Mr. Nobody, the Doom Patrol — Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero), Elasti-Woman (April Bowlby), Negative Man (Matt Bomer), Robotman (Brendan Fraser) and Cyborg (Joivan Wade) — must set aside their differences long enough to take back the man who cared for them when no one would. But getting Niles back isn’t easy, and along the way, each member of the team discovers some shocking secrets about their past that threatens their future.

Doom Patrol isn’t your standard superhero show — the team encounters a sentient street called Danny the Street and has to prevent a “buttpocalypse” from destroying the world. The show is weird and almost nonsensical, but it’s also a fun ride worth taking. 

Doom Patrol is streaming on HBO Max.