3 underrated (HBO) Max movies you should watch this weekend (February 7-9)

This weekend is one of the few cases where the arts take a backseat to sports. Super Bowl LIX will be played on Sunday, February 9. The Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles will play for the right to call themselves champions. Over 115 million viewers are expected to watch Super Bowl LIX. More people will watch when you consider that the Big Game draws big crowds around one television.

The Super Bowl is Sunday night at 6:30 p.m. ET. Until then, what should you watch? Max has an excellent lineup of prestige dramas, hilarious comedies, action thrillers, and frightening horrors. While the Max homepage is a great resource, many movies are hidden within each genre. The three movies below represent under-the-radar picks that can be equally as satisfying as the noteworthy titles.

We also have guides to the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on Max, and the best movies on Disney+.

Love & Basketball (2000)

New Line Cinema

Love & Basketball involves — you guessed it — love and basketball. It sounds like the premise of a Lifetime picture, but Love & Basketball is in a different class than a made-for-TV film. Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, Love & Basketball is a heartfelt and captivating look at a relationship from childhood through adulthood.

Childhood friends Monica (Sanaa Lathan) and Quincy (Omar Epps) love basketball more than life itself. Quincy’s father, Zeke (Dennis Haysbert), plays professionally, so Quincy plans to follow in his footsteps. Monica must forge her own path since women’s professional basketball does not yet exist in the United States. As they become teens and young adults, Monica and Quincy fall in and out of love. Are the two willing to sacrifice their dreams to be with each other?

Stream Love & Basketball on Max.

Final Destination 2 (2003)

After a 14-year hiatus, the Final Destination franchise returns in 2025 with Final Destination Bloodlines. These movies revolve around a select group of people who avoid death after one person has a premonition and warns them about the impending disaster. Essentially, the survivors “cheat” death. However, Death takes no prisoners and comes back to kill each survivor horrifically.

Final Destination 2 is not the top movie of the franchise. However, the opening premonition is arguably the high point of the series. College student Kimberly Corman (A. J. Cook) has a premonition about a deadly car crash on the highway caused by a log truck. Unfortunately for Kimberly and the unlucky survivors, the worst is yet to come.

Stream Final Destination 2 on Max.

Triple 9 (2016)

Open Road Films

Triple 9 is the perfect “Dumpuary” movie. It’s an entertaining crime thriller with an overqualified cast. It’s not Heat. It’s more in the Den of Thieves neighborhood, which isn’t a bad place to be. An Atlanta heist crew — including corrupt cops Marcus Belmont (Anthony Mackie) and Franco Rodriguez (Clifton Collins Jr.), former SEALs Michael Atwood (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Russell Welch (Norman Reedus), and Russell’s brother Gabe (Aaron Paul) — successfully pull off a robbery in broad daylight.

Unhappy with the results, their crime boss, Irina Vlaslov (Kate Winslet), orders the crew to steal from the Department of Homeland Security. Left with no choice, the men plan a Triple 9, or an “officer down” scenario. They pick Marcus’ new partner Chris Allen (Casey Affleck) as their target. However, lies and deception from all parties threaten to foil the heist.

Stream Triple 9 on Max.