Heated Rivalry lived up to the hype — here are 9 other movies and shows I wish I’d watched sooner

The first month of 2026 is already coming to a close, and despite the dreaded January blues, it's been solid streaming-wise – well, at least it has been for me. Last year, I embarked on an ambitious mission to document my favorite movies and shows across the best streaming services each month — and I'm doing it all over again in 2026.

One of the defining new series from the past month has been the new HBO Max show Heated Rivalry, which has been hyped up on all my social media pages. More often than not, hype like this would be very off-putting for me, but it turned out to be so much more than what I was expecting.

As well as watching the latest streaming releases, I spent much of my time catching up on the ones I've pushed aside for years, as I find myself doing every ...