New on HBO Now: All the Movies and TV Coming in February

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and even if the object of your affections is just your couch, HBO is here for you, with a fresh bouquet of movies and TV shows in hand. It’s a relatively quiet month on HBO Now, but there’s plenty to fall in love with … or at least watch once and never interact with again.

Most alluring are HBO’s incoming feature films, including one particular theatrical premiere that’s worth making room on your watchlist for: Alita: Battle Angel (Feb. 1), the Robert Rodriguez-directed, James Cameron-co-written, Rosa Salazar-starring 2019 adaptation of the Yukito Kishiro manga series Gunnm. Though it divided critics and flopped in the States, making nearly 80% of its total gross overseas, Alita is “a frequently fun and kinetic, visually pleasing sci-fi/actioner,” as Oktay Ege Kozak wrote in his review of the film for Paste, ranking as one of our top 50 films of 2019 in spite of its flaws. HBO’s other four February theatrical premieres are Octavia Spencer-starring horror effort Ma (Feb. 8), action-comedy franchise family affair Shaft (Feb. 15), The Conjuring universe entry Annabelle Comes Home (Feb 22) and Luc Besson thriller Anna (Feb. 29). Noteworthy older films arriving on Feb. 1 include Paul Thomas Anderson’s Adam Sandler-starring romantic dramedy Punch-Drunk Love, Denis Villeneuve’s dark kidnapping thriller Prisoners, both the 1967 and 2006 iterations of Bond classic Casino Royale (plus 2008’s Quantum of Solace), Debra Granik’s Jennifer Lawrence-led drama Winter’s Bone, Coen Brothers lowlight Intolerable Cruelty, Bernardo Bertolucci’s controversial 1972 drama Last Tango in Paris, 1999’s Pierce Brosnan-starring take on The Thomas Crown Affair, Golden Globe-nominated Jennifer Aniston vehicle Cake and Steven Soderbergh’s Side Effects. And don’t overlook the 2018 and 2019 winners of the American Black Film Festival’s HBO Short Film Competition—five 2018 shorts arrive on Feb. 1, with 2019’s winners to follow, debuting one per day from Feb. 3-7.

That brings us to the small-screen suitors vying for your attention in February, including a returning a pair of returning favorites, as well as an intriguing new docuseries. In a bit of excellent news for the sake of our collective sanity, John Oliver will return to the Last Week Tonight desk on Feb. 17 for Season 7 of his indispensable, Emmy-winning (x16!), current events-driven comedy show, which dives deep on everything from the ongoing scandal surrounding the Trump presidency (“Stupid Watergate,” Oliver calls it) to, say, the U.S. census, or the business of weather prediction. Also making an anticipated return on Feb. 7 is Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld’s acclaimed High Maintenance, a New York City-set collection of vignettes starring Sinclair as a roving weed dealer who dips into and out of various New Yorkers’ eclectic lives. The funny, surprisingly poignant dramedy, now entering its fourth season, started as a popular web series before making its way to HBO, and is worth watching regardless of how 4:20-friendly you may or may not be. And that new docuseries we mentioned is McMillion$, premiering Feb. 3 and executive produced by Mark Wahlberg, of all people. The six-episode docuseries “chronicles the stranger-than-fiction story of an ex-cop turned security auditor who rigged the McDonald’s Monopoly game promotion for a decade,” per HBO. The trailer for McMillion$ promises “revenge, drugs, greed” and “Ronald McDonald”—what more could you ask for?

We’ll leave you with what’s leaving HBO in February. Nanny McPhee Returns drops off the platform Feb. 13, but the mass exodus takes place on Feb. 29, with some of Paste’s top movies on HBO exiting its library—these include Steve McQueen’s Widows, Damien Chazelle’s First Man, Desiree Akhavan’s The Miseducation of Cameron Post, the Coen Brothers’ Hail, Caesar!, Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, and, believe it or not, Despicable Me. And 127 Hours, Chariots of Fire, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, The Hustler and Jem and The Holograms are on their way out, as well.

Check out HBO Now’s February sizzle reel and slate below.

Theatrical Premieres:
Alita: Battle Angel, 2019 (2/1)
Ma, 2019 (2/8)
Shaft, 2019 (2/15)
Annabelle Comes Home, 2019 (2/22)
Anna, 2019 (2/29)