We’re just days away at this point from putting 2024 in our rearview mirror — which, for those of us who cover all things streaming, means that it’ll soon be time to turn our attention to what all the major streamers have teed up for the year to come. In this post, I’m going to take a closer look at three upcoming TV shows that will be available on HBO in 2025. They don’t have official release dates yet, but what’s already certain is that all three of these will dominate the cultural conversation once they arrive.
HBO has already teased a look at its jam-packed release slate for 2025, via a sizzle reel that offered sneak peeks of new seasons of The White Lotus and The Righteous Gemstones, in addition to shows like The Rehearsal, The Gilded Age, and The Last of Us. For the moment, there are the three upcoming HBO titles that I’m most excited for — arranged in no particular order, we’ll start things off with a return to Westeros.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight
Game of Thrones is getting another highly anticipated addition to the franchise in the coming year, via the spinoff A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight. In terms of what we know about it so far: The story is set a century before the events of the OG Thrones series, in an age when the Targaryen line still controls the Iron Throne and “the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living memory.” At the story’s center are two unlikely heroes wandering Westeros — a naive but courageous young knight named Ser Duncan the Tall and his diminutive squire Egg.
Creator George R.R. Martin has given interviews in the past in which he’s talked about wanting to tell more “small” stories like this one within the larger world of Game of Thrones — in the style of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which took two minor characters from Hamlet and focused on them rather than the bigger and more familiar story. This new Thrones spinoff, needless to say, promises an exciting return to the franchise’s world of politics and power struggles.
The Last of Us
A teaser for this next upcoming HBO series, which dropped back in September, has already whetted the appetites of fans craving the new season of The Last of Us.
The relationship between Pedro Pascal’s Joel and Bella Ramsey’s Ellie will obviously continue to be core to the show. Season 2 will also bring us the continued presence of the fearsome Clickers, as well as the Seraphite religious sect. The story will pick up after the dramatic first season finale, which saw Joel and Ellie reach Salt Lake City and the latter being resolute in accepting that her immunity might be the only path toward a cure for the show’s pandemic.
New characters who will join the show this season include Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby, as well as Ellie’s love interest Dina, played by Isabela Merced.
The White Lotus
The luxury hotel chain at the center of this next popular HBO series will expand its fictional footprint to Thailand for the third season of The White Lotus, following the brand welcoming guests to Hawaii and Sicily in Seasons 1 and 2.
The great draw of the show from creator Mike White is how it uses a luxurious setting as the backdrop for slice-of-life stories about both guests and hotel staff, mixing dark humor and social satire to create one of the most memorable TV releases of the last several years. The cast for Season 3 will include Carrie Coon, Walton Goggins, Michelle Monaghan, and Parker Posey, with Blackpink member and Thailand native Lisa (credited as Lalisa Manobal) also making an appearance.
Beyond that, we know almost nothing of the new season’s plot. Both previous seasons, of course, opened with a shot of an unidentified body, setting up a mystery that propelled each season’s story. Meanwhile, there’s already been talk of a potential fourth season in the works, even before HBO gives us a release date for Season 3.
