In the streaming wars, one of the biggest weapons is exclusivity. If you want to watch Game of Thrones, you have to subscribe to HBO Max. If you want to watch Stranger Things, you have to watch Netflix, and so on.
That said, because Netflix is far and away the most popular streaming service around, some studios allow their exclusive shows to appear on it, figuring that the extra eyeballs will be worth it. For instance, Breaking Bad may be the most iconic series that AMC ever produced, and yet the show is available to watch on Netflix, because not even a show as good as Breaking Bad is going to lure people to subscribe to AMC+. There are many such cases.
But nothing good lasts forever, and Netflix subscribers are about to lose access to a classic HBO show.
Sex and the City leaves Netflix on June 30
So now is your last chance to binge it
Even if you’ve never watched Sex and the City, you’ve heard of it. The comedy/drama/romance premiered on HBO in 1998, ran for six seasons, and became a cultural phenomenon. It spurred interest in high-end fashion like Manolo Blahnik shoes, inspired millions of tourists to visit New York City, and dealt frankly with female desire and independence in a way that felt revolutionary at the time. The series went on to inspire a pair of movies and a sequel series that ran for three seasons starting in 2021. It was a big deal.
Apart from its cultural impact, Sex and the City holds up as a sitcom. Like any good sitcom, it lives and dies on the strength of its characters, and Sex and the City has some great ones. There’s neurotic Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), cynical Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), uptight Charlotte (Kristin Davis), and sexually liberated Samantha (Kim Cattrall), who gets most of the best lines. Hilarious moments include Carrie falling on a fashion runway, someone breaking up with her via post-in note, and a long list of sex jokes it would be inappropriate to commit to writing.
Billing Sex and the City as a sitcom feels a little reductive, because the show has its fair share of drama and romance, as well. We watch as the girls get in and out of relationships, start families, or decide that they’re better off alone. And the show does it all with style to spare; New York City didn’t exactly need help establishing itself as a cultural center — an annoyingly large number of movies and TV shows are already set there — but Sex and the City really leans into its setting, romanticizing Central Park and the rows of NYC brownstones and the never-ending New York nightlife. There’s an exciting energy to Sex and the City that still rolls off it to this day.
Why is Sex and the City leaving Netflix?
It’s like they don’t care who they hurt
Sex and the City had its detractors over the years. Some episodes have dated, there are moments that fall on the wrong side of cringe-worthy, and there are a lot of fans who didn’t think much of the sequel series, And Just Like That… But the fact that a sequel show was made at all proves that a sequel series was made at all, nearly 20 years after the end of the original show, proves that the series has enduring appeal.
And it’s a shame that Netflix is losing it, but these kinds of licensed deals were never meant to last forever. HBO has been pulling multiple shows from Netflix lately; it wasn’t long ago that the streamer lost classic series like Six Feet Under and Band of Brothers. It may be that Warner Bros. Discovery, the company that owns HBO, figures that these series have sufficiently whet fans’ appetites. If they want to watch these shows going forward, they’ll have to spring for an HBO Max subscription.
There is always the chance that Warner Bros. Discovery could extend the Sex and the City deal with Netflix, but it doesn’t seem likely. Keep in mind that WBD is currently selling itself to Paramount, which operates the streaming service Paramount+. It may be that Paramount will want to combine HBO Max and Paramount+ into one streaming service (let’s hope they fix the terrible Paramount+ UI before that happens), and licensing out shows to competitors like Netflix may no longer be part of their strategy.
Whatever the particulars, if you want to rewatch Sex and the City, or if you’ve never seen it and want to know what the fuss is about, now is your last chance to do it on Netflix.
No show is safe on Netflix
Be on your guard
Sex and the City isn’t the only prominent show leaving Netflix. All five seasons of the sitcom Kim’s Convenience disappeared from the platform earlier in June. All 113 episodes of Fear the Walking Dead leave in August. There’s constant turnover at Netflix, and if you don’t pay attention, your favorite show may vanish before you realize it.
Not even shows branded as Netflix originals are completely safe. For example, Netflix had a huge hand in making the excellent fantasy drama The Last Kingdom, but it’s still leaving at the end of 2026, since it began as a co-production with the BBC and technically is only on Netflix as part of a licensing agreement. You can never be sure which shows are safe, so stay vigilant.
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Whither Sex and the City?
Having said that, homegrown Netflix hits like Squid Game and Bridgerton are likely safe forever, although you can never be completely certain; after all, homegrown HBO shows like Westworld are no longer available to watch on HBO Max, so anything is possible.
But at least for now, all things Sex and the City are available on HBO Max for the foreseeable future. And the original series will be on Netflix until the end of the month.
- Release Date
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1998 – 2004-00-00
- Network
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HBO
- Showrunner
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Darren Star
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Kim Cattrall
Samantha Jones
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Sarah Jessica Parker
Carrie Bradshaw
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Cynthia Nixon
Miranda Hobbes
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Kristin Davis
Charlotte York
