If you’re unwilling to give up the festive season spirit, with hours spent relaxing on the couch while catching up on blockbuster entertainment, Showmax is helping you stay in that headspace throughout January. As usual, you can check out the full streaming schedule here (subject to change), while below we’ve cherry-picked the new shows and movies you need to watch.
Series
Get excited. South Africa’s The Office arrives this month as a Showmax Original. Primarily in subtitled Afrikaans, Die Kantoor is the 14th international adaptation of the original British mockumentary created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. In the Rainbow Nation’s take on workplace mundanity, Albert Pretorius heads up the ensemble as Flip, the manager at polony distributors Deluxe Processed Meats, who is living his own Chasing The Sun while his colleagues are simply trying not to throttle each other.
Also on kykNET (DStv Channel 144), you can stream Die Kantoor on Showmax Tuesdays from 20 January. And, if you want to rewatch the beloved American version of The Office, all nine seasons are on Showmax.
On the international series front, our recommendation for January is twisty sci-fi thriller The Copenhagen Test. In the near future, Chinese-American intelligence analyst Alexander Hale, (Shang-Chi and Barbie’s Simu Liu) realises his brain has been hacked, inadvertantly providing all manner of classified information to a shadowy organisation. He must flush out those responsible to prove where his allegiance lies. Also starring is Scream’s Melissa Barrera, while Furious 7 and Aquaman’s James Wan executive produces.
Watch The Copenhagen Test on Showmax every Thursday from 15 January.
Film
Back-to-school looms, but extended family time doesn’t have to be over. Making a fantastic case for movie night is the live-action remake of DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon. On the island of Berk, Vikings and dragons have been bitter enemies for generations. That changes when the cerebral and combat-inept Hiccup (Mason Thames), son of Chief Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler), befriends Toothless, a feared Night Fury dragon. Regardless of your feelings about live-action remakes, it’s worth a watch according to our review.
You can stream How to Train Your Dragon on Showmax from Friday, 2 January.
Still on matters of family entertainment, you can also watch the latest Smurfs movie, with the voice of Rihanna as Smurfette, from Monday, 5 January.
In the mood for something bittersweet and uplifting? Spanning genres, and defying chronological time, is The Life of Chuck, the latest Stephen King adaptation to come from Doctor Sleep filmmaker Mike Flanagan. In this all-star tale, with a dash of the supernatural, Tom Hiddleston plays the title character, an ordinary man who experiences love, loss and other emotional complexity while living his life to the full. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jacob Tremblay, Karen Gillan, and Mark Hamill also star.
Watch The Life of Chuck from Monday, 5 January.
One of the biggest blockbusters of 2025 was Jurassic World Rebirth, a back-to-basics reignition of the record-breaking Jurassic franchise. Scarlett Johansson and Wicked’s Jonathan Bailey head up the cast for this horror-laced action adventure, where an extraction team head to an island research facility for the original Jurassic Park – a place reserved for the most dangerous dinosaurs. Directing is Gareth Edwards, who’s proven to have a strong grasp of stylish, smarter sci-fi with The Creator, and Rogue One.
Stream Jurassic World: Rebirth from Friday, 23 January.
With its sassy sentient doll, the original M3GAN was a surprise hit. Sequel M3GAN 2.0 dials down the horror and dials up the camp comedy, embracing what made the first movie a favourite on social media. Actors Allison Williams, Violet McGraw and Amie Donald all return for a follow-up where M3GAN is given an upgraded body to take on a AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno), a deadly military robot created with stolen M3GAN technology.
Stream M3GAN 2.0 from Friday, 30 January.