Better late than never. We’ll be honest; between all the recent public holidays, and timing plus travel requirements for Comic Con Cape Town, we’re still playing catch-up. But as that’s how most people are these days with fitting in all the new streaming offerings, we don’t feel so bad posting our May highlights for Showmax now.

As usual, below you’ll find the series, movies and documentaries that caught our eye, while the full monthly Showmax schedule can be found here.

Film

May is clearly Movie Month on Showmax, as the streamer brings home viewers some of the biggest recent blockbusters for the first time in South Africa. In fact, it’s hard to choose just a few to recommend.

Before we even jump into our picks, honourable mentions must go to Austin Butler and Tom Hardy’s motorcycle gang drama The Bikeriders, underrated survival thriller Never Let Go from the pairing of star Halle Berry and The Hills Have Eyes director Alexandre Aja, and fascinating historical biopic Widow Clicquot, about the rule-breaking woman who transformed wine-making. All of these movies are available now.

Moving on, Gladiator II is your chance to revisit the glory of Ancient Rome, with filmmaker Ridley Scott returning almost 25 years later to the world of his Oscar-winning historical epic. Except now it’s secretive young man Lucius (Paul Mescal) forced to fight in the Colosseum while a group of powerful and privileged Roman citizens (among them Pedro Pascal and Connie Nielsen) seeking to depose tyrannical twin emperors, played by Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger. Then there’s a scene-stealing, scheming Denzel Washington.

Stream Gladiator II now. You can also read our review here.

One day late for Mother’s Day, but still worth a watch due to its surprising emotional wallop, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is the fourth romantic comedy in this film series. Based on Helen Fielding’s book of the same name, in Mad About the Boy, our loveably bumbling heroine (Renée Zellweger) is in her 50s, widowed, and trying to navigate both solo parenting and a return to the dating scene. Leo Woodall and Chiwetel Ejiofor are new love interests, while many fan-favourite characters return to the franchise, including Hugh Grant as Daniel Cleaver and Emma Thompson as Doctor Rawlings. 

Watch Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy right now.

Keeping things British comedy, but of a somewhat more quirky kind, there’s Wicked Little Letters, based on a bizarre true story. A quiet English seaside town is thrown into turmoil in the 1920s when locals start receiving rude letters full of profanity. The blame falls on rowdy Irish migrant Rose (Jessie Buckley), especially with her upstanding conservative neighbor Edith (Olivia Colman) pointing a finger. However, as she delves into the case, Police Officer Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan) begins to suspect Rose may not be the culprit after all.

Stream Wicked Little Letters from Thursday, 15 May.

Our horror recommendation for the month is Apartment 7A. Ozark’s Julia Garner stars in this prequel to 1968 genre classic Rosemary’s Baby, where Terry, an ambitious young dancer, finds her dreams of success in New York City shattered by injury. However, things start to turn around when wealthy older couple Minnie and Roman Castevet (Dianne Wiest, Kevin McNally) set her up in their luxury apartment building. Terry soon suspects, however, that there is a terrible price to pay for her change in fortune.

Watch Apartment 7A from Thursday, 15 May.

A sequel, but not a sequel, to the 1996 film (here’s our review), Twisters centres on a new generation of scientists and storm chasers in this old school-style disaster actioner. Minari’s Lee Isaac Chung Twisters directs rising stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell, who play rivals with an intuitive grasp of tornado behaviour. They’ll have to join forces, though, if they want to more effectively predict, and possibly tame, them, just multiple storm systems converge over central Oklahoma.

Stream Twisters on Showmax from Monday, 26 May

Series

Before we jump into our new series recommendation for the month, don’t forget that you can catch new episodes of acclaimed video game adaptation The Last of Us Season 2 every Monday through to the end of May, while the second season of Sylvester Stallone’s mob drama Tulsa King can be binged right now.

If you are looking for something fresh, though, there’s true crime tale Happy Face, inspired by the experience of Melissa Jesperson-Moore (played by Annaleigh Ashford), whose teen years included the discovery that her father Keith Hunter Jesperson (Dennis Quaid in a rare villain role) is a murderer known as the Happy Face Killer. In adulthood, Melissa is once more forced to face her past, and dad, when a man is accused of a crime Keith may have committed.

Binge all eight episodes of Happy Face from Saturday, 10 May.

Documentaries

Take a breath. HBO documentary film Wild Wild Space has nothing to do with Elon Musk and other billionaires with their eyes on the stars. This 2024 release is inspired by Ashlee Vance’s book When Heavens Went on Sale, and explores capitalism’s drive into space as three very different, very competitive private companies (Astra Space, Planet Labs, and Rocket Lab) seek to dominate the business of launching satellites into low Earth orbit, with repercussions for our world.

Watch Wild Wild Space from Wednesday, 28 May.