Looking for something to watch with your mum this Mother’s Day? Showmax has you covered, no matter your mother’s taste.
For the reality TV fan: The Mommy Club S1-2
The first two seasons of The Mommy Club are now streaming on Showmax.
For Season 2, returning OGs, Her Majesty, Mrs Mops, Nunurai and Ratile were joined by newcomers Jabulile Sande and Nozipho Ntshangase, giving us an inside look at the lives of Johannesburg’s most elite mothers and the people who assist them as they build their empires. This season, nothing has been off limits: Mrs Mops discusses her financial situation openly, Ratile and Nozipho discuss alleged problems within their marriages, Hermajesty opens up about life after losing her husband, and Nunurai shows audiences the struggles of balancing being a new mom and a boss babe.
The Mommy Club is produced by POP24, which has produced Showmax hits such as Kwa Mam’Mkhize S2.
Watch the trailer here
For the Steven Spielberg fan: The Fabelmans
Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical masterwork The Fabelmans was nominated for seven Oscars last year and won 30 awards, including Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture - Drama and Best Director.
The film follows young Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle from The Predator and American Gigolo, in a Critics Choice Award-winning role) as he grows up in post-World War II-era Arizona and falls in love with filmmaking.
Look out for Michelle Williams, who was up for her an Oscar for the fifth time as Sammy’s eccentric, artistic mother, Mitzi.
The film has a 92% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus says, “Part memoir, part ode to the power of the movies, The Fabelmans finds Steven Spielberg digging at the family roots that helped make him a beloved filmmaker – and proves he hasn't lost his magic touch.”
Watch the trailer here
For the action fan: The Equalizer S1-3
Last month, Queen Latifah (Chicago) was up for a Critics Choice Super Award for Best Actress in An Action Series for the third year in a row for The Equalizer.
In this reimagining of the classic 80s series and the blockbuster movies with Denzel Washington, Queen Latifah stars as Robyn McCall, a single mother and former CIA operative who helps those with nowhere else to turn. She’s also been nominated for People’s Choice Awards, Black Reel and BET Awards for her mix of motherly warmth and fierceness in the role.
Laya DeLeon Hayes, the voice of Doc McStuffins, co-stars as her teenage daughter Delilah.
Watch the trailer here
For fans of crime comedies: Koek S1
When Cape Town housewife Christelle Smit discovers evidence her husband is having an affair with a stripper named Candi Floss, her investigation takes her to a world poles apart from the Northern Suburbs utopia she knows.
Cindy Swanepoel, who won SAFTA and Silwerskerm awards last year as Annelize in Binnelanders, stars in Koek as Christelle, with screen legend Sandra Prinsloo as the brandy-drinking, cigar-smoking, leopard-print loving, kidney-stealing mob boss she’s soon in debt to. As Leroy Marc raved on Kaya 959, "Koek had me at the edge of my seat... It's really, really fun.”
Written by SAFTA and Silwerskerm-winning showrunner Christiaan Olwagen (Kanarie, Recipes for Love & Murder), the R18 crime comedy is directed and filmed by Johannes Pieter Nel (Magda Louw), who Leon van Nierop described as “one of South Africa's most promising young talents” in his rave review in Rapport.
Watch the trailer here
For HBO fans: Big Little Lies S1-2
Big Little Lies is an adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s bestselling book about motherhood, marriage and murder in upper-middle-class suburbia. Nicole Kidman and Laura Dern won Emmys, with Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep and Shailene Woodley all nominated too. Big Little Lies has an 89% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the Season 1 critics’ consensus says, “Bitingly funny and highly addictive, Big Little Lies is a twisty, thrilling, enlightening ride led by a first-rate cast.”
Watch the trailer here
For the true-crime fan: Original Sin: My Son The Killer
Want to remind your mother she could have had it worse? Original Sin: My Son The Killer is the true-crime documentary for you.
The Showmax Original follows Thea Pretorius, the mother of Gerhard Jansen van Vuuren, who murdered his 25-year-old girlfriend Andrea Venter in front of her neighbours, security guards and CCTV cameras. He then escaped authorities in South Africa and Brazil for years, assuming three different identities and starting families with multiple women. After initially helping him escape, Thea slowly had to come to terms with her son being a killer. As she admits in the trailer, “He’s capable of worse things.”
The documentary feature is a co-production between Showmax, Rogan Productions (BAFTA winner Uprising, BAFTA nominees Freddie Mercury: The Final Act and Putin: A Russian Spy Story), and The Electric Shadow Company (BAFTA nominee McQueen, Hot Docs Jury winner Name Me Lawand), in association with Combined Artists (Strangers You Know, Carte Blanche) and Red Earth (Narcoworld: Dope Stories).
Watch the trailer here
Girl, Taken
Named Best South African Documentary Film at the 2022 Durban International Film Festival (DIFF), Girl, Taken is the incredible story of two parents whose baby daughter, Zephany, was stolen at birth, who miraculously found her 17 years later, and who then lost her again…
Girl, Taken was co-directed by multi-award-winners Francois Verster and Simon Wood, whose previous collaboration, Scenes From a Dry City, was nominated for a News and Documentary Emmy, earned a Special Mention at AFI Docs, and was named World Press Photo Online Video of the Year.
“It could have been sensationalist, but it wasn't,” said the DIFF jury, praising the “twists and turns” and “many complexities and different layers” of the “real human story about family.” Similarly, alongside its international release on Paramount+, Heat (UK) gave Girl, Taken four stars, calling it “compelling and heartbreaking”
Watch the trailer here
For the Lotto fan: The Winning Ticket
The Winning Ticket is a Showmax Original film about a family who win the lotto jackpot - and then nearly lose themselves.
Lerato Makhetha (A Safe Bet) and Simphiwe Ngema (Muvhango) co-star as the happily married couple, with Amina Jack (Thokozani Zungu in Isibaya) and Quinton Madlala (Ba Strata) as their kids.
Written by Caroline Kganyago (The River, Goodbye Gogo), The Winning Ticket is produced by Kerry Media Productions with Star Mphahlele (Mkhize to Masemola, AboMkhulu) directing. Mphahlele won the African Rising Star award at the 2023 Joburg Film Festival.
Watch the trailer here
For the period drama fan: 1883 S1
Set in the aftermath of the American Civil War, Yellowstone origin story 1883 follows the Dutton family as they flee poverty on a journey west through the Great Plains towards the last bastion of untamed America.
Isabel May won the Women’s Image Network Outstanding Actress Award as Elsa Dutton, with Grammy winner Faith Hill also nominated as her mother, Margaret.
One of IMDb’s highest rated series, with an 8.7/10 rating from over 100k fans,1883 won Sam Elliott the Screen Actors Guild Award as wiry cowboy Shea Brennan, while creator Tyler Sheridan won a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Episodic Drama. The hit series was also nominated for three Emmys.
Watch the trailer here
For the romcom and travel fan: Ticket To Paradise
Oscar winners George Clooney and Julia Roberts reunite in Ticket To Paradise as exes who find themselves on a shared mission to Bali to stop their lovestruck daughter (Emmy nominee Kaitlyn Dever from Unbelievable) from making the same mistake they once made.
A romantic comedy about the sweet surprise of second chances, Ticket To Paradise was the #1 box office hit, with Independent (UK) saying, “It’s a joy to watch Julia Roberts and George Clooney fall in love. It’s an even great joy to watch them bicker.”
Ticket to Paradise was nominated for a People’s Choice Award for Comedy Movie of the Year.
Watch the trailer here
