Wondering which documentaries you can stream on Showmax? Don’t stress, I’ve got you covered. Showmax has a great selection of documentaries you can stream and today I’ll be highligting 8 of them.
Here are 8 Great Documentaries You Can Stream on Showmax
1. Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes
Featuring newly uncovered archival footage and recorded interviews with those who were present, Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes explores the full, unvarnished true story of what happened in one of the least understood tragedies of the 20th century.
Nearly four decades after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded in Soviet Ukraine, the documentary paints an emotional and gripping portrait of the extent of the disaster and the lengths to which the Soviet government went to cover up the incident, including the soldiers sent in to “liquidate” the damage.
The HBO documentary has a 100% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes and won the 2023 BAFTA TV Award for Editing, Factual, with nominations for Best Single Documentary and Best Director, Factual.
“It’s a difficult watch, but Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes is one of the year’s best documentaries,” says Decider.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes is directed and produced by Emmy winner James Jones (On the President’s Orders, Antidote) and executive produced by BAFTA nominee Darren Kemp (Mariupol: The People’s Story).
2. False Glory: The Marathon Bros
The Comrades Marathon, a 90-kilometre race between Pietermaritzburg and Durban, is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest and oldest ultramarathon in the world.
In 1999, on Youth Day, as Nelson Mandela stepped down and Thabo Mbeki was named president, relatively unknown 21-year-old Sergio Motsoeneng came ninth — because he’d swapped during the race with his 19-year-old brother Fika!
“I’m never going to condone cheating in any way in our sport — but it is quite ingenious,” says Bruce Fordyce, who won the Comrades a record nine times — eight of which were consecutive. “It is also fraud, and fraud is criminal… They’re lucky they didn’t do jail time.”
Other interviews include Comrades winners Andrew Kelehe, Cheryl Winn, and Nick Bester; Sarel van Der Walt, the journalist who broke the story; and the brothers’ former coach Eugene Botha.
False Glory is directed by Arianna Perretta and produced by CMG Productions, who won Best Documentary at the 2023 Broadcast Digital Awards for The Footballer, His Wife and the Crash and were nominated for a 2024 True Crime Award for Football Fraudster.
As Nick Cowen says in The 404 of the series, “It’s superbly paced, well-researched and boasts an impressive array of talking heads — some of whom are instantly recognisable to local audiences… by turns funny and enraging.”
3. Tell Them You Love Me
Tell Them You Love Me explores the story of Anna Stubblefield, a university professor who became embroiled in a controversial affair with Derrick Johnson, a non-verbal man with cerebral palsy.
The relationship, and the trial that followed, would become one of the most complex and divisive criminal cases in recent times, challenging our perceptions of disability and the nature of consent. It raised questions about Anna’s motivations and the validity of the relationship itself. Through exclusive footage and interviews with those on both sides of the case, this feature documentary weaves a riveting and nuanced story about communication, race, and sex.
Executive produced by Emmy-nominated documentarian Louis Theroux, Tell Them You Love Me holds a rare 100% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with wins at Sedona, Impact Docs, Montclair, and the Hamptons International Film Festival for director-producer Nick August-Perna.
In their 4/5-star review, The Guardian said, “This chilling documentary is vital, challenging TV.” This should definitely be on your “documentaries you should watch” list (if you ask me).
4. Edge of the Earth: The Great Unknown
Edge of the Earth is an HBO documentary series following four groups of athletes on four continents embarking on four never-before-accomplished missions. In the final episode, South African Grant ‘Twiggy’ Baker, a three-time World Big Wave Surfing Champion, travels down the West Coast of South Africa to establish it as the next big wave surf location.
“Everything that you want in life is on the other side of your fear,” says Twiggy. “I’ve travelled all over the world, but this coast that we’re going to, for me, it’s almost the last frontier of everything… The big objective is the new big wave that we’ve named The Peak, which is what I believe could be one of the biggest waves in the world.”
The other episodes include a descent on Mount Bertha in Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park, which has never been snowboarded or skied before; whitewater kayakers attempting to become the first group to cross Ecuador’s Llanganates National Park via the Chalupas River; and a free ascent on Kyrgyzstan’s Pik Slesova.
Decider calls the series “simultaneously breathtakingly beautiful and utterly terrifying … balances character-based drama-building with truly epic cinematography that’ll drop your jaws and fill your heart.”
5. The Commandant’s Shadow
Rudolf Höss was the camp commandant of Auschwitz, who masterminded the murder of over a million Jews. The Commandant’s Shadow follows Hans Jürgen Höss, Rudolf’s 87-year-old son, as he faces his father’s terrible legacy for the first time.
The life of Höss and his family was recently fictionalised in the Oscar-winning The Zone of Interest. Now, The Commandant’s Shadow tells the story of the real people.
While Hans Jürgen Höss enjoyed a happy childhood in the family villa at Auschwitz, Jewish prisoner Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was trying to survive the notorious concentration camp. At the heart of this film is the historic moment — eight decades later — when the two come face-to-face in Anita’s London living room, together with their children, Kai Höss and Maya Lasker-Wallfisch.
The Commandant’s Shadow is one of the top-rated documentaries of the year. It has a 93% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with The Times (UK) calling it “rich and fascinating… resonant indeed for all families everywhere, and for the dubious stories they tell about themselves.”
I’m a history buff and this is definitely one of the documentaries on my to-watch list.
6. False Glory: Match Fixing
In 2010, Togo’s national soccer team travelled 3,500 miles to play in an exhibition game against Bahrain — but the Togolese authorities knew nothing of the match…
The bogus game had been set up by Wilson Raj Perumal of Football 4 U International, who, after his arrest, claimed to have rigged South Africa’s friendlies before the 2010 FIFA World Cup — and more than 80 other matches around the world. He claimed to have a 70-80% success rate.
Adeel Carelse, the South African Football Association’s Director of Referees, says he was a whistleblower about the friendlies and raised his suspicions early.
He says he even locked the suspect Football 4 U International referees in the changing room before the South Africa-Denmark friendly, so that proper referees could officiate the game. But as a result of the match fixing, Carelse was banned for two years by FIFA.
“I lost my house. I lost my life savings. I lost my two cars. But, most important, I lost my name,” says Carelse, who claims to have been made the “scapegoat” for a “political hatchet job.” “If I should meet Perumal, it’s going to be ugly, because I’m not sure if I would be able to control myself.”
Other interviews include Bafana Bafana star Katlego Killer Mphela, who scored the winner against Denmark; Timothy Moloby, the journalist who broke the story on South African match fixing; and Francesco Baranca, the former general secretary of Federbet, a non-profit working against illegal gambling, fraud, and fixed matches.
False Glory is directed by Arianna Perretta and produced by CMG Productions, who won Best Documentary at the 2023 Broadcast Digital Awards for The Footballer, His Wife and the Crash and were nominated for a 2024 True Crime Award for Football Fraudster.
7. Villeneuve Pironi: Racing’s Untold Tragedy
Forty years on from the infamous and tragic 1982 Formula One season, the families of Canadian icon Gilles Villeneuve and French superstar Didier Pironi unite for the first time to reveal one of sport’s greatest untold stories.
In the midst of modern racing’s most dangerous era, two daring Ferrari teammates were battling for the world championship, but at the San Marino Grand Prix, Pironi broke an unwritten agreement, “stealing” victory from his close friend Villeneuve on the final lap.
This act of “betrayal” broke a sacred bond, and their relationship soon spiralled into a vengeful rivalry. Villeneuve and Pironi would never speak to each other again, and within a matter of weeks, tragedy would strike.
Directed by Torquil Jones (the Emmy-nominated 14 Peaks: Nothing is Impossible), Villeneuve Pironi: Racing’s Untold Tragedy won Best Documentary Feature at The International Motor Film Awards, among other accolades.
Look out for the likes of Formula One world champions Jacques Villeneuve, Alain Prost, and Sir Jackie Stewart, who all weigh in.
Indiewire hails Villeneuve Pironi: Racing’s Untold Tragedy as “pulse-pounding,” while The Hollywood Reporter praised the way the documentary “subverts the sports genre.”
I’m a F1 fan and this is definitely one of the documentaries on my to-watch list.
8. The Durban Axe Murderer: The Rugby Killer
The first episode in Dark Side of Glory, The Durban Axe Murderer: The Rugby Killer follows Joseph Ntshongwana, who played for South Africa at U21 level and for the Blue Bulls between 1998 and 2001.
Ten years later, he was arrested for killing four men with an axe and wounding two others. Joseph claimed to be avenging the gang rape and subsequent HIV infection of his daughter — but police found he had no children…
“There’s a saying that goes, ‘He couldn’t hurt a fly,’” says his former Blue Bulls teammate, Springbok winger McNeil Hendricks. “It’s hard to believe that Joseph Ntshongwana, as we knew him, had chopped people’s heads off.”
Other interviews include captain Rico Naidoo, colonels Jason McGray and Ze-Ev Krein, detective Marius Van Der Looy, and former South African Police Service head profiler Dr. Gérard Labuschagne, as well as senior state advocate Nadira Moosa, psychiatrist Dr. Zuber Moola, rugby journalist Brenden Nel, and key witnesses, among others.
The South African calls the documentary “jaw-dropping.”
Well, there you have it, 8 Great Documentaries You Can Stream on Showmax. If you don’t have an account yet, sign up HERE.
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