Wondering what to watch on Showmax in December 2022 / January 2023? Don’t stress, I’ve got you covered with some recommendations. Keep on reading to find out what they are.
So, What’s Worth Watching on Showmax in December 2022 / January 2023?
Top Gun: Maverick – Coming to Showmax on 23 January 2023
After thirty years, Maverick (Oscar nominee Tom Cruise) is still pushing the envelope as a top naval aviator, but must confront ghosts of his past when he leads TOP GUN’s elite graduates on a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those chosen to fly it.
The biggest box office hit of 2022 globally, Top Gun: Maverick is also one of the best reviewed films of the year, with a 96% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and Independent calling it “as thrilling as blockbusters get”; Daily Telegraph hailing it as “unquestionably the best studio action film since 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road”; and Time/Out saying, “You will want to high five someone on the way out.”
Up for the People’s Choice Award for The Movie of 2022, Top Gun: Maverick co-stars Miles Teller (The Offer), Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind, Requiem for a Dream), Val Kilmer (Heat) and Emmy winner Jon Hamm (Mad Men).
Dune – Available to stream on Showmax already
The winner of six Oscars and five BAFTAs, Dune is now streaming on Showmax. Directed by Oscar nominee Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Blade Runner 2049) from Frank Herbert’s classic bestseller, Dune tells the story of Paul Atreides (Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet). Paul must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people – as conflict grows over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence.
As Lady Jessica Atreides, Rebecca Ferguson (The Greatest Showman) won a Critics Choice Super Award for Best Actress In Science Fiction/Fantasy Movie. Oscar winner Javier Bardem, Emmy winner Zendaya, Oscar nominees Charlotte Rampling and Josh Brolin, Emmy nominees Oscar Isaac and Stellan Skarsgård, and the likes of Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista co-star.
Dune has an 83% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In their five-star review, The Guardian praises Dune as “blockbuster cinema at its dizzying, dazzling best… Dune reminds us what a Hollywood blockbuster can be.”
Licorice Pizza – Streaming on Showmax from 9 January 2023
Nominated for three Oscars this year – Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay – Licorice Pizza tells the story of Alana Kane, a 25-year-old photography assistant, and 15-year-old actor Gary Valentine as they navigate first love in the 70s.
Licorice Pizza won a 2022 BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay for 11-time Oscar-nominee, writer, producer and director Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Phantom Thread, Hard Eight). Grammy-nominated singer Alana Haim’s debut film role earned her a BAFTA nomination for Best Actress, with her co-star Cooper Hoffman (son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman) nominated for Best Young Actor at the Critics Choice Awards, where Licorice Pizza won Best Comedy.
Licorice Pizza has a 91% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes and earned widespread critical acclaim for both its director – with Empire Magazine calling Anderson “a master at work” – and its fresh-faced leads, who hold their own alongside a supporting cast of heavy-hitters like Oscar winner Sean Penn, nine-time Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper, and Oscar nominee, Grammy winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Tom Waits.
“There are two courtships unfolding in Licorice Pizza,” says Rolling Stone, “and only one of them is happening on the screen. The other is between us and the movie. Guess who ends up punch-drunk and smitten?”
House of Gucci – Streaming on Showmax from 5 January 2023
Inspired by the shocking true story of the family behind the Italian fashion empire, House of Gucci follows Patrizia Reggiani, an outsider from humble beginnings, who marries into the Gucci family. But her unbridled ambition begins to unravel their legacy and triggers a reckless spiral of betrayal, decadence, revenge, and ultimately murder.
The all-star cast is led by Oscar winner Lady Gaga (A Star is Born) and two-time Oscar nominee Adam Driver (Marriage Story). Oscar winners Al Pacino (The Godfather), Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club), and Jeremy Irons (Munich: The Edge of War) co-star, along with the likes of Oscar nominee Salma Hayek (Frida, Desperado), and Jack Huston (The Irishman, American Hustle, Boardwalk Empire).
Together – Streaming on Showmax from 30 January 2023
In Together, multi-award winners James McAvoy (Split, X-Men) and Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe) play a husband and wife whose relationship is tested by the COVID-19 lockdown.
Co-directed by three-time Oscar nominee Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot) and written by BAFTA winner Dennis Kelly (Utopia), Together won the 2022 BAFTA for Single Drama, with McAvoy taking home a BAFTA Scotland Award for Best Actor – Television.
The Observer calls it “an hour and a half of cinematic fury… at once suspenseful, provocative, funny and heartbreaking.”
Get Out – Streaming on Showmax from 26 January 2023
Just named one of the top 100 films of all time in Sight & Sound’s once-a-decade critics’ poll, Get Out follows a young African-American who visits his white girlfriend’s parents for the weekend, where his simmering uneasiness about their reception of him reaches a boiling point.
For Get Out, Jordan Peele became the first African American to win the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, as well as the first African American to be nominated for producing, writing and directing in the same year. Get Out went on to win over 150 awards internationally.
As Chris Washington, Daniel Kaluuya was nominated for an Oscar and BAFTA for Best Actor, with Lil Rel Howery (Judas and the Black Messiah) taking home the MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance as Rod. Critics Choice nominee Allison Williams (Girls), Oscar nominees Catherine Keener (Being John Malkovich) and LaKeith Stanfeild (Judas and the Black Messiah), Emmy winner Bradley Whitford (The Handmaid’s Tale), Emmy nominee Stephen Root (Barry), and Critics Choice Super nominee Caleb Landry Jones (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) co-star.
The Wolf of Snow Hallow – Available to stream on Showmax already
In The Wolf of Snow Hollow, terror grips a small mountain town as bodies are discovered after each full moon. Losing sleep, raising a teenage daughter, and caring for his ailing father, officer Marshall struggles to remind himself there’s no such thing as werewolves.
The film has an 89% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with nominations for two 2021 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards – Best Limited Release Film and Best Lead Performance for Sundance and SXSW winner Jim Cummings (who also wrote and directed the film), as well as a Fright Meter Award for the late Oscar-nominated Robert Forster (The Descendants, Jackie Brown). The cast also includes Critics Choice nominee Jimmy Tatro (American Vandal) and Emmy nominee Riki Lindhome (Wednesday, Knives Out).
House Of The Dragon Season 1 – Available to stream on Showmax from 15 December 2022
HBO’s smash hit prequel to Game of Thrones traces the war for succession within House Targaryen at the height of its power, 172 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen. The 10-episode first season is based on parts of the novel Fire & Blood by George R. R. Martin.
Already renewed for a second season, House of the Dragon’s premiere drew almost 10 million viewers, the largest-ever audience for any new original series on HBO, with the finale drawing 9.3 million viewers – the most of any HBO series since the conclusion of Game of Thrones in 2019.
The show also topped IMDb’s Most Popular TV chart, with an 8.5/10 score nogal, and has a 93% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Entertainment Weekly calling it “flat-out stunning.”
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen is portrayed at different ages by breakout stars Emma D’Arcy and Milly Alcock, while Teen Choice nominee Olivia Cooke (Ready Player One, Sound of Metal, Slow Horses) and Emily Carey (Casualty, 12-year-old Diana in Wonder Woman) play Alicent Hightower.
The ensemble cast also includes BAFTA winner Paddy Considine (The Outsider), Emmy nominee Matt Smith (The Crown, Doctor Who), BAFTA nominee Rhys Ifans (Spider-Man: No Way Home, Notting Hill), BAFTA Scotland winner Bill Paterson (Fleabag), and Graham McTavish (Dwalin in The Hobbit trilogy). As IGN says, “It’s good to be back in backstabbing Westeros.”
The White Lotus Season 2 – Available to binge on Showmax from 12 December 2022
Season 2 of The White Lotus swaps Hawaii for Sicily, following a new group of vacationers jetting off to a different White Lotus resort. Season 1 was the most awarded show at the 2022 Emmys, winning 10 awards, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, Directing and Writing – and Supporting Actress for Jennifer Coolidge as Tanya – who returns in Season 2.
The new cast includes Peabody Award winner Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation), People’s Choice winner Theo James (Divergent), Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham (Amadeus, The Grand Budapest Hotel), Emmy winner Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos), Teen Choice nominees Meghann Fahy (Sutton in The Bold Type) and Haley Lu Richardson (Five Feet Apart), BAFTA winner Tom Hollander (The Night Manager), BAFTA nominee Will Sharpe (Landscapers, Giri/Haji), multi-award-winning Italian actress Sabrina Impacciatore and Adam DiMarco (Todd/Elliott in The Magicians).
Season 2 has an 89% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In their five-star reviews, The Times calls this season “a whodunnit like no other” and London Evening Standard says, “As funny as ever, if slightly seedier, the second series is a brilliant rumination on desire and its destructive capability.”
His Dark Materials Season 3 – Streaming on Showmax on Tuesdays from 6 December 2022
The third and final season of the HBO and BBC One fantasy epic His Dark Materials is based on The Amber Spyglass, the final novel in Philip Pullman’s Carnegie-winning book trilogy, which was listed among Time Magazine’s 100 Best Young-Adult Books of All Time.
Season 3 follows Lyra (MTV Movie Award winner Dafne Keen from Logan) and Will (Emmy nominee Amir Wilson from The Letter for the King) as they journey to a dark place from which no one has ever returned. As her father’s great war against the Authority edges closer, they will learn that saving the world comes at a terrible price.
Season 2 of the multi-BAFTA- and Annie Award-winning series earned an 85% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In their five-star review, The Independent called it, “a beautiful, brooding vision of Pullman’s universe, which retains the mix of childish wonder and darkness that make his books so beguiling to young adults.”
Oscar nominee Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton, tick, tick… BOOM!) returns as Lee Scoresby, with BAFTA winner Ruth Wilson (Saving Mr. Banks, Luther) as Mrs Coulter, and BAFTA nominee James McAvoy (X-Men’s Charles Xavier) as Lord Asriel. British-Nigerian Black Reel nominee Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Thor: The Dark World, Lost) joins the cast this season, along with the likes of Emmy nominee Sian Clifford (Fleabag) and Ghanaian-British actor Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (Mary Poppins Returns).
Heels Season 1 – Available to binge on Showmax from 5 December 2022
Set in the small-town pro-wrestling world in Georgia, Heels follows the rivalry between two brothers – one a villain (or “heel”) in the ring, the other a hero (or “face”), as they war over their late father’s wrestling promotion.
Led by Teen Choice winner Stephen Amell (the Arrowverse’s Oliver Queen/Green Arrow) and Teen Choice and MTV Movie + TV Award winner Alexander Ludwig (Bjorn Ironside in Vikings and Cato in The Hunger Games), Heels has an 8/10 rating on IMDb.
On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 96% critics’ rating, with the critics’ consensus saying, “Stephen Amell and Alexander Ludwig sell hard in Heels, an impressive new drama that has compelling angles on both sides of the rope.”
It’s already been nominated for three 2022 Critics Choice Super Awards – Best Action Series, Best Actor in an Action Series (Alexander Ludwig) and Best Actress in an Action Series (Mary McCormack from The West Wing and The Kids Are Alright), and Season 2 is already on the way.
Created by Emmy winner Michael Waldron (producer on Rick and Morty and the writer of Loki and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), the show’s cast also includes Kelli Berglund (Now Apocalypse) and award winner Chris Bauer (For All Mankind, The Deuce, The Wire, True Blood).
Vigil – Available to Binge on Showmax now
In November 2022, Vigil was named Best Drama at the International Emmy Awards, beating out Lupin, Narcos: Mexico and South Africa’s very own Reyka.
From the creators of Line of Duty and Showtrial, Vigil investigates the mysterious disappearance of a Scottish fishing trawler and a death on-board the submarine HMS Vigil, which bring the police into conflict with the Navy and British security services.
DCI Amy Silva (BAFTA winner Suranne Jones from Gentleman Jack and Doctor Foster) and DS Kirsten Longacre (BAFTA winner Rose Leslie from Game of Thrones and The Time Traveler’s Wife) lead an investigation on land and at sea into a conspiracy that goes to the very heart of Britain’s national security.
Vigil’s stellar ensemble cast also features Emmy nominee Stephen Dillane (Stannis in Game of Thrones), Anjli Mohindra (Bodyguard), Shaun Evans (Morse in Endeavour), MTV Movie Awards nominee Connor Swindells (Adam in Sex Education) and BAFTA nominee Gary Lewis (Billy Elliot).
Vigil has an 85% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Wall Street Journal hailing it as “one of the better thriller series of the year,” and Radio Times saying, “From the shock death inside the opening 10 minutes of episode one to the thrillingly tense climax in the final instalment, this was a terrifically gripping and propulsive affair that proved a huge hit with the viewing public.”
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