So many home entertainment gifts from Showmax in this final month of 2024. So many, in fact, that we actually struggled to narrow down our top streaming picks below. That said, if you want to explore beyond our highlights, you can find a complete schedule for Showmax in December here.
Series
Apart for ongoing Dune: Prophesy, with its Monday episode drops, and the addition of all seven seasons of Emmy Award-winning sitcom 30 Rock, our hands-down pick for the month on Showmax is dark comedy-thriller Sweetpea out of the UK. This six-part adaptation of the novel by CJ Skuse sees overlooked and bullied wallflower Rhiannon (Yellowjackets and Fallout’s Ella Purnell) discover she has a taste for murder.
Watch Sweetpea from Thursday, 12 December, with weekly episodes.
Perfect bingeable entertainment for the holiday break is Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, an acclaimed throwback-style Star Trek series that serves as a prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series. As second commander of the USS Enterprise, Captain Pike (Anson Mount) explores the galaxy with Starfleet elite like Science Officer Spock (Ethan Peck), and Number One (Rebecca Romijn).
Watch Season 1 and 2 from Monday, 16 December.
On the local series front, there’s R-rated drama, and Showmax Original, Soft Life. Over the course of 13 episodes, beautiful township girl Owami (Zizipho Buti) is recruited into the secretive world of high-society companionship. She does this to settle her mother’s medical bills, but finds herself struggling to keep her dual existence hidden at the same time she starts to enjoy her new luxurious lifestyle.
Catch episodes of Soft Life on Mondays from 2 December.
One year after it came to M-Net, hit murder mystery White Lies is migrating to Showmax. Game of Thrones’ Natalie Dormer stars as Edie, a journalist whose estranged brother is found murdered in his luxury Cape Town home, leaving his teenage children as suspects. Edie’s investigation sees her clash with veteran detective Forty Bell (Brendon Daniels). White Lies has also been screening internationally to substantial acclaim and popularity.
Binge all eight episodes of White Lies from Monday, 23 December.
Film
Our top movie addition to Showmax for the month isn’t very Christmassy, but it’s rock-solid, emotionally powerful entertainment. A Quiet Place: Day One is a standalone prequel in the dystopian survival horror series. This time Lupita Nyong’o’s ailing Sam, with her service cat Frodo, is in New York City on the day the sound-sensitive aliens arrive. Also with Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff and Djimon Hounsou.
Stream A Quiet Place: Day One from Friday, 20 December.
Musicals are all the rage this December on Showmax, with 2023’s upbeat version of The Color Purple (Monday, 23 December), and Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black (Monday, 30 December) making their small screen debut. We’re singling out Wonka though, inspired by Roald Dahl’s beloved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. With Paddington’s Paul King at the helm, Wonka stars Timothée Chalamet as the rule-breaking chocolatier at the start of his career.
Watch Wonka from Thursday, 6 December.
Still on matters of family-friendly holiday entertainment, with a dash of music, there’s IF (AKA Imaginary Friends). John Krasinski directs and co-writes this whimsical adventure that combines live-action and CGI-animation to tell the tale of a young girl (Cailey Fleming) who discovers she can see imaginary friends. She sets out to find new kids for abandoned IFs, with the help of similarly “gifted” Cal (Ryan Reynolds).
Stream IF from Monday, 9 December.
Finally, if you’re not in the mood for whimsy at all, there’s Hitchcock-style psychological thriller Eileen. Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway star in this story about a timid detention centre employee who become infatuated with the glamorous new counsellor where she works. Things quickly take a darker turn as the older woman manipulates her younger colleague. Based on the novel by Ottessa Moshfegh.
Stream Eileen from Monday, 2 December.
Documentaries
Not exactly cheerful holiday fare but important and powerful nonetheless is two-part documentary series Crush. A 2024 Emmy nominee, Crush uses hours of phone and surveillance camera footage, plus first-hand accounts, to unpack the 2022 Halloween crowd crush that killed 159 people, many of them enthusiastic young party goers, in Seoul, South Korea.
Watch Crush from Monday, 23 December.