Sure, we’re a week or so already into May, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still loads of great entertainment coming your way this month – some of which you’ll likely want to mark in your calendar. Below, you’ll find our standout picks for streaming service Showmax, while you can always browse their entire May offering of series, film, documentaries and kids’ fare here.

Series

Showmax always serves up amazing true crime tales turned into all-star fictionalised series, and top of the pile this month is Love & Death. Written by Big Little Lies’ David E. Kelley, Love & Death tells the story of Candy (Elizabeth Olsen) and Pat Montgomery (Patrick Fugit), and Betty (Lily Rabe) and Allan Gore (Jesse Plemons), two churchgoing couples in small-town Texas in the early 80s. Their tranquil lives are upended when an affair leads to literal axe murder. In case you were wondering, yes, the events shown here were also the basis of miniseries Candy, starring Jessica Biel.

Binge episodes 1-3 from Tuesday, 2 May, with new episodes weekly (there will be seven in total) after that.

For murder mystery of a more fun, fictional kind – not to mention local South African flavour – check out Recipes for Love and Murder. Based on the first of Sally Andrew’s bestselling Tannie Maria novels, acclaimed Irish actress Maria Doyle Kennedy stars as the title character, a recipe advice columnist turned amateur detective, who joins forces with a rookie journalist (Kylie Fisher) to solve a murder in a small Karoo town.

Watch all ten episodes of Recipes for Love and Murder from 25 May.

For something a little different, check out BAFTA-nominated mystery-thriller The Tourist. In this twisty tale, which apparently doesn’t neglect humour either, a man from Northern Ireland (Jamie Dornan) wakes up with amnesia in an Australian hospital. Recovering an an outback town, he must use what few clues he has to discover his identity before his past returns to kill him. The Tourist has already been approved for a second season, and is sitting with a 97% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Binge The Tourist S1 in its six-episode entirety from 15 May.

If the name “The Midwich Cuckoos” doesn’t mean anything to you, how about “Village of the Damned”? The classic, unnerving sci-fi tale by John Wyndham gets a modern-day small-screen update in this Sky Max series out. Life is forever altered in the quiet English town of Midwich when a mysterious blackout leaves every woman of child-bearing age pregnant. When the children are born, something is very, very strange about them. The cast of this atmospheric, seven-episode series is headed up by Keeley Hawes.

Binge episodes 1-3 of The Midwich Cuckoos from 5 May, with two new episodes every Friday thereafter.

Films

If you love movies, it’s a great month for catching up on some of the biggest releases of the last year. These include trilogy-capping dinosaur blockbuster Jurassic World: Dominion (22 May), Julia Roberts-George Clooney romantic comedy Ticket to Paradise (15 May), moody novel adaptation Where the Crawdads Sing (29 May), and Emma Thompson’s acclaimed sex comedy Good Luck To You, Leo Grande (25 May). The following are the standouts that caught our eye, though.

Missed the multi-Oscar-nominated Elvis on the big screen? Catch Baz Luhrmann’s latest high-style epic at home from 8 May. Austin Butler plays Elvis Presley, the pioneering King of Rock and Roll in this musical biopic, with Tom Hanks appearing as his manager, Colonel Tom Parker; and Olivia DeJonge as Elvis’s wife, Priscillla.

We love Aubrey Plaza, so count us in for gritty crime thriller Emily the Criminal. Plaza gives a career-best performance as a young woman down on her luck and saddled with debt, who gets pulled into the criminal underworld of Los Angeles. 94% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, Emily the Criminal is reportedly taunt, and rich in social commentary. Watch from 4 May.

Some of the best true stories are the ones that sound the most unbelievable. Like World War II disinformation campaign, Operation Mincemeat. This British film of the same name depicts those events, showing how, in 1943, two intelligence officers, Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth) and Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen) used a single dead body to misdirect Hitler from the Allies’ true plans to invade Europe. Watch Operation Mincemeat from 4 May.

Here’s another 2023 Oscar nominee to watch if you haven’t already. Dark comedy Triangle of Sadness isn’t for everyone – it’s definitely arthouse fare – but it delivers a razor-sharp critique of the ignorant ultra-rich, as it spotlights events aboard a luxury cruise boat. Woody Harrelson plays the despondent captain while South African actress and model Charlbi Dean delivers a breakout performance in her (sadly) final role. Watch Triangle of Sadness from 22 May.

Documentaries

Yes, yes, more true crime, but this anthology series sets out to answer questions about some of South Africa’s biggest news stories from the last decade. Season 1 of Imibuzo revisits such high-profile cases as the Enyobeni Tavern massacre, Sibusiso Mpungose’s murder of his four children, and the death of LGBTQIA+ musician and activist Lindokuhle Cele. Other episodes focus on televangelist Tim Omotoso, who is facing 97 charges of rape, racketeering and human trafficking; and student Sibongile Mali, who went on a spending spree after R14m was erroneously deposited into her account.

Imibuzo S1 sees weekly episode drops every Monday from 8 May.