It’s appropriate that September contains Heritage Day because the standout shows on Showmax this coming month are home grown. Below you can find the upcoming series and film additions we’re most excited to watch on the streaming service. For the full release schedule, containing all shows, movies, documentaries and kids’ fare, click here.
Series
If you love Game of Thrones and Black Panther, you definitely want to check out Blood Psalms, an ambitious, big budget collaboration between Showmax and Canal+. Blood Psalms is an epic historical fantasy series set in ancient Africa. It centres on inter-tribal rivalries, mad kings and spirited princesses in its account of how the five surviving houses of Kemet deal with fears of a prophesied end of days.
Show co-creator Layla Swart elaborates, “What we’re trying to do is to reclaim the continent’s history from an African perspective. Blood Psalms draws from elements of a multitude of African mythologies and looks at various different tribes – the Akachi, the Uchawi, the Ku’ua, the Chini, and Great Nziwemabwe – as they migrated south from Kemet, which is now Egypt, and formed their cultures.” Notably, the subtitled series doesn’t feature a single word of English.
The all-star cast of Blood Psalms includes Bokang Phelane, Mothusi Magano, Zolisa Xaluva and another seven SAFTA winners. Watch Blood Psalms weekly from 28 September, with new episodes every Wednesday for 11 weeks.
From the producers of crime documentary Devilsdorp, Steinheist is a three-part exposé that delves into the biggest corporate scam in Mzansi’s history – South Africa’s own Enron.
Steinheist is the story of Steinhoff accountant and CEO Markus Jooste, whose love of the high life, and multi-billion-rand lie to support it, would eventually come to light in 2017 after two decades. The result was the collapse of a furniture giant, and the loss of over R200 billion from the JSE, Johannesburg’s stock exchange – destroying ordinary South Africans’ pensions and investments.
Steinheist debuts on Showmax on 22 September 2022, with new episodes every Thursday until 6 October 2022.
On the international series front, Showmax is continuing last month’s trend of all-star retellings of true crime tales, with The Staircase.
Inspired by an unbelievable true story, the HBO Max limited series explores the life of Michael Peterson (Colin Firth), a crime novelist accused of killing his second wife, Kathleen (Toni Collette), after she’s found dead at the bottom of the staircase in their home. What followed was a 16-year judicial battle fuelled by suspicions and accusations. Also starring are Michael Stuhlbarg, Dane DeHaan, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sophie Turner, Rosemarie DeWitt, Parker Posey and Juliette Binoche.
Watch the eight-part The Staircase in its entirety from 15 September
In other series news, in September you can look forward to the return of The Handmaid’s Tale (Season 5), the seventh and final season of Bosch.
Films
In terms of movies coming to Showmax in September, it’s definitely a better month for classics. Pulp Fiction, The Addams Family (1991) and both Anchorman movies are joining the streamer.
Of the brand new additions, we’re most intrigued by film festival darling Night Raiders, which is a Canadian-New Zealand co-production executive produced by Taika Waititi. Inspired by Children of Men and the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, Night Raiders presents a credible dystopian future. In 2044, a Cree woman named Niska (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers) joins an underground resistance to save her daughter from the military government which is enforcing cultural homogeneity and conformity on its population.
Stream Night Raiders from 22 September.
It didn’t get good reviews at all, but something for parents and kids to watch together is long-awaited sequel Space Jam: A New Legacy. Combining live-action and CGI animation, A New Legacy sees basketball champion LeBron James teaming up with Bugs Bunny and other undisciplined Looney Tunes to play a high-stakes basketball game set up by a rogue AI (Don Cheadle). On the line is LeBron’s ability to reunite with his son, and escape the Warner Bros. Serververse where they’ve been trapped.
Space Jam: A New Legacy arrives on Showmax on 8 September.