10 movies that clock in at under 90 minutes

Only have 90 minutes for a movie before you have to start making dinner, or before you fall asleep on the couch? No problem! Stream these hidden-gem movies on Showmax that come in with a runtime of 90 minutes or less …

Compulsion: 84 minutes

What’s a woman to do? Erotic novelist Sadie Glass (Analeigh Tipton) isn’t happy when she bumps into her ex-lover Alex (Jakob Cedergren) while she’s promoting her new book. He’s the inspiration for her story and it’s bleak – the lead character is a violent, aggressive and domineering lover. And she’s about to be forced into holidaying with him and his new girlfriend at an Italian villa that goes from trouble to an outright fight for survival after Sadie is dragged into a drug-fuelled sex party with a difference: the BDSM could be fatal. Will Sadie be able to take back control of her life?

The Disappointments Room: 87 minutes

Never take grand old mansions at face value. Architect Dana (Kate Beckinsale) moves her hubby and five-year-old son into her dream project house and things immediately go pear-shaped. Dana starts suffering inexplicable visions of a vicious, snapping German Shepherd. Her nightmares also feature a little boy and she panics, fearing that her son is in trouble. But Dana really starts worrying when she has nightmares about her dead baby daughter… at the same time that she discovers a secret room in her new home. It’s a Disappointments Room, which is where previous generations hid children with any deformities or unspeakable conditions they were embarrassed by. And Dana’s nightmares are about to become horrifyingly real…

Unhinged: 86 minutes

Road rage is an everyday thing. It happens to the best of us at the worst of times. Russell Crowe’s character Top Cooper aka The Man isn’t the best of society, though. In fact, he’s everything that’s wrong with us. It starts with him murdering his ex-wife and her new boyfriend and it quickly goes downhill… well, more downhill than premeditated murder. Tom gets into a bust-up with a woman at an intersection and demands an apology from her after he apologises because he wants to “hit reset” and start off from scratch with her. When she tells him off, he loses his cool and starts harassing her. He follows her, he knows where she lives, he knows who she’s dating. And he wants to prove that he’s right and she’s wrong for not forgiving him and not saying sorry…

Palm Springs: 86 minutes

Two strangers meet at a wedding. Common, yes. What’s not so common is that when they wake up the next day, they’re stuck in a time loop. Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti play Nyles and Sarah, who’re struggling to understand what’s going on. But that’s just an afterthought for them to worry about, because they’re having so much fun falling in love and learning more about each other “every day” at this cute, offbeat wedding venue resort in Palm Springs, California. If they fall asleep or die (how extreme are those two options?!), they restart the same day, remembering everything from “the day before”. There is one way to exit the time loop, but do they really want to?

Bigfoot Family: 84 minutes

Adam Bigfoot (voiced by Jace Norman) wants his now-famous dad Bigfoot (voiced by Roger Craig Smith) to come home and be a dad. And that’s what he gets. But typical of a politician, Daddy Bigfoot launches a new job almost immediately: he’s going to protest against Alaska’s wilderness being exploited by a ruthless oil company… and then Daddy Bigfoot goes missing. It’s now up to Adam to not only find his dear dad, he needs to make sure that they both get home safe. Along for the ride is Adam’s mom Shelly (voiced by Lindsey Alena) and his crush Emma (Shyloh Oostwald) as they go up against some of the most vicious people in the world who’ll stop at nothing to get what they want.

Sometimes Always Never: 87 minutes

Bill Nighy plays Alan, a suitably stylish proper English Gentleman in this comedy-drama-fantasy mish-mash. Alan has established himself in his industry as a family man. But he’s got a massive hole in his heart – his son Michael walked out on Alan and his family during a heated game of Scrabble. He’s not been seen or heard from him ever since, and Alan has committed his life to finding his son before it’s too late. He’s also got to repair the cracks in his relationship with his younger son, but first Alan needs to identify a body that might possibly be Michael.

Chaos Theory: 83 minutes

Time management lecturer and motivational speaker Frank Allen (Ryan Reynolds) runs his life like clockwork. Every minute is accounted for. He’s always on time, and Frank takes everything seriously. So he’s not expecting his wife Susan (Emily Mortimer – don’t miss her directorial debut, The Pursuit of Love, on Showmax) to mess with his schedule. But when she needs him to run an errand, she resets his clocks and watches by 10 minutes to buy herself some time. Except she moves them the wrong way and sets off a chain reaction resulting in Frank missing the most important meeting of his life. But the real chaos is around the corner when he helps a pregnant woman get to hospital and a series of blunders and miscommunication leads to Emily thinking that Frank cheated on her, when it’s her darkest secret that’s about to be exposed: Frank discovers that he has Klinefelter’s Syndrome and it’s impossible that he got Emily pregnant five years back…

The Professor: 86 minutes

Johnny Depp plays English professor Richard Brown who’s just received bad news: he has stage 4 lung cancer that has spread through his body. He’s got two options: no treatment and live for six months, or undergo aggressive and painful chemotherapy and live 18 months. This sends him spiralling and Richard tells his class to live in the moment and forget about fitting into society’s norms. Forget about stereotypes. Forget about filling certain shoes. Forget about what the person next to you thinks about you. Go out, do what makes you happy, live and love. And don’t make excuses for being you.

The Man: 79 minutes

Samuel L Jackson and Eugene Levy team up in this crazy wild buddy-cop comedy caper. Sam is ATF Agent Derrick Vann, who’s been framed for a terrible crime – the murder of an ATF agent during the robbery of a Federal armoury. Eugene’s character Andy is a rep from one of the most prominent dental supply companies in Detroit. What do Derrick and Andy have in common? Nothing until they collide in a case of mistaken identity as Derrick searches for the person who framed him and murdered his partner, while Andy is the kind of guy who asks the right questions at the wrong times… and he has many, many questions to ask as the pair go on a wild, bullet-riddled ride through Detroit.

Licence To Wed: 87 minutes

There are few shortcuts to getting married. Normally it takes months of preparation, hours of decision making, loads of input and time and dedication. But that’s not going to happen for Sadie Jones (Mandy Moore) and her fiance Ben Murphy (John Krasinski). Their dream venue has one date open in the next two years… and that’s in three weeks’ time. Sure, they can try to get ready and make it to the altar in time. But there’s one obstacle they haven’t taken into account: the venue’s in-house pastor Reverend Frank Littleton (the late Robin Williams). He has a series of activities, tasks and challenges that the happy couple need to go through before they’re “ready to wed” in his eyes. And you know what? Frank might know what he’s talking about as he pushes them to learn more about themselves and one another in the process.