Five Fingers for Marseilles (2017)

Five Fingers for Marseilles is a brilliant South African gun-slinging western. Twenty years ago, the young “Five Fingers” fought for the rural town of Marseilles against brutal police oppression. Now, after fleeing in disgrace, freedom-fighter-turned-outlaw Tau returns to Marseilles, seeking a peaceful pastoral life. When he finds the town under a new threat, he reluctantly fights to free it. Can he free himself from his past? Will the Five Fingers stand again?

The movie has a score of 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, and got glowing reviews from critics: The Wall Street Journal suggested it could be the Western genre’s Black Panther. Variety called it “almost too entertaining for its own good.”

As Tau, Vuyo Dabula is “terrific,” to quote The Los Angeles Times. The movie catapulted writer Sean Drummond and director Michael Matthews into Hollywood. Michael went on to direct the Oscar-nominated Love and Monsters.

Five Fingers was the most awarded film at the 2018 Africa Movie Academy Awards, where it won five prizes, including Best Film.  

Watch more highly regarded African movies on Showmax, including Oscar entries such as Knuckle City, Inxeba: The Wound, Sew the Winter to my Skin and Toorbos.