Hit like a girl: top women-driven action shows and movies to stream

August is Women’s Month and Showmax is ready to kick butt, take names, and curb stomp on anyone who tries to smush us with a glass ceiling. From blockbuster action movies, to series and documentaries, we’re putting the POW in Girl Power, and proving that “hit like a girl” is a hella compliment.

The Protégé

Step aside Jason Bourne and James Bond, there is a new assassin in town and her name is Anna. Action queen Maggie Q – no stranger to killer series and movies like Designated Survivor and Mission: Impossible II – gives audiences all the thrilling action they need as Anna takes down the bad guys with delicious revenge…

Moody (Samuel L Jackson) has been Anna’s handler for years, and when he is slaughtered, Anna sets out to settle the score with his murderers. In her quest she enters a deadly cat-and-mouse game with an enigmatic killer (Michael Keaton). Only one of them can come out of this alive. Place your bets, but we’re backing our queen.

Gunpowder Milkshake

Movie revenge is best served ice cold, baby, and these assassins are chill enough to kill.

Leading Lady Sam (Karen Gillan, best known for her role as Nebula in Marvel films like Thor: Love And Thunder) gets herself in a tricky situation when she is sent to do a job for the shadowy agency she works for, The Firm (oooh, mysterious). While she’s trying to get some money back from the individual who stole from The Firm, she uncovers the facts that he stole it to get his kidnapped daughter back.

She agrees to take his place, but things don’t turn out as she planned. Sam becomes a sitting duck, with both the bad guys and The Firm (which only wanted the money delivered) gunning for her, so she turns to her estranged mother and her female former colleagues for help.

Mad Max: Fury Road

It’s nonstop action in this post-apocalyptic action film starring Benoni-born Hollywood actress Charlize Theron and actor Tom Hardy (from Peaky Blinders).

Max Rockatansky (Hardy) lives in a desert wasteland after a society collapses following a planet-wide conflict over natural resources. Max is captured by Immortan Joe’s army of War Boys and taken to the Citadel held by Immortan Joe’s cult. Once there, it’s a fight for survival as Max gets entangled in Imperator Furiosa’s (Charlize) escape plan. Furiosa is on a mission to rescue Joe’s five slave wives and try to get them to freedom. It’s women-helping-women at its best.

Birds of Prey

The Suicide Squad movie did her dirty, but Harley’s back to reclaim her throne as Gotham’s Number One Bad Girl. Magot Robbie (The Wolf of Wallstreet) gives a stellar performance in this DC movie about Harley Quinn (Margot), the better half of the psycho bad guy The Joker. Their bitter split did a number on her already broken psyche, so to find some meaning she joins female superheroes Black Canary, Huntress, and Renee Montoya to save a young girl from an evil crime lord.

Who is the evil crime lord this girl gang will fight with all their might and madness? His name is Black Mask (played by Obi-Wan Kenobi himself, Ewan McGregor) and he’s a self-obsessed snivelling little man who Harley is going to, hopefully, put in his place.

Wonder Woman 1984

With her lasso of truth, indestructible bracelets and tiara that serves as a projectile, Wonder Woman is a fierce superhero who can beat any evil coming her way – with kindness, grace and perfect fighting form. In this second film of the franchise, it’s 1984 and Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) works as a museum curator while secretly performing heroic deeds as Wonder Woman. 

When an ancient artefact called the Dreamstone is uncovered, it gives Diana’s bumbling colleague Barbara Ann Minerva (Kristen Wiig, known for her movie Bridesmaids) powers like Wonder Woman’s when Barbara wishes to be like the more sophisticated like Diana (whoops). And Diana gets her heart’s desire when she wishes to be reunited with her deceased lover, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine)… It seems it worked out for everyone, yes? Well, no. Soon chaos erupts when the stone is stolen. Diana and Barbara must make a big sacrifice that neither is ready for, as global war looms.

Jagveld

Celebrate our local ladies as Leandie du Randt (Klein Karoo 2) puts the heat on a group of bad guys who are hunting her. Have you just made a dumb blonde joke? She’s going to make you choke on it.

Emma, a mild-mannered teacher, is heading home one day in the blistering heat of the Northern Cape when her car overheats. As she searches for water in the farmland around her, she stumbles across a gang of drug smugglers and becomes the only eyewitness when they execute a policeman. The gang sets after her to make sure she’ll never be able to talk about what she’s seen, but Emma has some special skills up her sleeve. You could never tell just by looking at her, but Emma has “a particular set of skills…”

Lindsey Vonn: The Final Season

“Another crash could end it all.” That’s the reality that one of the greatest female skiers ever, Lindsey Vonn, faces in this exhilarating documentary.

She has enough gold medals under her belt to actually, well, make a belt out of them, but above all, she wants to end her career on a high note – like “on top of a mountain” high note. Does she have it in her to fly high, or will injuries, her age, doubt, and negativity spoil it for her? Maybe she has one last fight in her to be the greatest of all time and soar through the skies in her skis.

Jett

It’s important to know what you’re good at, and for Daisy “Jett” Kowalski (Carla Gugino, who you can also see being fabulous in Gunpowder Milkshake), that talent is stealing.

Ninjas and cat burglars might wear all-black, but Jett stalks about in a purple leopard-print coat and sky-high heels. You’re welcome. Aside from being a master thief she is so distracting that she can seduce and rob a target during main course and dessert. But things get complicated in this series when Jett goes on a job, and she gets caught up with a criminal who uncovers her true intentions. We wonder whose goose will be cooked first when these two are forced to work together!

The Equalizer

“If there is anybody who can help, it’s McCall.” You say it, she slays it: the fabulous Queen Latifah (Empire) plays ex-CIA operative McCall in this action series.

Life has thrown this single mother and her teenage daughter Delilah (Laya DeLeon Hayes) some curveballs, but with her extensive skills, Robyn McCall now goes where no man has gone willingly on the streets of New York: to help those who can’t call 911 or have to dodge the cops.

Based on the 2014 and 2018 Equalizer films starring Denzel Washington, this epic series takes all the action there and brings it to life on TV.