
13 August 2024
The Sympathizer S1
Based on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Sympathizer follows a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist spy during the final days of the Vietnam War and into his new life as a refugee in Los Angeles, where he learns that his spying days aren’t over.
Hoa Xuande (Cowboy Bebop) leads a largely Vietnamese cast, with Oscar winner Robert Downey Jr. earning an Emmy nomination for his multiple roles here. The supporting cast includes Golden Globe winners Sandra Oh (Killing Eve, Grey’s Anatomy) and David Duchovny (The X Files, Californication), as well as John Cho (from the Harold & Kumar and Star Trek franchises).
The HBO/A24 co-production is #9 on Metacritic’s round-up of the Best TV Shows (So Far) This Year and has an 88% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Time Magazine says it’s “ambitious, brilliant television,” and Rolling Stone calls it “wickedly funny [and] deeply moving,” saying, “The Sympathizer turns a bestseller adaptation into a TV tour de force.”
The Sympathizer is co-created by Cannes winners Park Chan-wook (Oldboy) and Don McKellar (Last Night), with Chan-wook, Oscar nominee Fernando Meirelles (City of God) and triple BAFTA winner Marc Munden (Utopia) each directing episodes.
Showmax is the home of HBO in Africa

Embrace the cringe in The Rehearsal Season 2
Hateable or relatable? We’re here to look at our 10 favourite characters with awkward, offputting energy – starting with The Rehearsal’s Nathan Fielder.

The Rehearsal S1-2
In this bizarre HBO docuseries people get a chance to rehearse for their own lives in a world where nothing ever works out as expected.

Tokyo Vice S1-2
In this powerful HBO crime thriller based on true events, a Western journalist working in Tokyo takes on one of the city’s most powerful crime bosses.

How Do You Measure A Year? (2022)
In this deeply personal Oscar-nominated documentary short, longtime HBO collaborator Jay Rosenblatt interviews his daughter on her birthday for 17 years.