What’s new in January 2022

It’s a new year – time for some new entertainment addictions. If you’re lucky, January is still holiday time, so queue up some real winners, from binge-able series to brilliant action movies to some fascinating documentaries coming first to Showmax.

Showmax Original

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The Real Housewives of Durban S2 | Stream from 28 January

When it launched on Showmax in January 2021, The Real Housewives of Durban (RHOD) set a then-record for the most first-day views of any content on Showmax. Since then it’s been released in 27 territories internationally. The ladies return – with some new faces – for even more glitz and glamour in Season 2.

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International Series

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Euphoria S2  | 10 January 2022, express from the US every Monday 

The trailer for Season 2 of Euphoria hit over 1 million views on YouTube within 12 hours when it dropped at the end of November. The groundbreaking, controversial hit series stars Zendaya as teenage addict Rue, trying to find hope while balancing the pressures of love and loss amid the intertwining lives of the town of East Highland.

In 2020, Zendaya (The Greatest Showman) became the youngest ever actress to win an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for the role, which also earned her the 2019 People’s Choice Award for Favorite Drama TV Star and a 2020 Black Reel Award, among other accolades. 

Euphoria has an 8.4/10 rating on IMDb and a 90% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, having won two 2020 Emmys. The two-part special bridging the pandemic-enforced gap between seasons was nominated for a Peabody Award and three 2021 Emmys. 

Dr. Death S1 | Binge from 1 January 

Based on a terrifying true story, crime drama series Dr. Death stars Teen Choice winner Joshua Jackson (Little Fires Everywhere) as ostensibly brilliant young neurosurgeon Dr Christopher Duntsch. After several of Duntsch’s procedures end with patients maimed or dead, two fellow physicians and a Dallas prosecutor set out to stop him… and discover a system rigged to fail the most vulnerable among us. 

The phenomenal cast includes Alec Baldwin, Christian Slater, AnnaSophia Robb, Meryl Streep’s daughter, Grace Gummer and Kelsey Grammer.

Based on Wondery’s hit podcast of the same name, which has over 50 million listeners to date, the eight-episode limited series was recently nominated for three 2022 Critics Choice Awards. It has a 91% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

In Treatment S4 | Binge from 1 January

Season 4 of In Treatment stars Emmy winner Uzo Aduba (Mrs. America, Orange Is The New Black) as the observant, empathetic therapist Dr Brooke Taylor, who takes over from Gabriel Byrne’s Doctor Paul Weston.

Aduba was nominated for the 2021 Best Actress Emmy, and she’s up for a 2022 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama. The Season 4 reboot has a 95% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is #32 Best TV Shows of 2021 (So Far). As Variety says, Aduba is “proving to be one of the essential actors of the 21st century.” 

Why Women Kill S2 | Binge from 1 January

The delicious (but deadly) new season of the drama anthology series Why Women Kill is here is at last!

It has an 8.3/10 score on IMDb, with an 83% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes for Season 2.

Emmy nominee Allison Tolman (Fargo, Good Girls) headlines this season as Alma Fillcot, a frumpy 1940s housewife desperate to join an exclusive local garden club.

Smother S1 | Binge from 1 January | First on Showmax 

Blood runs deep, but secrets run deeper in the new Irish BBC drama-thriller Smother. 

When Val Ahern’s husband Denis is found dead the morning after a family party, Val begins to interrogate the events that unfolded the night before, but the deeper she delves into her family’s secrets the more she realises how her late husband’s controlling, manipulative behaviour had a deep effect on each member of the family… and could have led to his death. 

Already renewed for a second season, The Guardian says this “Maeve Binchy-esque thriller is entirely addictive”.

Bulletproof: South Africa | Binge from 1 January

The final season of the popular British action drama Bulletproof brings the showdown to Cape Town, where London NCA agents Bishop and Pike decide to take a vacation that turns out to be anything but relaxing after a friend of Pike’s daughter is kidnapped. 

The special three-episode season was filmed in Cape Town with mainly South African crews and cast, which means, in addition to series stars Ashley Walters, Noel Clarke and Jason Maza, we can look forward to seeing local stars like SAFTA winner Kim Engelbrecht (Reyka), Thapelo Mokoena (Trackers), and Vita Award winner Paul du Toit (Kompleks).

Also look out for former Mr SA runner-up Ruben Engel (Die Byl), SAFTA winners Lionel Newton (Jozi) and Brendon Daniels, Mbulelo Grootboom and the late Ceagan Arendse, who all starred in Skemerdans.

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Movies

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Wonder Woman 1984 | 3 January

With director Patty Jenkins back at the helm and Gal Gadot returning in the title role, Wonder Woman 1984 fast forwards to the 1980s as the DC superhero faces two all-new foes: Max Lord (Pedro Pascal from The Mandalorian) and The Cheetah (Kristen Wiig from Bridesmaids).

Promising Young Woman | 20 January

Everyone said Cassie (Carey Mulligan in an Oscar-nominated performance) was a promising young woman… until a mysterious event abruptly derailed her future. But nothing in Cassie’s life is what it appears to be: she’s wickedly smart, tantalisingly cunning, and she’s living a secret double life by night. Now, an unexpected encounter is about to give Cassie a chance to right the wrongs of the past in this thrilling and wildly entertaining story. 

Writer-director Emerald Fennell (Killing Eve, Call the Midwife) won the 2021 Oscar for Best Original Screenplay – just one of 110 awards the film has won. Promising Young Woman has a 90% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus says, “A boldly provocative, timely thriller, Promising Young Woman is an auspicious feature debut for writer-director Emerald Fennell – and a career highlight for Carey Mulligan.”

The United States vs. Billie Holiday | 6 January | First on Showmax 

Andra Day was nominated for a 2021 Best Actress Oscar and won Black Reel, Golden Globe and Webby Awards as legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday, who was targeted by the Federal Department of Narcotics with an undercover sting operation led by Federal Agent Jimmy Fletcher, with whom she had a tumultuous affair.

Miss Juneteenth | 3 January

In the multi-award-winning Miss Juneteenth, a former beauty queen and single mom prepares her rebellious teenage daughter for the Miss Juneteenth pageant.

The film has a 99% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus says, “Like a pageant winner walking across the stage, Miss Juneteenth follows a familiar path – but does so with charm and grace.”

Six Minutes To Midnight | 24 January 

This British war drama is set in the summer of 1939, days ahead of the declaration of World War II, as teacher Thomas Miller (Eddie Izzard) takes up a post at a finishing school in an English seaside town, where influential Nazi families have sent their daughters to learn the language. Seeing what lies ahead, Miller tries to raise the alarm, but the authorities believe he is the problem. Co-starring the likes of Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent.

Also watch:

1 January

The classic 1988 road trip drama Rain Man, starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise, won four Oscars – Best Picture, Best Actor (Hoffman), Best Director (Barry Levinson) and Best Screenplay. The film follows selfish LA yuppie Charlie Babbitt, who learns his estranged father left his fortune to Charlie’s autistic brother in Ohio – a brother he hadn’t even known existed. In a bid to get his hands on the inheritance, Charlie absconds with Raymond and sets out across the country.

13 January

Written and directed by Fangoria Chainsaw Award nominee Adam Egypt Mortimer (Daniel Isn’t Real), Archenemy, the film hopeful fans are calling “the second in the Vortex trilogy”, follows Max Fist, a homeless guy who claims to be a hero from another dimension. No one believes his stories except for a local teen named Hamster, and Hamster’s going to need all the hero he can get. 

The film stars Joe Manganiello (Deathstroke in Zack Snyder’s Justice League)) as Max Fist and Skylan Brooks (Empire) as Hamster.

17 January 

The beloved classic boxset Barbershop, Barbershop 2: Back in Business, and Barbershop 3: The Next Cut, boasts a star-studded cast including Ice Cube, Cedric the Entertainer, Anthony Anderson, Sean Patrick Thomas, Michael Ealy, Keith David, Eve, Common, and Nicky Minaj, as well as Queen Latifah, who headlined the 2005 spin-off movie Beauty Shop alongside Alicia Silverstone, Andie MacDowell, Mena Suvari, Kevin Bacon and Djimon Hounsou.

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Local

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This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection | 3 January

The late, legendary Mary Twala (Black Is King) stars as a widow in Lesotho who rediscovers her lust for life when her village is threatened by the construction of a reservoir.

Winner of 20 international awards, including the Visionary Filmmaking Prize at Sundance 2020 for director Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese and Best Cinematography at FESPACO 2021 for Pierre de Villiers, This Is Not A Burial, It’s A Resurrection is #5 on Metacritic’s list of the best reviewed films of 2021, with a 91% critics rating. 

Produced by Urucu (The Wound), Vulture called it “the first masterpiece of 2021… I recommend seeing it more than once: luckily, it’s so gorgeous and spellbinding that it invites repeat viewings.”

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Non-Fiction

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By Whatever Means Necessary: The Times of Godfather of Harlem | 1 January | First on Showmax

This four-episode docuseries, executive produced by Godfather of Harlem star Forest Whitaker and Swizz Beatz, examines the story of Harlem, its music during the 1960s and its connections to today.

The series earned director Keith McQuirter (Brick City) the 2021 Image Award for Outstanding Directing in a Documentary, and features conversations with the likes of Emmy-nominated actor Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad), music legends Herbie Hancock, Gladys Knight, Harry Belafonte and Nile Rodgers, activists Jamal Joseph, Al Sharpton and Denise Oliver-Velez, historians and residents of Harlem itself.

Girls Can’t Surf | 7 January | First on Showmax 

It’s the 1980s and the world of professional surfing is a circus of fluro colours, peroxide hair and radical male egos. Girls Can’t Surf follows the journey of a band of renegade surfers who took on the male-dominated professional surfing world to achieve equality and change the sport forever. 

Featuring surfing greats Jodie Cooper, Frieda Zamba, Pauline Menczer, Lisa Andersen, Pam Burridge, Wendy Botha, Layne Beachley and more, Girls Can’t Surf is a wild ride of clashing personalities, sexism, adventure and heartbreak, with each woman fighting against the odds to make their dreams of competing a reality.

Nominated for Best Documentary at the 2021 Australian Academy Awards, Girls Can’t Surf has a 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. “The film is a great tribute to all of these athletes and a timely reminder of everything that led up to the decision to raise the women’s prize money to parity with the men’s just two years ago,” says the Sydney Morning Herald, adding, “The current generation has much to thank them for.”

Also watch:

Fall River | 1 January | First on Showmax 

Executive produced by triple-Oscar nominee Jason Blum (The Loudest Voice, The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, Get Out, BlacKkKlansman), the documentary miniseries Fall River re-examines the 1979 murders of three young women in Fall River, Massachusetts, and the wave of satanic panic that swept the city in the ensuing weeks.

Unprotected Sets S1-2 | 7 January | First on Showmax

Executive produced by Emmy-winning (and 13-time nominated!) comedian Wanda Sykes, each episode of Unprotected Sets presents a compelling portrait of a stand-up on the verge of breaking out to become the next big name in comedy. 

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Kids

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Scooby-Doo! Return to Zombie Island | 6 January

In Scooby-Doo! Return to Zombie Island, when Scooby and the gang win a holiday on a tropical island, they’re under orders to relax – but the island is more swamp-like than tropical and the hotel seems awfully familiar. And then there’s that creepy werecat thing… But, no, they must not, under any circumstances, investigate the strange happenings piling up around them! Unless of course, the weird, the creepy, and the downright freaky comes to them first. 

Recommended for ages 7+, this direct sequel to the beloved 1998 film Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island is voiced by multi-award-winning Scooby-stalwarts Frank Welker (as Scooby-Doo and Fred), Grey Griffin (as Daphne), Matthew Lillard (as Shaggy), and Kate Micucci (as Velma), with Cassandra Peterson as Elvira.

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Also on Showmax in January: 

1 January

Blaze and the Monster Machines S5 | Danger Force S1 | It’s Pony S1

3 January

Barkers: Mind the Cats! | My Old Lady | Miracle Season | The Glass Castle

4 January

Insecure – The FInal Season Documentary

6 January

Extraction | Finding Your Feet | Tarzan | Uptown Girls

10 January

At Any Price | Churchill | Disconnect | God Only Knows AKA By The Gun | The Girl in the Spider’s Web

13 January

02:22 | Last Passenger | Life and Nothing More | Soul Plane

14 January

Deer Squad S1

17 January 

A Cold Hard Truth | Better Living With Chemistry | Lost in London | Miss Sloane 

20 January

A Little Chaos | Den of Thieves | Dragon Eyes

24 January

In Dubious Battle | Journey’s End | Thank You For Your Service

27 January 

Emperor | Fruits of the Heart | Gringo

31 January

Are You Afraid of the Dark S2  | Mile 22 | Marrowbone | Unlocked