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
It’s a Sin S1
The lives of five friends in London in 1981 are tested as they grow up in the shadow of the Aids pandemic.
The Girls on the (party) Bus: 5 secrets about political reporters
Find out what really happens on the press bus as comedy drama The Girls on the Bus follows four political journalists through 52 cities in 32 days on the campaign trail.
Random Acts of Flyness S2
Artist, musician and filmmaker Terence Nance explores the metaphysics of Black life through avant-garde storytelling.
Fantasmas S1
Julio Torres spins a fantastical tale of losing a gold oyster earring. In his search to find the earring, he encounters offbeat characters in comedic vignettes set in a surrealist, alternate version of New York.