OPPENHEIMER – from May 6 – tells the true story of “the father of the atomic bomb”, American scientist J Robert Oppenheimer, and how he risked destroying the world in his attempt to save it.
The third biggest box office hit of 2023 globally, Oppenheimer won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Christopher Nolan (Tenet, Dunkirk, Inception, Interstellar and The Dark Knight trilogy), and over 300 more awards.
Cillian Murphy (Peaky Blinders, The Dark Knight, Inception) took home the Best Actor Oscar for his starring role as Oppenheimer, and Robert Downey Jr. (aka Sherlock Holmes and Marvel’s Tony Stark) won Best Supporting Actor as Lewis Strauss, with Emily Blunt (A Quiet Place) nominated for Best Actress as biologist and botanist Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer has a 93% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with AV Club saying, “It’s Christopher Nolan’s best film so far, a step up to a new level for one of our finest filmmakers, and a movie that burns itself into your brain.”
Barbie joins the lineup on May 22. To live in Barbie Land is to be a perfect being in a perfect place. Unless you have a full-on existential crisis. Or you’re a Ken.
With two-time Oscar nominee Margot Robbie in the title role, Barbie was the biggest blockbuster of 2023 globally and is the highest-grossing live-action comedy film of all time. It won over 190 awards and was up for seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Screenplay (for director Greta Gerwig and co-writer Noam Baumbach), Supporting Actor for Ryan Gosling as Ken and Supporting Actress for America Ferrera as Gloria.
Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell’s original song What Was I Made For? won Song of the Year at the Grammys, as well as the Oscar for Best Achievement in Music for a Motion Picture, beating Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt’s viral hit song I’m Just Ken, which was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category.
Barbie has an 88% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with The New Yorker calling it, “brilliant, beautiful and fun.”
Other movie highlights on Showmax this month include:
- A Good Person | Stream from Thursday,9 May
Oscar winner Morgan Freeman (Se7en, The Shawshank Redemption) and Oscar nominee Florence Pugh (Oppenheimer, Dune: Part Two) co-star as Daniel and Allison, whose lives are both shattered by the car accident that takes Daniel’s daughter’s life. As Daniel navigates raising his teenage granddaughter (Celeste O’Connor from Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire) and Allison seeks redemption, they discover that friendship, forgiveness, and hope can flourish in unlikely places.
Directed by Emmy nominee Zach Braff (Garden State, Scrubs), the film’s cast includes Emmy nominees Molly Shannon (The Other Two) and Jackie Hoffman (Only Murders in the Building, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery), Nigerian-American Toby Onwumere (Sense8, Empire), and Chinaza Uche (Silo), who was nominated for a BAFTA Scotland Best Actor award as Nathan.
As The Hollywood Reporter says, “Pugh delivers a superb starring performance that serves to accentuate her growing artistic stature and co-star Morgan Freeman turns in his best work in years.”
- Retribution | Stream from Monday, 20 May
Oscar nominee Liam Neeson (Taken) stars as a father whose normal commute becomes a twisted game of life or death, with children strapped in the back of the car, a bomb under his seat, and a mysterious caller giving him increasingly dangerous instructions.
Eswatini-born Tony nominee Noma Dumezweni (The Undoing, Only Murders in the Building, The Little Mermaid) co-stars, along with South African actress Embeth Davidtz (who made her Hollywood debut opposite Neeson in Schindler’s List). Also look out for the likes of Emmy nominee Matthew Modine (Stranger Things) and Jack Champion (Avatar: The Way of Water, Scream VI).
Variety says Retribution is “Speed in a Mercedes Family SUV,” adding that, “At 71, Neeson has lost none of his sullen machismo, and this booby-trapped-car movie whizzes by…”
- Inside | Stream from Thursday, 23 May
Four-time Oscar nominee Willem Dafoe (The Lighthouse, At Eternity’s Gate, Poor Things) stars in this psychological thriller that follows ambitious art thief Nemo into a luxury New York penthouse…where he becomes trapped when the heist goes wrong. Locked inside with nothing but priceless works of art, he must use all his cunning and invention to survive as he starts to lose his grip on reality.
Inside premiered at Berlin International Film Festival 2023, where it was nominated for the Panorama Audience Award. Little White Lies says, “A novel take on the heist film, Inside fosters a surreal, unnerving atmosphere and makes voyeurs of its audience – like spectators in a gallery, murmuring about the meaning of a dead man’s art.
- Fast Charlie | Stream from Monday, 27 May
Fast Charlie stars former James Bond Pierce Brosnan as Charlie Swift, a fixer with a problem: the target he’s whacked is missing his head and the only way Charlie will be paid is if the body can be identified. Enter Marcie Kramer (Emmy nominee Morena Baccarin from Deadpool and Homeland), the victim’s ex-wife and a woman with all the skills Charlie needs.
The film has an 83% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Deadline calling it, “A down-home Southern gangster yarn with a staggering body count.”
Showmax is also bringing back a wide range of classics this month, including:
- Oscar winners Inception, Dunkirk and Interstellar, all from 6 May; and American Sniper (from 20 May)
- Critics Choice’ Best Comedy winner Crazy Rich Asians (from 13 May) and Teen Choice: Comedy winner Miss Congeniality starring Sandra Bullock (from 20 May)
- #1 box office hits like Aquaman with Jason Momoa (from 2 May); Godzilla directed by Gareth Edwards; Rampage starring Dwayne Johnson; and The Meg starring Jason Statham (all from 9 May); Zach Snyder’s Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice and Man of Steel (both 2 May) and 300 (from 16 May)
