A slew of eye-popping international movies have found their way to streaming… these titles are now available to watch via Showmax.
The Batman
People’s Choice winner Robert Pattinson (Tenet, The Twilight Saga) stars in The Batman, IMDb’s Top Movie of 2022. When a sadistic serial killer begins assassinating key political figures in Gotham, the iconic comic book hero is forced to investigate the city’s hidden corruption – and question his family’s involvement.
The Batman received the most nominations overall heading into last week’s Critics Choice Super Awards, where it won Best Superhero Movie, with Colin Farrell defeating Pattinson and co-star Paul Dano for Best Actor in the genre. Dano was also nominated for Best Villain, and Zo Kravitz was nominated for Best Actress in a Superhero Movie.
This year, the box office hit has already been nominated for three Oscars, three Critics Choice Awards, four BAFTAs, and a Grammy. It was also named Best Comic Book Movie at Rotten Tomatoes’ Golden Tomato Awards, which recognize the best reviewed films of the previous year.
Look for Jeffrey Wright, who was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor at the 2023 Black Reel Awards, as well as South African stuntman Scott Kirkbride (who has worked on Fast & Furious 9, Maze Runner: The Death Cure, and Tomb Raider), who was one of Pattinson’s stunt doubles.
You can also watch Christopher Nolan’s classic Batman trilogy, starring Christian Bale: Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises, as well as Zack Snyder’s Justice League, starring Ben Affleck as Batman, on Showmax. The Dark Knight is IMDb’s third highest-rated movie of all time.
Smile
Smile, nominated for Best Horror at the 2023 Critics Choice Super Awards, follows Dr Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon from Mare of Easttown), a therapist who is traumatized by a patient’s strange death. Rose must confront her troubling past in order to survive and escape her horrifying new reality as terrifying events begin to take over her life.
Jessie T Usher (A-Train in The Boys), Kal Penn (Kumar in Harold & Kumar), Black Reel winner Rob Morgan (Chief Powell in Stranger Things), and Emmy nominee Robin Weigert star in the psychological horror (Calamity Jane in Deadwood).
Smile, which was the 20th biggest box office hit worldwide last year, drew widespread praise with an 80% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and stars both Bacon and debut feature director Parker Finn
Bullet Train
In the action comedy Bullet Train, starring Oscar winner Brad Pitt (Babylon, Fight Club) as Ladybug, an unlucky assassin determined to do his job peacefully after one too many jobs gone wrong, the end of the line is only the beginning. Fate, on the other hand, has other plans for Ladybug, as his latest mission places him on a collision course with lethal adversaries aboard the world’s fastest train.
Bullet Train was nominated for Best Action Movie at the 2023 Critics Choice Super Awards, where Pitt was nominated for Best Actor and Emmy nominee Joey King (The Kissing Booth, The Act) was nominated for Best Villain and Best Actress in the genre. Bullet Train, the 18th most popular film of 2022, was nominated for two People’s Choice Awards: The Movie of 2022, and The Female Movie Star of 2022 for King. Vox calls the film “pure escapism at its finest”.
The film’s all-star cast also includes Oscar winner Sandra Bullock (Ocean’s Eight, Speed), Oscar nominees Brian Tyree Henry (Causeway, Atlanta) and Michael Shannon (Nocturnal Animals, Elvis & Nixon), BAFTA nominee Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass, Nocturnal Animals), and Grammy Award-winning rapper Benito A Martnez Ocasio (aka Bad Bunny).
The Matrix Resurrections
The Matrix Resurrections, the long-awaited fourth installment in the iconic Oscar-winning The Matrix film franchise, picks up 60 years after the events of The Matrix Revolutions. Neo is working as a video game developer when he is approached by a group of rebels who want him to face a new version of the Matrix and a new enemy who holds Trinity captive.
Keanu Reeves, Jada Pinkett Smith and Carrie-Anne Moss return as Neo, Niobe and Trinity respectively, with Emmy-winner Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Watchmen) replacing Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus, and Emmy nominee Jonathan Groff (Mindhunter, Hamilton) taking over as Agent Smith.
Directed by original franchise co-director Lana Wachowski, who co-wrote the screenplay with acclaimed authors David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas) and Aleksandar Hemon (The Lazarus Project), The Matrix Resurrections also features the likes of former Miss World Priyanka Chopra Jonas (Quantico), five-time Emmy winner Neil Patrick Harris, BAFTA nominee Jessica Henwick (Glass Onion), Emmy nominee Christina Ricci (Yellowjackets), Nigerian-American actor Toby Onwumere (Empire, Sense8) and Kalasha-winning Kenyan actor Mumbi Maina (Sense8).
“It is a Matrix movie that could only have come with twenty-plus years of hindsight – and insight,” says Rolling Stone, adding, “I was moved, impressed – far more than I expected to be. The emotional engineering of The Matrix Resurrections is exacting and rapturous.”