Here are the must-watch movies to stream on Showmax this July
Don’t Worry Darling, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Fall, Violent Night, Halloween Ends, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile & more
DON’T WORRY DARLING | Stream from 31 July
Oscar nominee Florence Pugh (Marvel’s Yelena and Amy in Little Women) and Grammy winner Harry Styles (Dunkirk, Eternals) star in Don’t Worry Darling as Alice and Jack, a picture-perfect 1950s couple living in an idyllic company town. But their utopia may not be all it seems, and Alice soon begins to worry that her husband’s glamorous company could be hiding disturbing secrets.
The psychological thriller is directed by Babylon and House actress Olivia Wilde, following the critical success of her feature directorial debut Booksmart, which is also on Showmax. London Evening Standard says, “Wilde (who dazzles in a supporting role) is a misunderstood genius and her sly erotic thriller is one of the best films of the year.”
Both Pugh and Styles were nominated at the 2023 MTV Movie Awards and the People’s Choice Awards, where the film won Drama Movie of 2022.
PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH | Stream from 24 July
When Puss in Boots discovers that his passion for adventure has taken its toll and he has burned through eight of his nine lives, he sets out on an epic journey to restore them in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.
Nominated for a 2023 Oscar (plus a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, and a Critics Choice Award) for Best Animated Feature Film, the DreamWorks animated adventure is the sixth instalment in the beloved Shrek franchise and the long-awaited sequel to the 2011 spin-off movie, Puss in Boots. AV Club calls it, “easily the best film in the Shrek franchise.”
Antonio Banderas (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Spy Kids, The Mask of Zorro) reprises his role as the swashbuckling Puss alongside fellow Oscar nominee Salma Hayek (Eternals, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard), who was nominated for a 2023 Kids’ Choice Award for voicing Kitty Softpaws, and Golden Globe nominee Wagner Moura (Shining Girls, Narcos), who was nominated for an Annie Award for voicing the Wolf.
Directed by Oscar nominee Joel Crawford (The Croods: A New Age, Trolls Holiday), The Last Wish was the 10th biggest box office hit of 2022 and has a 95% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus says, “The smart, sweet, and funny Puss in Boots: The Last Wish proves some franchises only get better with age.”
FALL | Stream now
Fall follows best friends Becky (Grace Caroline Currey Shazam! Fury of the Gods) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner Halloween, Beautiful Disaster), who live for conquering fears and pushing limits. But when they climb 2 000 feet to the top of a remote, abandoned TV tower, they find themselves stranded with no way down.
Now Becky and Hunter’s expert climbing skills will be put to the ultimate test as they desperately fight to survive the elements, a lack of supplies, and vertigo-inducing heights in this unrelentingly tense thriller co-starring Critics Choice Award winner Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Walking Dead) and Mason Gooding (Booksmart, Scream).
In their four star review, Empire Magazine says, “A white-knuckle disaster in the sky, Fall does exactly and only what it says on the tin. Do look down!”
HALLOWEEN ENDS | Stream now
Halloween Ends brings one of the all-time highest-grossing horror franchise to its epic, terrifying conclusion as Laurie Strode faces off for the last time against the embodiment of evil, Michael Myers.
Four years after the events of 2021’s Halloween Kills, Laurie Strode (2023 Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis from Everything Everywhere All at Once) is working to liberate herself from fear and rage and embrace life. But when a young man, Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell from The Hardy Boys and Virgin River), is accused of killing a boy he was babysitting, it ignites a cascade of violence and terror that will force Laurie to finally confront the evil she can’t control, once and for all.
Halloween Ends co-stars Fangoria Chainsaw Award nominee Will Patton (Silo) as Officer Frank Hawkins, MTV Movie + TV Award Best Villain nominee James Jude Courtney as The Shape, and MTV Most Frightened Performance nominee Kyle Richards as Lindsey Wallace.
Executive produced by franchise co-creator John Carpenter, Halloween Ends is directed by SXSW and Sundance winner David Gordon Green (The Righteous Gemstones, Mythic Quest, and the upcoming reboots of The Exorcist and Hellraiser), who co-writes with the likes of Danny McBride (The Righteous Gemstones), with triple Oscar nominee Jason Blum (Get Out) among the producers.
Halloween Ends picked up two nominations at the People’s Choice Awards: for The Drama Movie of 2022 and Drama Movie Star (for Curtis).
Also watch Halloween, up for Best Sci-Fi/Horror at the 2019 Critics Choice Awards, on Showmax.
VIOLENT NIGHT | Stream now
Just in time for Christmas in July comes Violent Night, a coal-dark action-comedy starring Emmy nominee David Harbour (Stranger Things, Black Widow) as a Nick who’s no saint when a crew of ambitious hostage takers make his naughty list on Christmas Eve.
London Evening Standard says, “David Harbour’s slick new action movie combines slaughter and sleighbells. It’s brazenly amoral and outrageously sappy… Thanks to the Stranger Things star, it’s also a blast.”
Helmed by Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola (Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters) and produced by the makers of John Wick, Bullet Train and Deadpool 2, Violent Night also stars Emmy winner John Leguizamo (The Menu, John Wick), Emmy nominee Beverly D’Angelo (True Lies, American History X), Teen Choice winner Cam Gigandet (Twilight), and Edi Patterson (Judy Gemstone in The Righteous Gemstones).
LYLE, LYLE, CROCODILE | Stream now
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile centres on a young boy named Josh (Winslow Fegley from Timmy Failure), who struggles to adjust and make friends after his family moves to New York City. All of that changes when he discovers Lyle – a singing crocodile (voiced by Grammy-nominated pop star Shawn Mendes) who loves baths, caviar and great music, and his charismatic owner, Hector P. Valenti, played by Oscar winner Javier Bardem (Dune’s Stilgar and the voice of The Little Mermaid’s King Triton).
Based on the best-selling children’s story by Bernard Waber, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile is written by Annie Award winner Will Davies (How to Train Your Dragon, Puss in Boots), with original songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (the Oscar-winning duo behind The Greatest Showman, La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen).
Recommending the film for ages 6+, Common Sense Media sums up the movie as, “a story about found family and finding your joy, even when things seem overwhelming,” while RogerEbert.com calls it, “A warm-hearted family film with great musical numbers that will make another generation of kids hopefully search the attic on the chance that they might find a singing crocodile.”
BANDIT | Stream now
Based on a true story, the crime comedy-drama Bandit stars 10-time Teen Choice nominee Josh Duhamel (The Thing About Pam, Shotgun Wedding, Transformers) as Gilbert Galvan Jr. (aka The Flying Bandit), a charming career criminal who went on a record-breaking spree of 59 bank heists across Canada with an increasingly frustrated police task force on his tail.
Elisha Cuthbert (24), Screen Actors Guild nominee Nestor Carbonell (The Morning Show) and Oscar winner Mel Gibson (Braveheart) also feature but Duhamel steals the show, with Uproxx saying, “Duhamel has never been better.”
Bandit won a 2023 Canadian Sync Award for its soundtrack, which features the likes of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Culture Club.
THE SWEARING JAR | Stream now
The Swearing Jar tells Carey’s story: a musician and teacher who throws a birthday concert for her husband, which plunges her into the past. Through romance, music and memory, we follow the story of Carey and Simon’s relationship, the birth of their child, and the lie that threatens to f*&k it all up!
Nominated for Casting Society of America and Writers Guild of Canada awards already this year, The Swearing Jar stars Adelaide Clemens (Rectify, Under The Banner of Heaven), Screen Actors Guild nominee Patrick J. Adams (Mike Ross in Suits), and Douglas Smith (Big Little Lies, Big Love), as well as Oscar nominee Kathleen Turner (The Kominsky Method).
An official selection at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, the Canadian romcom has a 94% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with The Globe and Mail calling it “a movie you didn’t expect… equally thoughtful and full of feeling.”
THE BETA TEST | Stream now
Multi-award-winner Jim Cummings (Thunder Road, The Wolf of Wolf Hollow) co-directs, co-writes and co-stars in The Beta Test as a Hollywood agent whose life unravels when he accepts an anonymous invitation to a no-strings-attached sexual encounter weeks before his wedding.
An official selection at Tribeca, Berlin and Fantastic Fest, The Beta Test has a 92% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus says, “A darkly amusing thriller that discomfits as it entertains, The Beta Test satirizes Hollywood with savage flair.”
MURU | Stream from 24 July
Inspired by actual events, Muru is the story of a local Police Sergeant ‘Taffy’ Tāwharau, who must choose between duty to his badge and his people when the New Zealand government invokes antiterrorism powers to launch an armed raid on Taffy’s remote Urewera community on a school day.
Multi-award-winner Cliff Curtis (Avatar: The Way of Water and Whale Rider) stars as Taffy, opposite the likes of Manu Bennett (Spartacus, The Hobbit trilogy) and Jay Ryan (It: Chapter Two, Top of the Lake).
An official selection at Toronto and Busan last year, Muru has a 92% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Stuff praising it as “absolutely bloody brilliant… a film that ticks every box as a political thriller, as an occasional action movie and as a drama of violence unfolding in a small town.”
Muru won the UNESCO Award at last year’s Asia Pacific Screen Awards.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE…
This is just a taster of the films coming to Showmax this month: also look for sci-fi classics like the Oscar-winning Blade Runner 2049 (from 24 July) and the Oscar-nominated District 9 (from 20 July).
EVERYTHING ON SHOWMAX IN JULY 2023
To see everything on Showmax in July 2023, including a new season of Bel-Air and five seasons of Yellowstone, click here.
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