33 of the best South African series and movies on Showmax and Netflix

These rom-coms, stand-up specials, dramas, documentaries and horror movies pay homage to our South African heritage.

Tumi Morake dishes out hot takes and fiery commentary about the concept of identity, politics, family life, weaves, and more in this stand-up special.

Watch rising star Tsitsi Chiumya’s first-ever solo show. He first caught our attention on Nationwild with Trevor Noah with his awkward but relatable stories about the realities of people from different backgrounds coexisting.

Daily Show host Trevor Noah touches on tacos, runaway snakes, camping, racism immunity and lessons he learned from his mother in this comedy special.

Pack your padkos! Skhumba and six of his comedian friends, including Tumi Morake, Celeste Ntuli, Schalk Bezuidenhout and more, go back to their roots, travelling to their hometowns, from Kempton Park to Empangeni and everywhere in between, in the ultimate South African road trip.

While her free-living bestie urges her to embrace singlehood, a social media expert craving commitment can’t stop following the life of a former love.

Zinhle is a hard-working modern woman with traditional values. She knows exactly what she wants and believes she knows what the next best step is for her: getting married. Starring Thando Thabethe and more top SA talent.

Baby Mamas is a comedy drama revolving around the daily lives, loves and drama of four professional women who are all in different stages of motherhood.

The fresh, fun and sexy drama series returns, following three friends living in bustling Johannesburg as they deal with the challenges of balancing motherhood, marriage and relationships with their careers.

After inheriting his estranged father’s countryside home, a man hires a mysterious farm hand with a demonic secret that draws his family closer to death.

What is supposed to be the best holiday of their lives turns to horror as a group of teenagers is picked off one by one in a small coastal village.

A teenager tries to cope with the loss of her twin sister by running away to boarding school. There, she finds a monster not too different from the one she was escaping – but way more powerful. Will she keep running, or defeat it?

At Parkhurst College, a prestigious inner-city school for Cape Town’s elite scholars and academic overachievers, we’ll follow the exploits of the intelligent, proactive and impulsive 16- year-old Puleng Khumalo, as she engineers her transfer to the school to investigate the 17-year- old cold case of her abducted-at-birth older sister she’s never met.

Gomora is a story about inequality. It’s about the rich and the poor and how fine the line between the two can be. It follows the lives of two families and how their worlds collide.

The mysterious death of a schoolgirl at an elite boarding school sets off a desperate hunt for the truth. It seems everyone has something to hide in this gripping South African drama filmed in the Midlands.

The action-packed series follows Queen Sono, the highly trained top spy in a South African agency whose purpose is to better the lives of African citizens. While taking on her most dangerous mission yet, she must also face changing relationships in her personal life. 

Notorious for its cliffhangers, plot twists and emotional rollercoasters, Lockdown takes viewers into the cells and offices of Thabazimbi Women’s Correctional Facility, where survival is the order of the day.

A young boy from Johannesburg arrives in KwaZulu-Natal and begins to read letters for villagers — then falls in love with one of the recipients.

To support the swimming aspirations of his son, an estranged father attempts to restore a public pool but meets resistance from the community.

Lefa and Papi have just finished high school and are about to embark on the biggest hustle of their lives. On New Year’s Eve, they try to pull off a deal, dodge a gangster, get the girl and stay alive, in this Kagiso Lediga-powered crime comedy.

In the Cape Flats, a newly released ex-con exacts revenge and triggers a gang war, sending ripples through the life of a 13-year old chess prodigy. 

All the stops are pulled for this musical sensation. Jan has his eye on the life-loving Liefling, but fate, jealous exes and many songs all conspire to keep them apart.

South African sweethearts Ivan Botha and Donna-Lee Roberts are back with Vir Altyd, the Afrikaans romantic comedy you’ve been looking for. Two childhood friends explore what it means to find the one.

A couple whose marriage has gone stale hit on an innovative solution: Swaaibraai, an exclusive app for swingers.

Amid poverty and struggle, a hardened pantsula dance leader enters a dark space and searches for redemption and salvation in his community. 

During the 1955 forced evictions, Noziziwe, an aspiring preacher who fails to be ordained as a pastor because she’s a woman, becomes a symbol of resistance and an anchor for the oppressed.

Cassim is a young Muslim man who works in his father’s fabric shop in Johannesburg. Cassim wants to be a stand-up comedian, which his father disapproves of. When he gets a gig at a local bar, he has to find a way of keeping it a secret.

Enemies turned friends Jennifer Kandasamy and Shanti Naidoo are thrilled that their children are getting married. But as the big day draws closer, things start to fall apart.

Intersexions is an award-winning television series that shows how the inter-relationships between sexual partners enable HIV to spread insidiously across society.

White Wedding is a South African romantic comedy. It tells the story of a road trip adventure embarked by a groom and his best friend as they race across South Africa to attend a wedding.

Jacob is a wealthy CEO with a successful spouse, a family and expensive recreational habits. He believes life will always be this easy … until he receives a blessing.

A petty crook (Rapulana Seiphemo) builds a criminal empire in Johannesburg, but an escalating war with a drug lord and police pressure threaten to shut him down.

A filmmaker forges an unusual friendship with an octopus living in a South African kelp forest, learning as the animal shares the mysteries of her world.

Explorer Riaan Manser was the first person to kayak the whole way round Madagascar, facing rough seas, cyclones, extreme loneliness and other perils on his 11-month journey.

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