The best movies to stream these holidays, from Dune to Top Gun: Maverick, Uncharted to Candyman, Licorice Pizza to House of Gucci

TOP GUN: MAVERICK | Stream from 23 January 2023

After thirty years, Maverick (Oscar nominee Tom Cruise) is still pushing the envelope as a top naval aviator, but must confront ghosts of his past when he leads TOP GUN’s elite graduates on a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those chosen to fly it.

The biggest box office hit of 2022 globally, Top Gun: Maverick is also one of the best reviewed films of the year, with a 96% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and Independent calling it “as thrilling as blockbusters get”; Daily Telegraph hailing it as “unquestionably the best studio action film since 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road”; and Time/Out saying, “You will want to high five someone on the way out.”

Up for the People’s Choice Award for The Movie of 2022, Top Gun: Maverick co-stars Miles Teller (The Offer), Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind, Requiem for a Dream), Val Kilmer (Heat) and Emmy winner Jon Hamm (Mad Men).

DUNE | Stream now

Winner of six Oscars and five BAFTAs, Dune is now streaming on Showmax.

Directed by Oscar nominee Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Blade Runner 2049) from Frank Herbert’s classic bestseller, Dune tells the story of Paul Atreides (Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet). Paul must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people – as conflict grows over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence.

As Lady Jessica Atreides, Rebecca Ferguson (The Greatest Showman) won a Critics Choice Super Award for Best Actress In Science Fiction/Fantasy Movie. Oscar winner Javier Bardem, Emmy winner Zendaya, Oscar nominees Charlotte Rampling and Josh Brolin, Emmy nominees Oscar Isaac and Stellan Skarsgård, and the likes of Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista co-star.

Dune has an 83% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In their five-star review, The Guardian praises Dune as “blockbuster cinema at its dizzying, dazzling best… Dune reminds us what a Hollywood blockbuster can be.”

LICORICE PIZZA | Stream from 9 January 2023

Nominated for three Oscars this year – Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay – Licorice Pizza tells the story of Alana Kane, a 25-year-old photography assistant, and 15-year-old actor Gary Valentine as they navigate first love in the 70s.

Licorice Pizza won a 2022 BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay for 11-time Oscar-nominee, writer, producer and director Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Phantom Thread, Hard Eight). Grammy-nominated singer Alana Haim’s debut film role earned her a BAFTA nomination for Best Actress, with her co-star Cooper Hoffman (son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman) nominated for Best Young Actor at the Critics Choice Awards, where Licorice Pizza won Best Comedy.

Licorice Pizza has a 91% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes and earned widespread critical acclaim for both its director – with Empire Magazine calling Anderson “a master at work” – and its fresh-faced leads, who hold their own alongside a supporting cast of heavy-hitters like Oscar winner Sean Penn, nine-time Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper, and Oscar nominee, Grammy winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Tom Waits.

“There are two courtships unfolding in Licorice Pizza,” says Rolling Stone, “and only one of them is happening on the screen. The other is between us and the movie. Guess who ends up punch-drunk and smitten?”

HOUSE OF GUCCI | Stream from 5 January 2023

Inspired by the shocking true story of the family behind the Italian fashion empire, House of Gucci follows Patrizia Reggiani, an outsider from humble beginnings, who marries into the Gucci family. But her unbridled ambition begins to unravel their legacy and triggers a reckless spiral of betrayal, decadence, revenge, and ultimately murder.

The all-star cast is led by Oscar winner Lady Gaga (A Star is Born) and two-time Oscar nominee Adam Driver (Marriage Story). Oscar winners Al Pacino (The Godfather), Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club), and Jeremy Irons (Munich: The Edge of War) co-star, along with the likes of Oscar nominee Salma Hayek (Frida, Desperado), and Jack Huston (The Irishman, American Hustle, Boardwalk Empire).

Directed by four-time Oscar nominee Ridley Scott (Gladiator), House of Gucci was nominated for British Film of the Year at the BAFTAs, best female actor (Lady Gaga) at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and Critics Choice Awards, and best makeup and hairstyling at the Oscars this year, among other honours.

CANDYMAN | Stream now

Don’t say his name…

For as long as residents can remember, the housing projects of Chicago’s Cabrini Green neighbourhood were terrorised by a word-of-mouth ghost story about a supernatural killer with a hook for a hand, easily summoned by those daring to repeat his name five times into a mirror.

In present day, a decade after the last of the Cabrini towers were torn down, visual artist Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II from Watchmen and Us) and his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright (Teyonah Parris from If Beale Street Could Talk and The Photograph), move into a luxury loft condo in Cabrini, now gentrified beyond recognition. Anxious to maintain his status in the Chicago art world, Anthony begins to explore the true story behind Candyman in his paintings, unknowingly unleashing a terrifying new wave of violence.

Yahya was named Best Actor in a Horror Movie at the 2022 Critics Choice Super Awards, where Candyman was also up for Best Horror Movie. Yahya also won at the 2022 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, Nia daCosta was named one of Palm Springs International Film Festivals’ Directors to Watch, and the horror was up for BET and Black Reel Awards, among other honours.

A number one box office hit, Candyman was the sixth best-reviewed horror film of 2021 on Rotten Tomatoes, with an 84% critics’ rating.

UNCHARTED  | Stream now

The 11th-biggest box office hit of 2022 so far, Uncharted introduces audiences to street-smart Nathan Drake (People’s Choice winner Tom Holland, aka Spider-Man) and showcases his first treasure-hunting adventure with wisecracking partner Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Oscar nominee Mark Wahlberg).

Inspired by the acclaimed video game series, this action-adventure epic spans the globe and follows Nate and Sully as they embark on the dangerous pursuit of “the greatest treasure never found” while also tracking clues that may lead to Nate’s long-lost brother.

Oscar nominee Antonio Banderas and Sophia Ali (Dr Dahlia Qadri in Grey’s Anatomy) co-star.

RESPECT | Stream from 22 December 2022

South African Liesl Tommy (Mrs. Fletcher, The Walking Dead, Jessica Jones) directs Respect, a music biopic about the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson plays the lead role – after being recommended by Aretha herself after she saw Dreamgirls.

Respect was up for Drama Movie of 2021 at the People’s Choice Awards, where Hudson was up for Favourite Female Movie Star. The soundtrack was also Grammy nominated. Among many, many other accolades, Tommy was nominated as Breakthrough Creative at the 2022 Image Awards, while fellow South African Avril Beukes (Peabody winner David Makes Man, Queen Sugar, Yesterday) was up for Best Editor at the 2022 Black Reel Awards.

The cast includes Oscar winner Forest Whitaker (Godfather of Harlem), Emmy winners Audra McDonald (The Good Fight, The Gilded Age) and Tate Donovan (Argo, Rocketman), BET Comedy Award winner Marlon Wayans (White Chicks), Critics Choice nominee Marc Maron (GLOW), and nine-time Grammy winner Mary J Blige.

Observer says, “Jennifer Hudson as Aretha is the whole deal,” while The Hollywood Reporter calls Respect, “An intimate gift of love, rich in complexity, spirituality, Black pride and feminist grit.”

KIMI | Stream from 9 December 2022

Multi-award winner Zoë Kravitz (Big Little Lies) was nominated for a 2022 Black Reel Award for Outstanding Actress as Angela Childs, an agoraphobic Seattle tech worker who uncovers evidence of a crime.

Directed by Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh (Sex, Lies and Videotape), Kimi was up for Best Streaming Movie at the 2022 Hollywood Critics Associaton Television Awards and has a 92% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

In their five-star review, Telegraph wrote, “Zoë Kravitz is magnificent in Steven Soderbergh’s techno-thriller about the dangers of letting technology’s tentacles wrap around our lives… Stylish, gripping and brisk.”

MOONFALL | Stream from 12 December 2022

From “the master of disaster” Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, 2012, Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow) comes Moonfall, a sci-fi disaster romp that sees the moon hurtling on a collision course toward Earth after a mysterious force knocks it out of orbit.

Moonfall stars Oscar winner Halle Berry (John Wick 3, Bruised, Monster’s Ball), Emmy nominee Patrick Wilson (The Conjuring) and John Bradley (Game of Thrones’ Samwell Tarly). The cast also includes the likes of Black Reel Award winner Michael Peña (Ant-Man’s Luis), Charlie Plummer (Looking for Alaska), Emmy winner Donald Sutherland (The Hunger Games’ President Snow) and Nigerian-American actor Eme Ikwuakor (Counterpart, Inhumans).

New York Magazine/Vulture calls it “unapologetically absurd and so very fun,” while Associated Press says, “Emmerich’s latest is an absolutely bananas piece of big-budget filmmaking, a sci-fi-, action- and disaster-thriller that gets more crazy by the minute. It makes Independence Day look like Little Women.”

THE ADDAMS FAMILY 2  | Stream from 2 January 2023

Everyone’s favourite spooky family is back in The Addams Family 2, which finds Morticia (Oscar winner Charlize Theron) and Gomez (Emmy nominee Oscar Isaac) distraught that their children are growing up, skipping family dinners, and are totally consumed with “scream time.”

To reclaim their bond, they decide to cram Wednesday (Critics Choice nominee Chloë Grace Moretz), Pugsley (Javon Walton from Euphoria), Uncle Fester (Emmy nominee Nick Kroll) and the crew into their haunted camper for one last marvellously miserable family road trip. Their adventure across America to see Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon and of course, Death Valley, takes them out of their element and into hilarious run-ins with their iconic cousin, It (Emmy winner Snoop Dogg), as well as many new kooky characters. What could possibly go wrong?

As Morticia, Theron was nominated for a Kids’ Choice Award for Favourite Voice From An Animated Movie.

TOGETHER | Stream from 30 January

In Together, multi-award winners James McAvoy (Split, X-Men) and Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe) play a husband and wife whose relationship is tested by the COVID-19 lockdown.

Co-directed by three-time Oscar nominee Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot) and written by BAFTA winner Dennis Kelly (Utopia), Together won the 2022 BAFTA for Single Drama, with McAvoy taking home a BAFTA Scotland Award for Best Actor – Television.

The Observer calls it “an hour and a half of cinematic fury… at once suspenseful, provocative, funny and heartbreaking.”

GET OUT | Stream from 26 January

Just named one of the top 100 films of all time in Sight & Sound’s once-a-decade critics’ poll, Get Out follows a young African-American who visits his white girlfriend’s parents for the weekend, where his simmering uneasiness about their reception of him reaches a boiling point.

For Get Out, Jordan Peele became the first African American to win the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, as well as the first African American to be nominated for producing, writing and directing in the same year. Get Out went on to win over 150 awards internationally.

As Chris Washington, Daniel Kaluuya was nominated for an Oscar and BAFTA for Best Actor, with Lil Rel Howery (Judas and the Black Messiah) taking home the MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance as Rod. Critics Choice nominee Allison Williams (Girls), Oscar nominees Catherine Keener (Being John Malkovich) and LaKeith Stanfeild (Judas and the Black Messiah), Emmy winner Bradley Whitford (The Handmaid’s Tale), Emmy nominee Stephen Root (Barry), and Critics Choice Super nominee Caleb Landry Jones (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) co-star.

Get Out has a 98% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus calls it “​​funny, scary and thought-provoking.”

Also look out for Peele’s similarly acclaimed horror Us, starring Lupita Nyong’o, back on Showmax from 26 January 2023.

MOONSHOT  | Stream now

Moonshot follows Walt (People’s Choice winner Cole Sprouse from Riverdale) and Sophie (Teen Choice nominee Lana Condor from To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before) as they join forces in order to be reunited with their significant others – a journey that winds up taking them both wildly and unexpectedly off course.

A romantic comedy with a twist, Moonshot also stars Emmy nominee Zach Braff (Scrubs), Lukas Gage (The White Lotus), and Mason Gooding (Scream).

The New York Times says: “Condor is note-perfect, and Winterbauer directs with a light, playful touch, giving the movie an energy that’s nimble and vibrantly sexy.”

THE WOLF OF SNOW HOLLOW | Stream now

In The Wolf of Snow Hollow, terror grips a small mountain town as bodies are discovered after each full moon. Losing sleep, raising a teenage daughter, and caring for his ailing father, officer Marshall struggles to remind himself there’s no such thing as werewolves.

The film has an 89% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with nominations for two 2021 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards – Best Limited Release Film and Best Lead Performance for Sundance and SXSW winner Jim Cummings (who also wrote and directed the film), as well as a Fright Meter Award for the late Oscar-nominated Robert Forster (The Descendants, Jackie Brown). The cast also includes Critics Choice nominee Jimmy Tatro (American Vandal) and Emmy nominee Riki Lindhome (Wednesday, Knives Out).

TOGETHER TOGETHER | Stream from 26 December 2022

In Together Together, a young loner becomes the surrogate for a single man in his 40s, but the two strangers soon realise this unexpected relationship will challenge their perceptions of connection, boundaries and the particulars of love. Teen Choice winner Ed Helms (The Hangover, The Office) and comedian Patti Harrison (Shrill, I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson) co-star.

The award-winning Together Together has a 91% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes. As The New York Times says, “Sweet, sensitive and surprisingly insightful, Nikole Beckwith’s Together Together fashions the signposts of the romantic comedy – the meet-cute, the misunderstanding, the mutual acceptance – into a wry examination of a very different relationship.”

QUEEN BEES | Stream from 15 December 2022

In Queen Bees, fiercely independent senior Helen temporarily moves into a nearby retirement community, where she encounters lusty widows, cutthroat bridge tournaments and a hotbed of bullying “mean girls.”

Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn (Requiem for a Dream) leads the cast, alongside the likes of Oscar nominees Ann-Margret (Grumpy Old Men) and the late James Caan (The Godfather) as well as Emmy winners Jane Curtin (3rd Rock From The Sun), Loretta Devine (Grey’s Anatomy), Christopher Lloyd (Back To The Future), and Elizabeth Mitchell (Lost).

Helmed by Emmy-winning Friends director Michael Lembeck, Queen Bees was nominated for the 2022 AARP Movies for Grownups Best Buddy Picture Award, as well as the 2022 Humanitas Prize.

DOWNTON ABBEY: THE MOVIE | Stream from 23 January 2023

Downton Abbey, the movie, continues the story of the beloved, multi-award-winning historical drama series as the Crawleys and their intrepid staff prepare for the most important moment of their lives: a royal visit from the king and queen of England. But the auspicious occasion soon unleashes scandal, romance and intrigue, leaving the future of Downton hanging in the balance.

Written by series creator and Oscar winner Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park), and directed by Emmy nominee Michael Engler (The Gilded Age), the film sees the return of much of the original cast, including the likes of Emmy nominees Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery and Jim Carter, Oscar nominee Imelda Staunton and Oscar winner Maggie Smith, with BAFTA nominee Geraldine James and Simon Jones joining the cast as Queen Mary and King George V.

Nominated for two Critics Choice Awards, the film has an 84% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Times (UK) calling it “utterly, ineffably, and often fabulously, Downton.”

CHRISTMAS IS CANCELLED  | Stream from 19 December 2022

Showmax is counting down the days to Christmas, advent calendar style, with a new festive film every day until Santa comes.

Alongside classics like How The Grinch Stole Christmas and Stick Man, look out for Christmas is Cancelled, starring Hayley Orrantia (The Goldbergs), Dermot Mulroney (August, Osage County and My Best Friend’s Wedding), and Janel Parrish (Pretty Little Liars, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before).

When 29-year-old Emma finds out that her widowed, 52-year-old dad has been dating her high school nemesis, she freaks out and embarks on a hilarious, no-holds-barred mission to break them up during their annual family Christmas festivities.

To see everything on Showmax in December 2022, click here.