The five best new international movies and docs coming to Showmax this June

Here’s a list of international movies and documentaries you can catch up on from the comfort of your couch on Showmax this month of June.

THE OUTPOST | Stream from 21 June

The Outpost is Rotten Tomatoes’ second-best-reviewed Action and Adventure film of 2020, with a 93% critics rating. As the critics consensus says, “Told with gripping realism, The Outpost is a thrilling technical feat and a worthy tribute to military heroes.”

As members of a small team of American soldiers outnumbered by the Taliban in Afghanistan, Teen Choice Award winners Orlando Bloom (The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean) and Clint Eastwood’s son, Scott Eastwood (Suicide Squad, Fast and Furious 8, Pacific Rim: Uprising) co-star with Caleb Landry Jones (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri).

The Outpost was nominated as Best Action Movie at the 2021 Critics Choice Super Awards, where Landry Jones was also nominated as Best Actor: Action.

RICHARD JEWELL | First on Showmax | Stream from 3 June 2020

Named one of the American Film Institute’s Movies of the Year in 2020, Richard Jewell is the true story of the security guard who became a hero after finding the device at the 1996 Atlanta bombing, but then became the FBI’s number one suspect, vilified by press and public alike, his life ripped apart. 

Paul Walter Hauser won the National Board of Review’s Breakthrough Performance Award as the title character, with Kathy Bates (American Horror Story) nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe as his mother, and Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) winning Best Supporting Actor at the Faro Island Film Festival as his lawyer. Golden Globe winner Jon Hamm (Mad Men, Good Omens, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and Teen Choice nominee Olivia Wilde (House M.D., TRON: Legacy) co-star. 

Directed by four-time Oscar winner Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby, Unforgiven), Richard Jewell was hailed as “unforgettable” by The Observer. 

THE HIGH NOTE | Stream from 17 June

2020 music drama The High Note sees a superstar singer and her overworked personal assistant presented with a choice that could alter the course of their respective careers. 

The High Note stars Golden Globe winners Dakota Johnson (The Social Network, and the Fifty Shades movies) and Tracee Ellis Ross (Black-ish, Girlfriends), who was nominated for a 2020 People’s Choice Award and a Black Reel Award for her role as R&B singer and mega-star Grace Davis. BAFTA nominee Kelvin Harrison Jr. (Waves, The Trial of the Chicago 7), Critics Choice nominee Bill Pullman (The Sinner, Independence Day), rapper Ice Cube and Emmy-winning comedian Eddie Izzard co-star.

FilmWeek calls it, “an enchanting and escapist summer movie … with so much love of music in its soul.”

OUR TOWNS | First on Showmax | Stream now 

Amidst the turbulence and division of recent years in America’s history, HBO’s documentary feature Our Towns finds a different story: the tale of eight towns across the US where the rise of civic and economic reinvention is transforming communities. 

Presented by journalists James and Deborah Fallows, based on their bestselling book Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America, this panoramic yet intimate view of small towns across the United States has an 88% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Washington Post saying, “As an exercise in sincerity, fellowship and earnest inquiry, it might be the most subversive movie in circulation right now.” Our Towns is directed by Oscar nominees Steven Ascher and Jeanne Jordan (So Much So Fast, Troublesome Creek: A Midwestern).

THE DAY SPORTS STOOD STILL | First on Showmax | Stream now

The HBO documentary film The Day Sports Stood Still tells the story of the unprecedented sports shutdown in March of 2020 and the events that followed. Emmy-winning director Antoine Fuqua (What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali, Training Day) chronicles the abrupt stoppage due to Covid-19, how top athletes made their voices heard in the cultural and political reckoning on racial injustice in America, and the complex return to competition as the sports world tries to find its new normal. ‌

The documentary captures a broad swath of voices and experiences, exploring how the pandemic pressed pause on their careers, but also changed their lives in dramatic and surprising ways. The film features everyone from an NFL Super Bowl champion who volunteers in the ER, to a defending WNBA champ who decided to sit out the 2020 season to focus on protesting racial injustice. ‌