Looking for new movies to stream this October? Here are our top blockbusters to watch on Showmax.

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOUR AMONG THIEVES | Stream now

Get out the popcorn for the 19th biggest box office hit of 2023 so far! Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves brings the tabletop role-playing game to life with a charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers on an epic quest. 

Directed and co-written by the BAFTA-nominated team of John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (Spider-Man: Homecoming), Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves has a 91% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with IndieWire predicting, “The heartfelt story, enchanting characters, dazzling visual effects, and fun-filled nature will [make it] a treasured classic.”

Emmy nominee Chris Pine (Wonder Woman’s Steve Trevor, and Kirk in the Star Trek movies) leads the cast as thieving bard Edgin Darvis. Also look out for six-time Teen Choice nominee Michelle Rodriguez (Letty in the Fast & Furious movies), Black Reel nominee Justice Smith (Tim in Pokémon: Detective Pikachu), MTV Movie Award winner Sophia Lillis (Sydney in I Am Not Okay With This, Beverly in It), Emmy nominee Regé-Jean Page (Simon Basset in Bridgerton) and BAFTA winner Hugh Grant (the dastardly Phoenix Buchanan in Paddington 2), not to mention a cameo from nine-time Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper (the voice of Rocket in the Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers movies).

COCAINE BEAR | Stream now

Inspired by the true story of a drug runner’s plane crash, missing cocaine, and the black bear that ate it, Cocaine Bear finds an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens converging on a Georgia forest where a 230-kilogram apex predator has ingested a staggering amount of cocaine and gone on a coke-fueled rampage for blow … and blood. 

Directed by Emmy-nominated actor and filmmaker Elizabeth Banks (Charlie’s Angels, Pitch Perfect 2) and produced by Oscar winners Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, The Lego Movie), Cocaine Bear was nominated for two 2023 MTV Movie Awards – Most Frightened Performance for Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Mitchell in Modern Family) and Best Villain… for The Bear. Chicago Sun-Times calls it a “wildly entertaining and darkly hilarious B-movie blood-fest.” It’s the 36th biggest box office hit globally in 2023 so far. 

Also look out for the likes of Emmy winners Margo Martindale (The Americans, Mrs. America), Matthew Rhys (Perry Mason, The Americans) and the late Ray Liotta (The Many Saints of Newark, GoodFellas), to whom the film is dedicated, as well as Emmy nominee Keri Russell (The Americans, The Diplomat), Black Reel nominees Isiah Whitlock Jr. (BlacKkKlansman, Da 5 Bloods) and O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Straight Outta Compton, Obi-Wan Kenobi), Teen Choice nominee Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story), and Kristofer Hivju (Tormund Giantsbane in Game of Thrones).

PLANE | Stream now

Plane stars MTV Movie Award winner Gerard Butler (Last Seen Alive, Greenland, Angel Has Fallen, 300) as pilot Brodie Torrance, who is forced to make a risky emergency landing on a war-torn island during a terrible storm. But surviving the landing was just the beginning: when they encounter dangerous rebels, the only passenger Torrance can count on for help is Louis Gaspare, a fugitive being extradited by the FBI.

Critics Choice and Black Reel nominee Mike Colter (Marvel’s Luke Cage, Lemond Bishop in The Good Wife) co-stars as Gaspare. Also look out for Nigerian Remi Adeleke, a real-life Navy SEAL. 

The 42nd highest grossing movie of this year so far, Financial Times calls Plane, “an adrenaline-pumping banger”; The Ringer says, “They just don’t make ‘em like this anymore”; and Time Out calls it, “Brisk, easy, brutish. It has explosions, punch-ups, shoot-outs and more than one bit where someone gets smacked in the face with a big hammer. How much more could you reasonably ask? It’s a blast.”

Colter is already lined up to star in the equally gloriously named sequel, called … wait for it … Ship.

LOVE TO LOVE YOU, DONNA SUMMER | Stream now

Love to Love You, Donna Summer is a deeply personal portrait of the Queen of Disco. The singer and songwriter of a string of anthemic hits like “Hot stuff”, “I Feel Love”, and “She Works Hard For the Money”, Donna Summer was an Oscar and five-time Grammy Award winner whose voice legendary producer Quincy Jones has called, “the heartbeat and soundtrack of a generation”. She was also the first Black woman to be nominated for an MTV Video Music Award. 

Directed by Oscar and Emmy-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams (God Loves Uganda, Life, Animated) and Donna Summer’s daughter Brooklyn Sudano, the HBO documentary film explores the highs and lows of fame, offering an intimate glimpse into the artist’s life, both on and off stage. The film features extensive photographs and never-before-seen home video footage, as well as interviews with Summer’s family, friends and colleagues. 

The film has an 81% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus says: “An enigmatic documentary about an equally enigmatic singer, Love to Love You, Donna Summer‘s got you covered from disco to soul.”

Love to Love You, Donna Summer was nominated for the 2023 Black Reel Award for Outstanding Documentary, having screened at SXSW and Berlin. 

SCREAM VI | Stream from Monday, 30 October 

Named Best Movie of 2023 at the MTV Movie Awards, Scream VI brings us a Ghostface unlike any other, just in time for Halloween.

Following the Woodsboro Legacy Murders, the four survivors set out to start a fresh chapter in New York, only to find a new Ghostface killer is targeting them in the big city.

From the team that brought us 2022’s Scream, Scream VI is the 23rd biggest global box office hit of the year so far. It won Best Fight at the MTV Movie Awards for franchise alum (and Emmy-nominated Friends star) Courteney Cox, and nabbed a nomination for Best Song for Demi Lovato’s Still Alive. AV Club says it’s “one of the franchise’s best (and most brutal) sequels”, while Independent (UK) calls it “wholly satisfying and ridiculously fun,” giving it a 4/5-star rating. 

Returning as the “core four” are 2022 IMDb STARmeter Fan Favorite Award Winner Melissa Barrera (In the Heights’ Vanessa) as Sam, Emmy nominee Jenna Ortega (aka Wednesday Addams) as Tara, GALECA and Queerty nominee Jasmin Savoy Brown (Taissa in Yellowjackets) as Mindy, and Mason Gooding (yep, that’s Cuba Gooding Jr. junior, and Andrew in Love, Victor) as Chad. 

Teen Choice Award winner Hayden “Save-the-cheerleader” Panettiere (Heroes, Nashville) returns as Kirby Reed, with award winner Roger Jackson reprising “The Voice”. New faces among the cast include Fright Meter Award winner and rising scream queen Samara Weaving (Ready or Not, The Babysitter: Killer Queen, Chevalier) and MTV Movie Award nominee Dermot Mulroney (Secret Invasion, The Purge series). Also look out for cameos from franchise alums Skeet Ulrich and Jack Quaid.

HONK FOR JESUS. SAVE YOUR SOUL. | Stream from Thursday, 26 October

Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul. stars 10-time Black Reel nominee Regina Hall (The Best Man: The Final Chapters, Girls Trip), and three-time Emmy winner Sterling K Brown (Randall Pearson in This Is Us and Black Panther’s N’Jobu) as Trinitie and Lee-Curtis Childs, a mega-church power couple determined to rebuild their congregation in the aftermath of a huge scandal.

The mockumentary-style satirical comedy had its world premiere at Sundance and was nominated for seven Black Reel Awards this year, including Outstanding Actor (Brown), Actress (Hall) and Ensemble, as well as Outstanding Independent Film, Emerging Director and First Screenplay for writer-director Adamma Ebo (Swarm, Atlanta), who won the Rising Star Award at the Black Film Critics Circle Awards. 

Teen Choice and Black Reel Award nominee Nicole Beharie (Breaking, Miss Juneteenth) co-stars, along with Nigerian actor Conphidance (Little America). Oscar winners Daniel Kaluuya and Jordan Peele are among the producers and executive producers, respectively. 

IndieWire praises Hall and Brown for “doing predictably divine work (do these two performers know any other way?)”, calling the film “a biting send-up straight from heaven.. a winning combination of the divine and the horrific… equal parts hilarious and painful.”

EVERYTHING ON SHOWMAX IN OCTOBER 2023

To see everything on Showmax in October 2023, including the Showmax Originals Boetie Boer: Inside The Mind of A Monster; the White House-set Chucky S3; and Yellowstone prequel 1923, click here.