• Showmax will start streaming both Barbie and Oppenheimer, the biggest films of 2023, in May.
• The local streaming platform has indicated the new films it will be streaming on its platform.
• Oppenheimer will stream from 6th May, while Barbie from 22nd May.

Local streaming leader Showmax has unveiled its lineup for new movies on the platform in May 2024, which will bring the top two films of 2023 finally streaming in South Africa. That’s right, the inescapable Barbenheimer combo, 2023 Oscar sweeper Barbie and Oppenheimer are hitting the platform as next month.

Additionally, other major motion pictures from 2023 will finally be streaming locally, including the Super Mario Bros. Movie, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Mission Impossible: Dead Rockening, among others.

Unfortunately, Barbie and Oppenheimer won’t be launching on Showmax at exactly the same time, with the more serious drama about the father of the atomic bomb streaming from 6th May, while the comedy musical about one of the world’s favourite toys streaming from 22nd May 2024.

While Oppenheimer “tells the true story of ‘the father of the atomic bomb’, American scientist J Robert Oppenheimer, and how he risked destroying the world in his attempt to save it,” Barbie could not be any more different – “To live in Barbie Land is to be a perfect being in a perfect place. Unless you have a full-on existential crisis. Or you’re a Ken,” reads the official description from Showmax.

The Barbenheimer fever was pronounced last year, even in South Africa, as the two films were among the Springboks in the top-most searched terms on Google locally for 2023. This is even more of an achievement when you take into account that the Springboks won the Rugby World Cup a record number of times last year.

However, it was Barbie that beat out Christopher Nolan’s Academy Award-winning Best Picture, at least to the wallets of viewers with over a billion dollars at the box office and even a special Google Search animation.

In our review, we called it the best toy movie since LEGO, and gave it a solid 8 out of 10.

Also joining Barbenheimer on Showmax in May, animated films like Trolls Band Together (16th May), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (streaming now), as well as films like Mr Bones 3: Son of Bones (3rd May), Liam Neeson’s Retribution (20th May), Florence Pugh’s A Good Person (9th May), Pierce Brosnan’s Fast Charlie (27th May) and Willem Dafoe’s psychological thriller Inside (23rd May).

Check out the trailers for Barbenheimer below: