Best international series to stream this April, from True Detective: Night Country to Fellow Travelers
New True Detective, The Cleaning Lady; first seasons of Fellow Travelers, Black Ops
TRUE DETECTIVE: NIGHT COUNTRY | Binge from 22 April
When the long winter night falls in Ennis, Alaska, the eight men who operate the Tsalal Arctic Research Station vanish without a trace.
To solve the case, Detectives Liz Danvers (two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) will have to confront the darkness they carry in themselves, and dig into the haunted truths that lie buried under the eternal ice.
Night Country is the most watched season of True Detective, as well as the best-reviewed, with a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The critics’ consensus there says, “Frighteningly atmospheric and anchored by Jodie Foster and Kali Reis' superb performances, Night Country is a fresh and frosty variation on True Detective's existential themes,” while The Guardian’s 5/5-star review says, “a blazing Jodie Foster makes this show better than ever before.” Similarly, The Ringer declared True Detective: Night Country the “first can’t-miss show of 2024.”
Showrunner and multiple-award winner Issa López writes and directs all episodes, with Oscar winner Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) and True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto among the executive producers. Night Country also features the likes of Oscar nominee John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone), three-time Emmy nominee Fiona Shaw (Killing Eve, Andor), and BAFTA nominee Christopher Eccleston (The Leftovers, Doctor Who).
Having topped IMDb’s Most Popular TV charts globally, it’s no surprise HBO has already ordered another season.
FELLOW TRAVELERS | First On Showmax | Stream from 26 April, with new eps on Fridays
Created by Oscar nominee Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia, Homeland), based on the novel by Thomas Mallon, Fellow Travelers is an epic love story and political thriller that chronicles the volatile romance of two very different men who meet in McCarthy-era Washington.
Emmy nominee Matt Bomer (David Oppenheim in Maestro) was nominated for Golden Globe, Critics Choice, Screen Actors Guild and People’s Choice awards as the handsome, charismatic Hawkins Fuller, who has a rewarding behind-the scenes career in politics. Hawkins avoids emotional entanglements – until he falls in love with Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey from Bridgerton and Broadchurch in a Critics Choice Award-winning performance), a young man brimming with idealism and religious faith.
The story follows its central characters over the course of four decades, from the height of the Lavender Scare through the Vietnam War protests of the 1960s, the drug-fueled disco hedonism of the 70s, and the Aids crisis of the 1980s.
Fellow Travelers was nominated for Best Limited Series at the Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards, before winning the category at the recent GLAAD Media Awards. Fellow Travelers holds an 8.2/10 score on IMDb and 91% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with AV Club saying it’s “as heart-wrenching as it is heartwarming,” and Variety praising Bomer and Bailey’s “electric chemistry,” saying, “Hawk and Tim’s relationship shifts over the decades, but their erotic intimacy and attraction reverberate off the screen.”
The show’s cast also includes Critics Choice nominee Allison Williams (Get Out, Girls, M3gan) and Golden Globe nominee Linus Roache (Homeland).
BLACK OPS S1 | First On Showmax | Mondays from 29 April
Who said infiltrating a criminal gang was going to be easy?
Black Ops is set in East London and follows two inept community support officers, Dom and Kay, who join the Met Police in the hope of cleaning up their community but are unwittingly thrust into the murky world of deep cover infiltration as they become part of a powerful criminal enterprise.
The six-part BBC series is co-created, written and exec produced by Nigerian-British BAFTA winners Gbemisola Ikumelo (Famalam, Brain In Gear) and Akemnji Ndifornyen (Famalam, The Queen’s Gambit), who star alongside award winner Hammed Animashaun (The Wheel of Time, Cunk & Other Humans on 2019, Pls Like).
“Can you really make a hilarious comedy about police racism? … the answer – pretty miraculously – is yes,” says The Guardian’s 5/5-star review, calling the show “a pitch-perfect, star-packed joy.” Praising the “dream team of Ikumelo and Animashaun,” they say, “if these two are the future of British comedy, we’re in very safe hands.”
Already renewed for a second season, Black Ops was nominated for Best Comedy Performance (for Ikumelo) at the 2023 Talk Telly Awards, as well as the 2023 Royal Television Society, UK award for Original Score - Scripted.
THE CLEANING LADY S3 | First on Showmax | Binge 3 eps, then weekly
The Cleaning Lady centres on former surgeon Thony De La Rosa, who travels to America for medical treatment to save her son but encounters a system rigged against her, forcing her to become a cleaning lady for the mob.
Created by award-winning writer-producer Miranda Kwok (The 100, Spartacus), based on the Argentine series La Chica que Limpia, The Cleaning Lady won a Women's Image Network Award for Best Drama Series.
In addition, lead actress Elodie Yung (The Hitman's Bodyguard, Daredevil) won a Critics Choice Award for Breakthrough Actress for Television (Asian Pacific Cinema and TV). As Collider says of “Miranda Kwok's gripping thriller... There simply wouldn't be a show without Élodie Yung's nuanced, heartbreaking portrayal of Thony.”
In Season 3, the stakes are higher than ever as Thony has to go it alone, risking dangerous new alliances as Fiona (Martha Millan) faces deportation to the Philippines.
Following the tragic passing of series co-star Adan Canto, Season 3 sees Imagen Award winners Clayton Cardenas (Mayans M.C.) and Kate del Castillo (Bad Boys for Life) join the cast, along with Santiago Cabrera (Big Little Lies, Star Trek: Picard).
RESIDENT ALIEN S3 | First On Showmax | Binge from 16 April 2024
Alan Tudyk is back in his Critics Choice Super-nominated role as Harry Vanderspeigle, the no-longer-so-undercover alien posing as a human doctor in the town of Patience.
Resident Alien has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 8.1 score on IMDb, who call it “one of the funniest shows - about destroying the entire human race.”
Created by five-time Emmy nominee Chris Sheridan (Family Guy), Resident Alien is a Critics Choice Super Awards nominee for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Series and was named Best Cable Series, Comedy at the Hollywood Critics Association Awards.
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM S12 | First on Showmax | Binge from 19 April
The Emmy and Golden Globe-winning comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm is back for its 12th and final season.
Seinfeld co-creator Larry David stars as an over-the-top version of himself in the HBO series. A tongue-in-cheek depiction of the writer/producer/comedian’s fictionalised life, the iconic comedy continues to prove how seemingly trivial details of one's day-to-day life can precipitate a catastrophic chain of events. To keep the narrative spontaneous, the series is shot without a script and cast members are given scene outlines and improvise lines as they go.
“As Curb comes to an end, I will now have the opportunity to finally shed this ‘Larry David’ persona and become the person God intended me to be – the thoughtful, kind, caring, considerate human being I was until I got derailed by portraying this malignant character,” says Larry David. “And so ‘Larry David,’ I bid you farewell. Your misanthropy will not be missed. And for those of you who would like to get in touch with me, you can reach me at Doctors Without Borders.”
Curb Your Enthusiasm also stars Jeff Garlin (The Goldbergs), Susie Essman (Broad City), Cheryl Hines (Suburgatory), J.B. Smoove (Mapleworth Murders), Richard Lewis (Anything But Love), Ted Danson (The Good Place), Vince Vaughn (Wedding Crashers), and Tracey Ullman (Tracey Ullman’s Show). This season’s cameos include South African Sharlto Copley (District 9), Jimmy Kimmel, Bruce Springsteen, Sienna Miller, and Dan Levy.
The final season currently has a 95% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is in IMDb’s 25 Most Popular TV Shows globally, with an 8.8/10 rating after 12 seasons that puts it at #61 on their all-time Top-Rated TV list.
POWER BOOK II: GHOST S3 | Binge from 5 April
The first spin-off series in the award-winning Power crime drama franchise, Ghost stars BET Award nominee Michael Rainey Jr. as Tariq St. Patrick, the son of drug dealer James "Ghost" St. Patrick.
Grammy winners Cliff "Method Man" Smith and Mary J. Blige are both back this season, while new faces include Black Reel nominee Keesha Sharp (American Crime Story, Lethal Weapon, Girlfriends), British-Nigerian Caroline Chikezie (Æon Flux, The Passage), and American-Nigerian Gbenga Akinnagbe (The Wire, The Deuce) as billionaire Ron Samuel Jenkins.
Created by Emmy nominee Courtney A. Kemp (The Good Wife), Ghost has already been renewed for a fourth season.
TOKYO VICE S1 | Binge from 12 April
Loosely inspired by Jake Adelstein's non-fiction, first-hand account of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police beat, Tokyo Vice captures the American journalist’s daily descent into the neon-soaked underbelly of Tokyo in the late 90s, where nothing and no one was truly what or who they seemed.
Golden Globe nominee Ansel Elgort (Baby Driver) stars as Adelstein, opposite Oscar nominees Ken Watanabe (Inception, The Last Samurai) and Rinko Kikuchi (Babel, Pacific Rim), and the likes of Rachel Keller (A Man Called Otto, Fargo).
Four-time Oscar nominee Michael Mann (Heat) directs the pilot and is an executive producer, while Tony Award-winning playwright J.T. Rogers is the show creator.
Tokyo Vice has an 88% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has been hailed as “beautifully shot and elegantly acted” by Variety and “addictive and brilliant” by Collider.
COLIN FROM ACCOUNTS S1 | Binge now
Colin from Accounts follows Ashley and Gordon, two single-ish, complex humans who are brought together by a car accident and an injured dog.
Created by and co-starring real life couple Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall, the Australian comedy series has an 8.3/10 score on IMDb and a 100% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
In their 5/5-star review, Guardian says, “This unfailingly funny, perfectly acted Australian sitcom features a lead that’s neither a hot mess nor a manic pixie dream girl. It’s honest, kind and goes from strength to strength… It is ordinary life with all the good lines jammed closer together… It’s really rather wonderful.”
The show also cracked a spot on Guardian’s Best of 2023 list, and won the 2023 Logie Award, the 2023 Australian Writers’ Guild Award and the 2024 Australian Academy of Television and Cinema Arts Award for Best Comedy.
CHICAGO MED S8 | Binge from 1 April
Following a fiery Season 7 finale, Chicago's most highly skilled medical team is back at Gaffney Chicago Medical Centre. Brace yourself for several major cast shakeups this season that’ll mean saying goodbye to beloved characters – both at the start and end of the season.
Sasha Roiz (9-1-1) joins the cast as ambitious shareholder Jack Dayton, whose arrival could spell trouble for the trauma unit.
Also look out for the welcome return of April Sexton (Teen Choice nominee Yaya DaCosta), who we last saw in Season 6.
TEN POUND POMS | Binge from 1 April
Ten Pound Poms follows a group of Brits as they leave post-war Britain in 1956 to embark on a life-altering adventure on the other side of the world. For only a tenner, they have been promised a better house, better job prospects and a better quality of life by the sea in sun-soaked Australia. But life Down Under isn’t exactly the idyllic dream the new arrivals have been promised.
As Terry Roberts, Warren Brown (The Responder, Luther) won Best Actor at the 2023 Monte-Carlo TV Festival, where Ten Pound Poms was nominated for Best TV Series.
Created by BAFTA nominee Danny Brocklehurst (Brassic, Accused), the six-part historical drama also stars award-winner Michelle Keegan (Our Girl) and Screen Actors Guild nominee Faye Marsay (Andor).
EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT LOVE | Binge from 22 April
In Everything I Know About Love, Maggie and Birdy, besties since school, finally land in London to live it large when the unexpected happens - dependable Birdy gets a steady boyfriend.
Adapted by award-winning journalist Dolly Alderton from her own wildly funny, occasionally heart-breaking, and bestselling memoir, the series is led by Emma Appleton as Maggie and BAFTA and Critics Choice Award nominee Bel Powley (A Small Light, The Morning Show, The King of Staten Island) as as Birdy.
The seven-part comedy-drama has an 96% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus calls it “an absolute blast.” Time Magazine adds, “Appleton and Powley are irresistible as mutually adoring friends, and the escapist pleasures of 20-something life a mere decade ago make for an ideal vacation.”
QUANTUM LEAP S2 | First on Showmax | Binge eps 1-4, with new episodes on Tuesdays
One leap can change everything as Dr Ben Song (Raymond Lee from Top Gun: Maverick) continues his thrilling journey through time in the action-packed second season of Quantum Leap.
Quantum Leap was nominated for three 2024 Saturn Awards from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, including Best Action/Thriller Television Series and Best Supporting Actor for Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters). It’s also up for a 2024 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Drama Series.
Peter Gadiot (One Piece, Yellowjackets) and multiple Teen Choice Award nominee Eliza Taylor (The 100’s Clarke Griffin) join the cast this season.
Collider praises, “Lee's charming performance, [the] stellar writing, and remarkable direction,” saying, “Season 2 thrives on the chemistry of its cast… taking bigger chances and aiming for bigger payoffs.”
THE LOVERS S1 | First On Showmax | Binge from 1 April
A foul-mouthed supermarket worker (Roisin Gallagher) doesn't care about anything, including her life, until she begins an unexpected relationship with a self-centred political television broadcaster (Critics Choice nominee Johnny Flynn from Genius and Emma), who already has a seemingly perfect London life and celebrity girlfriend (Alice Eve) .
Directed by BAFTA winner Justin Martin (Together), The Lovers has an 80% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with London Evening Standard calling the Sky Original “a brilliant rom-com with as much bite as it has heart” in their 5/5-star review. As they say, “This surprisingly gritty take on the genre is a must-watch."
ZEROZEROZERO | Binge from 17 April
ZeroZeroZero traces a shipment of cocaine on its journey through Mexico and across the Atlantic Ocean to the Italian cartel buying it.
The Sky and CANAL+ co-production has an 8.1/10 score on IMDb and a 94% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with The Independent (UK) saying, “This dark cocaine opera is brilliant, bleak escapism… a little of The Godfather, a splash of Sicario and a dash of Succession: a tasty recipe.”
The cast includes Oscar nominee Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie), BAFTA nominee Dane DeHaan (Oppenheimer), Emmy nominee Gabriel Byrne (In Treatment), award winner Tcheky Karyo (The Missing), and Harold Torres, who was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Performance in a New Scripted Series for his performance as Manuel Quinteras.
Based on the novel by Roberto Saviano, the series is co-created by Gomorrah’s Stefano Sollima and Leonardo Fasoli with Writers Guild of America nominee Mauricio Katz (Maniac).
INFINITI | Binge from 1 April
Produced by Empreinte Digitale (Spinners) for CANAL+, Infiniti was nominated for Best Mini-series at the International Emmy Awards.
The International Space Station (ISS) has gone silent when a decapitated and waxed body is found on a roof in Kazakhstan. Positive identification leaves no room for doubt: the body belongs to an American astronaut currently on a mission on the ISS. A French astronaut, dismissed from the space programme, and a Kazakh cop, disowned by his ranking hierarchy, set out to solve this mysterious paradox.
The international cast includes the likes of award-winning Romanian actor Vlad Ivanov (Snowpiercer, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), French actress Céline Sallette (If Only, Marie Antoinette), Kazakhstani actor Daniyar Alshinov, and Lex Shrapnel (A Town Called Malice, Domina, Captain America), and Ellora Torchia (Midsommar).
GORDITA CHRONICLES | First On Showmax | Stream from 22 April, with new eps on Mondays
The year is 1985 and Cucu “Gordita” Castelli (Olivia Goncalves) has just said goodbye to all of her friends and family in Santo Domingo and moved to Miami with her marketing executive father Víctor (Juan Javier Cardenas), bold and vivacious mother Adela (Diana Maria Riva), and suddenly status-obsessed older sister Emilia (Savannah Nicole Ruiz). While life in America is far from what they imagined, the Castellis are determined to take charge of their strange new world.
Executive produced by multi-award winners Zoe Saldaña and Eva Longoria, Gordita Chronicles has a 100% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with The Hollywood Reporter calling it “a big-hearted charmer.”
At the 2023 Image Foundation Awards, Gordita Chronicles was nominated for Best Primetime Comedy.
MOONSHINE S1-2 | Binge from 10 April
A raucous tale of lust, legacy and lobster, Moonshine tells the story of the Finley-Cullens, a dysfunctional family of adult half-siblings battling to take control of the ailing family business, a rundown summer resort in Nova Scotia.
The show has already earned 24 nominations in its native Canada, winning Best TV Series at the Screen Nova Scotia Awards, and earning nominations at the Leo Awards for Tom Stevens (Wayward Pines, Deadly Class) and at the Canadian Screen Awards for Jennifer Finnigan, Emma Hunter, and Peter MacNeill (Good Witch, Nightmare Alley, A History of Violence).
Decider calls it “a fun show with a dreamy, summer vibe.”
AWARDS UPDATE
At next week’s Critics Choice Super Awards, The Last of Us leads the TV category with seven nominations, while Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning has five, the most nominations of any film.
Other nominated TV series on Showmax include:
• Yellowjackets: Best Horror, Best Actress (Melanie Lynskey)
• Warrior: Best Action, Best Actor (Andrew Koji)
• Fire Country: Best Action
• The Equalizer: Best Actress: Action (Queen Latifah)
• Mrs. Davis: Best Actress: Sci-Fi/Fantasy (Betty Gilpin)
At the recent GLAAD Media Awards, billed as “the largest, most legendary LGBTQ celebration in the world in 2024”, Yellowjackets was named Outstanding Drama Series and Fellow Travelers won Outstanding Limited Or Anthology Series, giving Showmax content two of the three biggest scripted TV awards of the night.