For Your Consideration: The Best International Series of 2023

13th Dec 2023 | Source: Showmax

<div><strong>For Your Consideration: The Best International Series of 2023</strong></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">What do the most-nominated show at the Emmys and Golden Globes (</span><em>Succession</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">), </span><em>IMDb</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">'s Most Popular Series of 2023 and Google's most searched TV show (</span><em>The Last of Us</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">), and the best-reviewed series of 2023 (</span><em>Rain Dogs</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">) have in common? They're all only available in Africa on Showmax. </span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Explore the best TV series of 2023 below: </span></div>

<div><strong>SUCCESSION S4 </strong><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">| First On Showmax | Binge now</span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">As</span><em> Vulture</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> puts it, "</span><em>Succession</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">. This is the most boring, unsurprising answer to the question, 'What was the best TV show of 2023?' It also happens to be the truth."</span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Everyone from </span><em>Entertainment Weekly</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> to</span><em> Time</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> agrees, as do the Emmys and Golden Globes, where it's the most nominated series overall for both. </span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">In Season 4 of HBO's smash hit series,</span><em> </em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">the sale of Waystar Royco to tech visionary Lukas Matsson (Emmy winner Alexander Skarsgård) is looming ever closer. It's a prospect that provokes existential angst and familial division among the Roys as they anticipate their diminished cultural and political influence once the deal is completed.</span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">"Just as </span><em>The Sopranos</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> and </span><em>The Wire</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> defined one era of HBO, </span><em>Succession</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> will go down as the best series of its time. If anyone disagrees, it's best to ignore them: They're </span><a href="https://usw2.nyl.as/t1/211/9rh6jwfa8y1j3cxuiyy8krqq1/1/5c410cbcc1efb1106c2f90f561ccc1d9d4af1aa5aa7042ef221ebc1768b7d729" rel="noreferrer" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; color: #000000" target="_blank">not serious people</a><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">," says </span><em>The Ringer</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">, calling back to Logan Roy putting his children in their place once again.</span></div>

<div><strong>THE LAST OF US S1</strong><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> | Binge now </span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">The most popular series on</span><em> IMDb</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> this year, </span><em>The Last of Us </em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">is set 20 years after modern civilisation has been destroyed. Joel is hired to smuggle 14-year-old Ellie out of an oppressive quarantine zone. But what starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal journey as the pair cross the US, depending on each other for survival.</span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">The most searched TV series on Google in 2023, the breakout HBO hit raked in 24 Emmy nominations this year - behind only </span><em>Succession S4</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">. This includes Best Drama, as well as first-ever Best Actress and Actor nominations for its two stars, Bella Ramsey (</span><em>Game of Thrones</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">) and Pedro Pascal (</span><em>The Mandalorian</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">). </span></div>

<div><em>Indiewire</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> hails</span><em> </em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">the Playstation adaptation as the Best New Show of 2023, while </span><em>Variety</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">'s Aramide Tinubu named </span><em>The Last of Us</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> as her top show overall for the year. As </span><em>Financial Time</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">s put it in their Best TV Shows of 2023 roundup, "Who would have thought a survival series set in a world overrun by mushroom monsters would be one of the year's most affecting dramas?"</span></div>

<div><strong>RAIN DOGS S1 </strong><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">| Binge now</span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">HBO and BBC One collab </span><em>Rain Dogs</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> is MetaCritic's best-reviewed show of 2023, with an 88% metascore. </span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Double-BAFTA winner Daisy May Cooper stars as Costello Jones, a devoted mother, aspiring author, and peepshow dancer, who wants more for her young daughter. </span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">As </span><em>Time</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> puts it, "Streamers are going broke scrambling to scale up television to fit genre-franchise-multiverse specs, but often the most effective small-screen stories are also the most intimate. </span><em>Rain Dog</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">s is this year's most compelling case in point, a portrait of a fascinatingly unconventional family... The perfect balance of darkness, warmth, grit, and scathing British humour."</span></div>

<div><strong>MRS. DAVIS S1</strong><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> | First on Showmax | Binge now</span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">"Hallucinate" was Cambridge Dictionary's word of the year, so it feels right that a show about defying AI was named the best TV series of 2023 by </span><em>The Washington Post</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">, who hailed the Peacock Original as "a romp, an epic, a masterpiece." </span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Mrs. Davis is the world's most powerful Artificial Intelligence. Simone (three-time Emmy nominee Betty Gilpin) is the nun devoted to destroying her.</span></div>

<div><em>Mrs. Davis</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> is co-created by three-time Emmy winner Damon Lindelof (</span><em>Watchmen</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">, </span><em>The Leftovers</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">) and writer Tara Hernandez (</span><em>The Big Bang Theory</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">, </span><em>Young Sheldon</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">). As </span><em>Vulture</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> puts it, "Turns out sometimes TV</span><strong> </strong><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">can still be intellectually challenging and fun as hell."</span></div>

<div><strong>POKER FACE S1</strong><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> | Binge now</span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Natasha Lyonne is on the case in </span><em>Poker Face</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">, from mystery guru Rian Johnson, Oscar-nominated for both </span><em>Knives Out </em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">and </span><em>Glass Onion</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">. </span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Lyonne is up for an Emmy, a Golden Globe and a Critics Choice Award as Charlie Cale, a human lie detector solving a new mystery each episode as she travels across America. </span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Nominated for Best Comedy at the 2024 Critics' Choice Awards and hailed as "the crime show of the year" by </span><em>Entertainment Weekly</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">, </span><em>Poker Face</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">'s stacked cast includes Oscar winner Adrien Brody, Oscar nominees Hong Chau, Nick Nolte and Chloë Sevigny, and Emmy winners Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Barkin, and Cherry Jones. </span></div>

<div><em>Inverse</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> calls the Peacock Original a "love letter to Columbo and classic murder mystery shows... Stylish, wry and oh-so-satisfying." </span></div>

<div><strong>SPECIAL MENTIONS:</strong></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Other Showmax favourites popping up on all the critics' lists include:</span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">• </span><em>Somebody Somewhere S2</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">: "The mere mention of this show's name puts a smile on my face... Few things on television exude more organic joy than this half-hour slice of Midwest small-town life; it's a weekly reminder that life, even at its most mundane and frustrating, demands to be embraced." </span><em>Vulture</em></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">• </span><em>Barry S4</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">: "Among television's most brooding and violent shows but still bubbled over with snappy one-liners and zippy satire." </span><em>The New York Times </em></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Other Showmax series featuring prominently include:</span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">• </span><em>Blue Lights S1</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">: "Trying to make a new cop show without clichés is a bit like attempting to jump into the ocean without getting wet. Massive props, then, to a gripping and cliché-free police drama that started impressively and ended up feeling like it just might grow into Belfast's answer to </span><em>The Wire." TimeOut</em></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">•</span><em> How To With John Wilson S3</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">: "John Wilson's brilliant, one-of-a-kind series... feels like the kind of thing you'll tell your grandchildren you were alive to see. Ostensibly the product of Wilson's free-associative wanderings around New York City, each episode follows a train of thought that takes him to locales as disparate as Burning Man and a convention of vacuum-cleaner collectors. It's like spending an evening with your smartest, weirdest friend, the kind who tells stories so rambling you can never remember where they started, but it's always worth holding on till the end." </span><em>Slate</em></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">• </span><em>The Righteous Gemstones S3</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">: "One of TV's funniest and most incisive shows." </span><em>Polygon</em></div>

<div><em>• Warrior S3: </em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">"It's never been better... Exploring systemic racism and the Chinese immigrant experience with some of the most exhilarating action sequences on television, </span><em>Warrior</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> continues to pack a punch." </span><em>The Ringer</em></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">We could keep going: other shows we've seen pop up on Best of the Year lists include </span><em>A Spy Among Friends</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">, </span><em>Based On A True Story</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">, </span><em>Chucky</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">, and </span><em>Perry Mason</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">, not to mention </span><em>1923</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">, up for Best Drama at the 2024 Golden Globes; </span><em>Winning Time</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">, up for Best Drama at the 2024 Critics Choice Awards, and </span><em>Love & Death</em><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">, up for Best Limited Series at the 2024 Critics Choice Awards. </span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">So take all your leave this year: you won't run out of great series to watch. </span></div>

<div><strong>About Showmax</strong><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">  </span></div>

<div><span style="color:#000000; font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Showmax, launched in 2015 and available in more than 40 markets across the continent, is a leading African streaming service. It offers a unique combination of original African content, first and exclusive international series, popular movies, premium documentaries and the best kids' shows, and will soon offer a mobile-only product to watch the Premier League (PL). Showmax is jointly owned by MultiChoice (JSE: MCG), the leading video entertainment platform and biggest producer of content in Africa, and Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), one of the world's biggest media companies. </span></div>