South African cinema spans intimate documentary and bold genre filmmaking, from the Oscar-winning My Octopus Teacher to Neill Blomkamp's sci-fi allegory District 9, which used Johannesburg's own landscape to tell a story about segregation and displacement. It's a body of work that consistently draws on the country's complex history and extraordinary natural world. See what Macca made of it all below.
Rating: 2.5★
There's a Coca-Cola bottle falling out of a plane and landing in the Kalahari Desert, and somehow that single image tells you everything you need to know about what you're in for. I took a trip back to 1980 to watch Jamie Uys's
Rating: 2.5★
There's a moment in They Will Kill You that I keep coming back to. The screen goes almost completely black, and all you can see is a flaming axe carving through the darkness, each swing briefly illuminating a fight in bloody, flickering flashes. It's properly spectacular,
Rating: 2.0★
There's a particular kind of disappointment reserved for films where the most interesting thing about them is the press release. Where the Road Runs Out holds the genuine, undeniable distinction of being the first feature film ever shot in Equatorial Guinea, and look, that really is something worth
Genre Action
★½ — Death Race 2 (2010)
Genre Documentary
★★★ — My Octopus Teacher (2020)
Genre Action
★★ — Rising Storm (1989)
Country Ethiopia
★★ — Adera (2009)
Genre Adventure
★★★½ — Runs in the Family (2023)
Genre Action
★★★ — The Gods Must Be Crazy II (1989)
Genre Science Fiction
★★★★ — District 9 (2009)
Genre Action
★★★ — Dredd (2012)
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