Best-rated streaming original series and movies

With streaming platforms like Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Netflix, and Showmax offering their services in South Africa, the country’s residents have a broad range of original content to stream.

MyBroadband found five of the best original series and movies available from the above streaming services, using IMDB ratings out of ten to rank them.

Streaming services like Prime Video, Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+, and Showmax offer South African residents an alternative to satellite TV services like DStv, Openview, and StarSat.

Amazon’s Prime Video is the cheapest streaming service of the four at R79 per month. This allows customers access to 4K content and stream on up to three devices simultaneously.

Showmax is the next-most affordable option. MultiChoice recently relaunched the streaming service, revamping its platform and packages.

It charges R89 for Showmax Entertainment, while the mobile-only Entertainment subscription costs R39 monthly. Content resolution maxes out at 1080p, and the plans don’t allow simultaneous streams.

Netflix offers four subscription tiers in South Africa. These are listed with features below:

• Mobile — R49 per month; 480p resolution; one stream.
• Basic — R99 per month; 720p resolution; one stream.
• Standard — R159 per month; 1080p; two streams.
• Premium — R199 per month; 4K resolution, four streams.

Apple TV+ only features Apple Originals content. Customers can subscribe to the streaming service for R124.99 per month, and one subscription allows up to six simultaneous streams.

Disney+ offers a broad range of content, including various originals, for R139 per month.

South African residents who subscribe to these streaming services can access many highly-rated TV shows and movies.

Best-rated original series

Showmax’s Outlaws is the highest-rated streaming series among the four services, scoring an IMDB rating of 9.1 out of ten.

Outlaws follows the story of two families at war — the Zulu, cattle-farming Biyela clan and the Basotho, cattle-raiding Tseoles.

Netflix’s Arcane and Amazon Prime Video’s Clarkson’s Farm follow closely, with both holding IMDB ratings of 9.0.

The former is an animated series set in the utopian city of Piltover and the oppressed underground of Zaun that follows the story of Vi and Jinx, two sisters fighting on rival sides of a war between magic technologies and clashing convictions.

Prime Video’s Clarkson’s Farm is a British documentary series following the antics of former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson as he attempts to run a farm in the English countryside.

Apple TV+’s best-rated series is Ted Lasso — a light-hearted story of an American football coach who moves to England to manage AFC Richmond.

The five best-rated original series from Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, Netflix, and Showmax are listed with ratings out of ten in the table below.

Best-rated original movies

Apple TV+’s Coda and Wolfwalkers are the highest-rated original movies available from streaming platforms in South Africa, with both scoring eight out of ten on IMDB ratings.

Coda is a musical comedy that follows the story of Ruby — the only hearing member of a deaf family — as she joins her high school’s choir and discovers her passion for singing.

Wolfwalkers is an animated adventure set in a time of superstition and magic when wolves are considered demonic creatures that must be eradicated.

The story follows Robyn as she travels to Ireland with her father to wipe out the last pack. However, she meets Mebh, a wild native girl, who introduces her to the world of Wolfwalkers.

The five best-rated Netflix movies are very close regarding their IMDB ranks, with Marriage Story scoring the best rating of 7.9 out of ten.

Starring Scarlet Johansson and Adam Driver, the story follows the pair as they struggle through a divorce that pushes them to their personal and creative extremes.

The next four best-rated Netflix movies all scored 7.8 out of ten.

The best-rated movie on Amazon Prime Video is Thirteen Lives — a recreation of a rescue mission in Thailand where a group of boys and their soccer coach are trapped in a system of underground caverns that are flooding.

We excluded Showmax from this section as IMDB doesn’t have ratings for most of its original movies.

The best-rated original movies from Netflix, Apple TV+, and Prime Video are listed with IMDB ratings below.