
Ian Roberts
Actor · b. 1951 · Fort Beaufort, South Africa
Ian Roberts is a South African actor, playwright and singer best known to television viewers for his roles in the drama series Arende and Snitch, and as the character Boet in a series of long-running advertisements for Castrol motor oil. Roberts was born in Fort Beaufort in the Eastern Cape and raised on a citrus farm near the town. He attended St. Andrew's Preparatory School and St. Andrew's College in Grahamstown. After completing high school he performed his compulsory national service in the South African Army, which he completed in 1971. After a variety of different jobs and a course in photography at the Port Elizabeth Technical College from 1973 to 1975, Roberts enrolled at Rhodes University in 1976 for a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in Speech, Drama and Social Anthropology. Ian Roberts has built up an extensive acting career in theatre, television and film. Roberts was married to South African actress Michele Botes, but the couple divorced in 1999. They have two children.
Movies24
Movie7.2AdventureFamilyA young girl from London moves to Africa with her parents where she befriends a lion cub.
Movie7.5DramaPK, an English orphan terrorized for his family's political beliefs in Africa, turns to his only friend, a kindly world-wise prisoner, Geel Piet. Geel teaches him how to box with the motto “fight with your fists and lead with your heart”. As he grows to manhood, PK uses these words to take on the system and the injustices he sees around him - and finds that one person really can make a difference.
The Power of One
1992 · 157 votes
Movie5.4RomanceDramaInspired by the true story of indomitable Kuki Gallmann, the film tells of a beautiful and inquisitive woman who had the courage to escape from her comfortable yet monotonous life in Italy to start anew in the African wilderness with her son, Emanuele, and her new husband, Paolo. Gallmann faces great danger there but eventually becomes a celebrated conservationist.
I Dreamed of Africa
2000 · 86 votes
Movie5.6ComedyHorrorWhen Gummer is hired to capture a deadly creature terrorizing South Africa, he and his new sidekick, Travis Welker, engage in another battle of survival against the fiercely aggressive Graboids.
Tremors 5: Bloodlines
2015 · 476 votes
Movie4.4ActionDolph Lundgren is Christian Erickson, a leading demolition expert trained to disarm mine fields in a humanitarian minesweeping operation in Angola. His son is killed and he discovers that mines are being planted during the war to kill people in the area.
Sweepers
1998 · 46 votes
Movie6.8DramaA South-African preacher goes to search for his wayward son who has committed a crime in the big city.
Cry, the Beloved Country
1995 · 28 votes
Movie6.9CrimeDramaA young South African boy from the Johannesburg ghetto named Tsotsi, meaning Gangster, leaves home as a child to get away from his helpless parents. Now a teenage thug, Tsotsi finds a baby in the back seat of a car he's just stolen. He decides that it is his responsibility to care for the infant and in the process learns that maybe the criminal life isn’t the best way.
Tsotsi
2005 · 365 votes
Movie4.3AdventureActionTarzan returns to his homeland of Africa to save his home from destruction.
Tarzan and the Lost City
1998 · 49 votes
Movie4.5AdventureComedyJane and the Colonel must journey to Africa to the lost city to retrieve the diamonds before the Nazis do. Comedy based on the popular wartime comic strip.
Jane and the Lost City
1987 · 20 votes
Movie7.0DramaHistorySidney Poitier and Michael Caine both received Emmy nominations for their performances in this made-for-TV movie. The plot follows Nelson Mandela's 27-year struggle to end apartheid.
Mandela and de Klerk
1997 · 8 votes
Movie5.8DramaSarah Barcant, a lawyer in New York City who grew up in South Africa, returns to her childhood dwelling place to intercede for Alex Mpondo, a Black South African politician who was tortured during apartheid.
Red Dust
2004 · 48 votes
Movie5.9DramaA three-paneled look at the worldwide AIDS crisis: in Montreal, a porn actor schemes to pass his mandatory blood test; a young nun makes a personal sacrifice for the benefit of a South African village; in rural China, a black market operative posing as a government-sanctioned blood drawer jeopardizes an entire village's safety
3 Needles
2005 · 21 votes
Movie7.3DramaFollows the deterioration of an Afrikaner family isolated and shunned in the small community of Toorwater. Nothing seems to happen. Then a circus train loses its way and comes to rest in Toorwater, and a mysterious clown brings fresh magic to the stagnating family, but he also poses a threat to the rest of the community.
Paljas
1998 · 8 votes
Movie7.3DramaA 70-year old man abducts his dementia-suffering wife from her retirement home and goes on the run from both the police and his adult children.
A Kind of Madness
2025 · 7 votes
Movie6.0DramaRobey Leibbrandt was a South African boxer who became fascinated with Nazi ideology during the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. In1939 he led an operation to overthrow the pro-Allied government of General Jan Smuts.
The Fourth Reich
1990 · 1 votes
Movie4.1ActionScience FictionA cop tries to stop a scientist's experiments to turn students into cyborg-mercenaries.
Cyborg Cop III
1995 · 18 votes
Movie5.8ThrillerTV MovieThis controversial political thriller, which provoked mass demonstrations and nine deaths in South Africa when it was first shown, gives dramatic form to the African National Congress's basic program of reconcilliation within a non-racialist, democratic society. A train massacre by an Inkatha militant causes the sole witness to the crime to flee the Soweto townships to take refuge in Johannesburg; but the violence follows him when his ANC comrades try to buy guns for a retaliatory raid against Inkatha supporters.
In a Time of Violence: The Line
1994 · 5 votes
Movie7.0DramaFamilySet on a game reserve in Africa. Askari is an angry old elephant, the only survivor of the "A' family group which has been anhilitated in a government cull and he has turned rogue. Involved in the culling are Patrick Khumalo, a corrupt government official and Ribshaw, an unscrupulous white poacher accompanied by Ndhlovu, an old African tracker who is being blackmailed by Ribshaw. Anxious to save the elephants are game warden Joss Mckinley and his conservationist wife Paula who is studying and monitoring various family groups of elephants. When Paula's sixteen year old niece Emma Crawshay is orphaned she is sent to live with her aunt and uncle at Morena Game Park. She feels alienated but is gradually drawn into her aunt's passion for her work and her favourite elephant family the 'O' group, in particular a calf named Ollie.
Askari
2001 · 3 votes
Movie6.0ComedyKalahari Harry is a noble story of the plight of the Kalahari bushman in their struggle for land and survival. A rich Johannesburg business man Mr. Kowalski is sent to the Northern Cape (home of the indigenous bushman), to asses the potential of building a state-of-the-art casino. Kalahari Harry, a member of the local Bushman tribe is decidedly opposed to this corporate move and sets into motion a series of ingenious plans to prevent this from happening.
Kalahari Harry
1994 · 2 votes
Movie4.8CrimeDramaA South African political prisoner is tortured to obtain information on apartheid conspirators. Ten years later, the head officer in charge of the questioning is similarly held as prisoner and questioned about his past offenses.
Inside
1996 · 11 votes
Movie7.0DramaA family drama on the dangers of sweeping years of truth under the carpet and hoping for the best. A teenage girl, Engela, visits the Karoo farm of her uncle Frans and aunt Koba during the school holidays. A journey of discovery starts: she has to find out who she really is and where she comes from. Three visitors in one week change her life forever and her uncle’s obsession with the rugby try by Mannetjies Roux is at last explained.
Stuur Groete Aan Mannetjies Roux
2013 · 1 votes
Movie6.0ThrillerDramaSy Winter, a young idealistic American, becomes stranded high in the mountain woods. Attracted by the beautiful Tanya, he is trapped into working for her violent husband and his decrepit wheelchair-bound father. As the ominous surroundings deepen his tortured desires for Tanya, his fantasies become reality and Sy is plunged into a nightmare of murder and revenge from which he cannot escape until he faces his own tortured nightmares.
Dancing in the Forest
1988 · 2 votes
MovieDramaThis is a story of a talented and ambitious musician who faces a major crossroads in his life. Paul’s career has progressed to the point where he plays his own music in pubs, but he has struggled to go beyond that. It is a hand-to-mouth existence and Paul and his girlfriend, Sera, struggle to keep the bank balance in check. However, one day an important music producer sees Paul play and, realizing he has talent, offers him a big contract. Paul throws caution to the wind and signs the deal, certain that this is his big break. Unfortunately, the fine print in the contract stipulates that Paul make the kind of commercial music he vowed he never would, and also forces him to act under a stage name. Now, Paul must decide if he is willing to sell his soul for financial stability. And whatever he decides, he realizes that it will have a lasting effect on his career and on his life.
Movie7.5ComedyVan der Merwe, a bumbling farmer from a traditional Afrikaans family, struggles to keep his family together when his daughter returns from England with her British fiancé and family.
Van der Merwe
2017 · 2 votes
Series11
TV6.0DramaA series of television plays, some original, some based on pre-existing plays or novels.
The Play on One
1988 · 3 votes
TV2.8SoapThe Wild is a South African soap opera created by Rohan Dickson, Richard Nosworthy and Bronwyn Berry and produced by M-Net's in-house production arm Magic Factory and shot entirely on location which revolves around three families – the Lebones, the van Reenens and the Tladis - who, because of past conflicts, struggle to negotiate a cohesive future, despite being bound together by their relationship to a special piece of land.
The Wild
2011 · 4 votes
TV5.6DramaCrimeIn 1994 South Africa, the daughter of a multiracial couple is kidnapped. She escapes and as an adult becomes a detective. Continuing to deal with her past trauma, Reyka Gama uses her skills to raise her child and solve mysteries that have challenged others.
Reyka
2021 · 28 votes
TV6.3Action & AdventureRenowned safari hunter Allan Quatermain is lured back into the unknown recesses of the African jungles to find a man who disappeared while searching for the fabled King Solomon's Mines--a destination of legendary riches from which no soul has ever returned alive.
King Solomon's Mines
2004 · 157 votes
TV9.0DramaA South African Afrikaans series about broken families and the lies and deceit within them and how sins committed to do good can come back to haunt families when they least expect it.
Erfsondes
2007 · 1 votes
TVDramaWar & PoliticsEpic drama follows a group of Boers during significant events in South African history. The first series is primarily set on St. Helena and follows the lives of Boer prisoners-of-war at Deadwood Camp. Among them is Sloet Steenkamp, a Cape Rebel whose death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on the island. The second series shifts to post-war mainland South Africa, where the Boers, though returned, still struggle for freedom. New characters are introduced, including Meisie, who is mute due to trauma, and her mother Cornelia, who seeks revenge. In the third series, Sloet and his friends, yearning to escape British rule, embark on the Dorsland Trek, a perilous journey across the Kalahari Desert in search of freedom beyond South Africa's borders.
Arende
1989
TV8.5ComedyDramaOnder Draai die Duiwel Rond is a South African television drama series created and written by Chris Barnard and produced by Sonneblom Films about beautiful people, good wine and respectable neighbours living on the banks of the Hartebeespoort Dam with lives that are seemingly idyllically peaceful and romantic, but which harbour deep secrets just beneath the surface of the facade.
Onder Draai Die Duiwel Rond
1997 · 2 votes
TV5.9CrimeDramaCape Town. Police captain Mat Joubert used to be the best, solved every crime, got every killer. But that was a year ago, before his wife Lara was murdered while working undercover. Mat's been on a downward spiral ever since, haunted by a blurred past, uncertain which role he played in the murder of his wife. Now Mat is an out of shape chain smoker who is ambivalent about the crime-ridden world around him. Gradually, Mat begins to overcome the ghosts of his past. But in order to stop the violence of his current cases he must relive the nightmare of his wife's murder.
Cape Town
2016 · 9 votes
TV10.0DramaThe drama series moves between the present and the nineties in Langkloof where Lisa and Henriëtte share their close teenage friendship and dreams, but a series of dark secrets ultimately drive the two apart.
Appels en Tee
2025 · 1 votes
TV8.0DramaCrimeArsenaal is a South African, Afrikaans-language thriller drama television series created, written and directed by Jan Scholtz and produced by his production company Scholtz Films which is set against the backdrop of investigative journalism, corrupt security companies and corrupt police.
Arsenaal
2002 · 1 votes
- TVDrama
Pop le Roux is a beautiful, but relatively uneducated, boer girl from a poor family. The young men of the county all compete with each other to win her favor. The man she loves is Manie Cronjé, He is just as poor and Pop sees no chance of suffering further. She eventually marries Jan Greyling, the rich widower. Gradually she adapts to her new life and becomes a good wife for Jan.