Looking for something to watch on TV this weekend? Our experts have rounded up the pick of the shows and films available On Demand – so you don’t have to.
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Cate Blanchett, Sacha Baron Cohen and Kevin Kline star in a high-class thriller from director Alfonso Cuarón
Year: 2024
Certificate: 18
If you want a straightforward thriller then this series from celebrated movie director Alfonso Cuarón (Roma), based on a book by Renée Knight, might not seem like it’s for you. Give it until the end of the first episode, though, when its three storylines start to dovetail, until you make a decision.
Cate Blanchett stars in one of the three storylines as top journalist Catherine, a woman who has a tricky relationship with her son and a secret she’s keeping from her husband, Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen). We also meet a young couple on a spirited holiday in Italy, and Stephen (Kevin Kline), a retired teacher who is dealing with the death of his wife, Nancy (Lesley Manville).
All three stories are deeply connected and come together in the manner of a symphony as this high-class series unfolds. Cuarón feels more like a conductor than he does a director here, blending all the performances and plots into one steadily mesmerising whole. You can see why he’s attracted the cast he has for this, his groaning mantlepiece of Oscars, BAFTAs and Golden Globes aside. It’s also quite a racy show at times – in its opening scene and later on, especially in episode three, but not gratuitously so. It all makes sense in terms of the characters and what they want. (Seven episodes)
Curfew (2024 series)
Sarah Parish stars in a fascinating ‘what if’ crime thriller set in a Britain where men are confined to their homes at night
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
What would the world be like for women if men couldn’t go outside between 7pm and 7am? The British author Jayne Cowie explored exactly that compelling ‘what if’ in her novel After Dark, and this is the TV adaptation of that.
It’s a visceral experience from the very start, opening by showing us carefree women on the way back from a night out, the streets free of men, all of whom are tagged and unable to leave their homes. The scene shows them looking longingly down at the women from the windows of flats on either side of the road as one of the women taunts them. It’s a striking scene – a smart inversion of the situation with sex workers in Amsterdam’s red light district – and one of many that crop up in the show.
The ensuing six-part series is essentially a detective story, focused around the brutal murder of a woman during curfew. The timing means that the killer must be a woman, because everyone trusts the technology that has kept women safe for the past three years and to admit it was faulty might be to lose both it and the Women’s Safety Act that brought it into being in the first place.
Detective Pamela Green (Sarah Parish), though, is convinced this is the work of a man and sets out to prove it, and we learn more about the fascinating ripple effects of the act as it goes on. One of those shows that should start plenty of conversations. (Six episodes)
Challengers
Zendaya and Josh O’Connor star in a tennis-world triangle romance
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Fierce triangle romance starring Zendaya, The Crown’s Josh O’Connor and The Bikeriders’ Mike Faist as three tennis professionals with about as complicated a personal and professional bond as you can get.
Zendaya is prodigy-turned-coach Tashi, who’s married to waning champion Art (Faist) who, in turn, winds up in a game against Patrick (O’Connor). He’s past his best and was once Art’s best friend and Tashi’s ex, back when all three shared a very close physical bond indeed. The movie jumps back and forward in time to explore the lustful and tricky developments at different points in all of their lives.
That’s a pretty complicated set-up, but it doesn’t feel that complicated to watch. Director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name) has a sharp eye for the way his stars’ bodies move both on the court and off.
The main threads of the movie are the games of both desire and tennis, and the passionate and complicated relationships that exist in both. The performances are universally impressive, especially Zendaya, notably in the clever way all three actors so plausibly portray the characters at different points of their lives. It’s long and it may be a little too heated for some, but it’s an undeniably cohesive and excellent piece of filmmaking, and was rated four out of five stars by the Mail’s Brian Viner. (131 minutes)
Sweetpea
Yellowjackets’ Ella Purnell stars in a complex British drama about one woman’s revenge
Year: 2024
Certificate: 18
Yellowjackets’ Ella Purnell stars in a darkly comic drama about a woman who lacks control in her life – and then takes it back, in seriously violent fashion, one step at a time. There are echoes of Stephen King’s Carrie to the story of Rhiannon (Purnell), a seemingly meek office manager at a local newspaper who has never quite recovered from being viciously bullied at school. Rhiannon holds grudges against the bullies and considers herself a victim. We see her as an underdog as a result, but is the situation as straightforward as it seems?
That’s the question that emerges over the course of a six-parter that weaves an increasingly complex moral web as it goes, asking us to question our ideas over who is good and who is bad. There are some vicious scenes of violence in the early episodes, but those ease up as it goes on and the drama and the questions deepen, and a dark laugh is never far off. Sweetpea – the title comes from the infuriating nickname Rhiannon’s boss has for her – is one of those shows where you’ll find it genuinely difficult to predict the ending, and that’s enough to mark it out as worth watching all by itself. (Six episodes)
Lonely Planet
Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth star in a Morocco-set romantic drama
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Struggling with writers block, successful novelist Katherine (Laura Dern) reluctantly heads off to Morocco to a group writers retreat. She wants as little to do with the other guests in the shared villa as possible, but she slowly forges a connection with Owen (Liam Hemsworth), a somewhat younger man who’s staying there with his wannabe writer girlfriend. Both facing major hurdles in their lives, the two draw ever closer until romance inevitably ignites…
May to December love stories seem to be in vogue at the moment (as the excellent Anne Hathaway-starrer The Idea Of You amply proved) and this is a strong entry in the genre. The always fantastic Dern has genuine chemistry with Hemsworth in a film where the love story evolves with believable drama and more than a little humour. (94 minutes)
A Killer’s Memory
Michael Keaton directs and stars in a thriller about a hitman with dementia
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
A seasoned professional assassin with a philosophical attitude to his bloody job, John Knox (Michael Keaton) finds his life splintering when he’s diagnosed with a rapidly progressing form of dementia. As his memories blur and fade, Knox desperately tries to hold his fracturing mind together long enough to help his estranged grown-up son (James Marsden) escape from a murder charge.
An elegiac crime drama with lashings of noir vibes (think Heat meets Memento), this is subtle and smart cinema directed with cool restraint by Keaton himself. The presence of the likes of Marsden, Al Pacino, Suzy Nakamura and Marcia Gay Harden on the cast list helps to give it depth, but this is a movie made by Keaton’s chilly core performance. All buttoned-down resignation and lethal magnetism, he’s bang on target as this old-school hitman settling accounts as time runs out. (114 minutes)
Citadel: Diana
Italian spin-off thriller show set in the world of the Citadel espionage series
Year: 2024
Certificate: 12
Slotting neatly into the gadgets, glamour and globetrotting action slot currently left vacant by the absence of any new James Bond films, the Citadel series saw hi-tech secret agents Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas battling on behalf of the Citadel spy agency against the forces of globe-spanning terror network Manticore.
A second series of the main show is already in the works, but until then this Italian-language spin-off fills the gap nicely. Matilda De Angelis plays Diana, a Citadel agent trapped undercover whose only way out is to burrow even deeper into the Manticore network, with the help of a very dangerous insider. It’s chockful of conspiracies, 007-esque gadgetry and some really impressive action sequences, with De Angelis delivering an icily lethal lead performance. And if this whets your appetite for more from the Citadel-verse, then a second spin-off, this one from India, is due later this year. (Six episodes)
Ghost Whisperer
Jennifer Love Hewitt communicates with spirits in hit Noughties show
Year: 2005-2010
Certificate: 12
This upbeat supernatural series stars doe-eyed Jennifer Love Hewitt as Melinda Gordon, the wholesome all-American girl who sees dead people. It’s no spooky horror show, but more like a cross between Buffy and Touched By An Angel. Melinda helps ghosts to move on, which invariably means supporting their loved ones on Earth.
Rather than mystery of the week, it’s more like ghost of the week in the first series, before it shifts into an overarching story of Melinda battling dark forces from series two onwards. It’s then that the show takes on more epic, Buffy-style proportions and mythology building, while still powering through a series of emotional supernatural mysteries.
There’s some notable guest stars to watch out for, including Prison Break’s Wentworth Miller in the pilot and The Good Wife’s Christine Baranski, Joey King (Uglies), Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) and Captain Marvel’s Brie Larson. (Five series)
Chimp Crazy
Tiger King director Eric Goode turns his attention to the disappearance of a Hollywood chimp
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
This riveting documentary for HBO is directed by Eric Goode, the man who brought us Tiger King. Chimp Crazy is focused on the way humans treat chimpanzees rather than tigers, specifically Tonia Haddix – an ex-nurse-turned-exotic animal broker who describes herself as the ‘Dolly Parton of chimps’. Tonia took over the Missouri Primate Foundation in 2018, until a lawsuit from PETA shut the place down. They couldn’t find one of the animals, though – a chimp named Tonka. Had Tonia taken him?
It’s at this point that the actor Alan Cumming enters the story. Years ago, he starred in the movie Buddy with Tonka, and remembers being told that the chimp had retired to Palm Springs after his Hollywood career had come to an end. This turned out not to be the case. Interviews with Haddix, who frequently refers to the primates as her children, form the backbone of a four-parter that goes to some extraordinary places, particularly at the end of episode two when we learn what has actually happened to Tonka. Whatever you do, don’t miss that.
It’s a fascinating watch throughout but, if you’re sensitive when it comes to animal welfare, be aware that there are also some unpleasant scenes along the way. (Four episodes)
The Last Of The Sea Women
Documentary about the female free-divers of South Korea
Year: 2024
Certificate: pg
For generations, the female haenyeo divers of Jeju Island in South Korea have been harvesting seafood from the ocean bed, diving down without oxygen tanks to bring it up to sell and eat. It’s given them a tight and ferocious bond with each other and with the ocean – which they see themselves as the protectors of. But times are changing and few young women want to join the ranks of the haenyeo, meaning that the activity – most of the women are in their 70s and 80s – may well soon die out.
The haenyeo divers won’t go quietly, though. This potent and committed documentary follows this band of fierce, funny, independent and determined women as they campaign against oceanic pollution and collaborate with young social media-savvy activists to get across their message about the importance of protecting marine environments and ancient ways of life. (86 minutes)
The Menendez Brothers
The notorious siblings tell their murderous story from behind bars
Year: 2024
Certificate: 18
On 20 August, 1989, Lyle and Erik Menendez murdered their parents in Beverly Hills and then claimed they had been killed by criminals unknown. On 2 July, 1996, the brothers were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and that’s where this documentary finds them.
At the time of filming, Erik is 51 and Lyle is 55 – a lot of time has passed since they were incarcerated and this single, two-hour film is comprised of 20 hours of interviews conducted with them behind bars.
Lyle and Erik had not told the story of what happened to them together for almost 30 years prior to this, so that is interesting in itself. And if you’ve watched the Ryan Murphy Netflix drama Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story, then seeing the real brothers so many years on will add another level of intrigue. (118 minutes)
Occupied City
Documentary about Second World War Amsterdam by filmmaker Steve McQueen
Year: 2023
Certificate: 12
With a runtime that stretches to more than four hours, Steve McQueen’s account of life in Amsterdam under Nazi rule is nothing short of monumental. Starting with the invasion in 1940, it tracks the events of day-to-day life through collaboration and resistance, savage anti-semitism and political extremism, through to the brutal final days before the Allied liberation in 1945.
The 12 Years A Slave and Little Axe director’s method here is fascinating: actress Melanie Hyams recounts the story of the war, focusing on specific events in particular places, but we don’t see those places in grainy archive film or photos, we see them in bright modern footage of the city as it is now. The juxtaposition of the old and the new is jarring, revealing and frequently thought-provoking, encouraging an engagement that makes history feel achingly and worryingly relevant. It’s also worth knowing that four hours isn’t necessarily all there is – McQueen has said there’s a 36-hour version of the documentary. (251 minutes)
Bombing Brighton: The Plot To Kill Thatcher
A look at the infamous terrorist outrage of 1984
Year: 2024
Certificate: 12
The bomb that exploded at the Grand Hotel, Brighton, on 12 October 1984, claimed the lives of five people and injured more than 30. The target of the attack, by the IRA, was the Conservative Party Conference and, more specifically, prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
This documentary provides the context for the bombing, a key moment in the Troubles that had been raging since the late 1960s. That includes the moment when, arguably, Thatcher’s position on Northern Ireland became resolute – the assassination of her friend Airey Neave in 1979, shortly before she took office.
As well as archive footage of Thatcher in the lead-up to and aftermath of the bomb, we also hear from those who survived, including John Gummer and his wife Penelope. Most chillingly of all, we hear from the man who planted the bomb, Patrick Magee, who was released as part of the Good Friday Agreement, and speaks here in an interview from 2022. He describes sleeping ‘fitfully’ on the eve of the bombing. Not out of concern over the lives he might claim but worried that ‘it wouldn’t go off’. (76 minutes)
Showtrial (Series 2)
Twisty, morally murky crime drama returns with a new story
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
When it comes to crime shows we have whodunnits, howdunnits, ripped-from-the-headlines true-crime and courtroom dramas, and it can be hard to put new twists on these popular formats. So hat’s off to anthology series Showtrial, which takes a crime and follows the process all the way to trial, while turning the usual heroes and villains upside down.
While the first series focused on a mouthy young woman from a privileged background – the kind who usually flashes her eyelashes and daddy’s wallet and gets off scot-free – this second series follows another character it’s too easy to hate. Against a backdrop of police corruption, police officer Justin Mitchell (Michael Socha) is the baddest of bad apples. But did he do it? And while he is many things – aggressive, misogynistic, argumentative – did he really murder a climate activist and try to conceal his crime?
His defence lawyer (Adeel Akhtar) has a hell of a job wading through the mud to defend Justin, but one thing this series is making very clear is that no one – on any side of the law – is whiter than white. In a climate of cancel culture, anyone is open to cancellation, but what are they really guilty of?
Socha and Akhtar are both superb, in a series that chews on tough questions and doesn’t serve up any easy answers. (Five episodes)
The Hardacres
Family saga about the rags-to riches lives of a working-class family in 1890s Yorkshire
Year: 2024
Certificate: pg
Cosy costume drama from the team behind All Creatures Great And Small, based on the rags to riches saga by CL Skelton. The Hardacres – mum Mary, dad Sam, their three children and dodgy granny ‘Ma’ (Julie Graham) – work the docks in Victorian Yorkshire, but a heroic act from Sam leaves him injured and unable to work. If the family don’t get some money soon, they’ll be out on their ears, and it’s Mary who comes up with a plan.
Their fortunes see a dramatic turnaround, and it’s an escapist treat to watch how the ‘son of a drunkard from the back alleys of Belfast’ and the ‘daughter of a two-bit smuggler’ come to be lord and lady of the manor. That happens quickly (by the end of the first episode) and the rest of the series follows the family as they make the newly christened Hardacre Hall their home, ruffling old-money feathers along the way. (Six episodes)
Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist
Samuel L Jackson, Taraji P Henson and Kevin Hart star in a true crime drama set in 1970
Year: 2024
Black Hollywood royalty Taraji P Henson, Samuel L Jackson and Terrence Howard star in this electrifying true-crime drama about a brazen robbery that took place at a house party in Atlanta on the night of Muhammad Ali’s historic 1970 comeback fight.
Kevin Hart breaks away from his usual goofy comedy roles here, playing the hustler suspected of orchestrating the heist – when all he actually did was host the party. Don Cheadle is great value as the detective hunting down those who are really behind it all, while Jackson is as good as you’d expect as an ice-cool crime boss. (Eight episodes)
The Alienist
Cold-blooded killers are hunted by innovative NYC detectives
Year: 2018-2020
Certificate: 15
Fans of Vienna Blood will appreciate the style and atmosphere in this US period crime drama that also focuses on the emerging role of psychiatry in criminal investigations. Be warned, though – it’s considerably more gruesome than the Vienna-set show.
Based on the novels by Caleb Carr, we are immersed in both the seediness and sophistication of New York City in 1896. A twisted killer is stalking homeless street children, leaving a bloody trail that the newly appointed police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt (as in the future US president) is keen to hush-up.
Roosevelt hires a former classmate of his, Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Daniel Bruhl), a criminal psychiatrist (or alienist), to discreetly investigate the murders. He teams up with another former classmate, John Moore (Luke Evans) who, as an illustrator for the New York Times, has journalistic investigative skills and acts as an early form of crime-scene photographer.
Joining them is Sara Howard (Dakota Fanning), the NYPD’s first female employee who, starting out as a secretary, proves herself an adept investigator and opens her own detective agency in series two. Both series follow a single case in depth, exploring the deep societal contrasts of America’s so-called ‘Gilded Age’ alongside close encounters with dark and depraved criminal minds. (Two series)
Grey’s Anatomy
Shonda Rhimes’s hugely enjoyable medical supersoap
Year: 2005-
Certificate: 15
Created in 2005 by TV legend Shonda Rhimes, this much-loved medical drama about the lives and loves of doctors-in-training at a major hospital is a cultural phenomenon and still going strong. It has made stars of several cast members including Sandra Oh, Katherine Heigl, Patrick ‘McDreamy’ Dempsey and Ellen Pompeo, who plays the main character, Dr Meredith Grey.
At its best, it delivers an electrifying blend of drama, soap opera and romantic comedy. Sometimes when a show endures this long, there’s a snobbish assumption that it can’t be any good; the writers and actors must just be phoning it in. That’s not the case here. The 20th series was the first not to regularly feature Pompeo on screen, while the most recent 21st sees Station 19’s Jason George join the show on a regular basis as Dr Ben Warren. (21 series)
Tomb Raider: The Legend Of Lara Croft
Hayley Atwell provides the voice of the video game adventurer in this all-action animated series
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Hayley Atwell brings heart and depth to the voice of Lara Croft in Netflix’s retro animated adventure, which is set between the latest series of video games and the original lot. Don’t feel like you need to be a big fan of those games to watch it, though – in essence this is a good old-fashioned hidden treasure adventure, with Lara on the trail of a powerful Chinese artifact stolen from Croft Manor by a thief with a personal connection to our aristocratic heroine.
It’s a coming-of-age adventure in a way, as the personal nature of the theft forces Lara to confront realities about herself, and make decisions about how she wants to move in the world. Full of the kind of elaborate action sequences that would cost an absolute fortune to stage in a live-action adaptation, this is an exciting and accessible piece of entertainment with an eerie undertone and the occasional sly aside from Atwell’s Lara. (Eight episodes)
In The Long Run
Idris Elba leads the cast of a chirpy family sitcom set on an East London estate in the 1980s
Year: 2017-2020
Certificate: 15
With dark crime shows like The Wire and Luther on his CV, Idris Elba doesn’t sound like the natural choice for a chirpy family sitcom set on an East London estate in the 1980s, but he totally nails this nostalgic old-school comedy.
The fact that the whole thing is loosely based on Elba’s own upbringing in a warm but chaotic Sierra Leonian family in Hackney obviously helps (Elba is basically playing his own dad here), but so too does the obvious affection that the three-series show has for each and every character who appears in it – not least Elba’s long-suffering best mate Bagpipes, played with wide-eyed glee by a certain Mr Bill Bailey. First shown on Sky, it’s since been added to Netflix where it should pick up fresh fans. (Three series)
