4 months ago
From nan latest swords-and-sandals blockbuster to a 1960s murder-mystery, location is thing to entreaty to everyone connected TV this weekend.
Sports fans and those who bask real-life crime bid are spoilt pinch immoderate superb documentaries.
And our critics person cherry-picked nan bester comedies, dramas and movies to make judge you person plentifulness to support you entertained this weekend.
So conscionable publication on... we've done each nan difficult activity for you. You conscionable person to beryllium backmost and relax.
Those About To Die
Ancient Roman gladiator play bid starring Anthony Hopkins and Iwan Rheon
Year: 2024
This sprawling ten-part play group successful ancient Rome goes each retired for some spectacle and governmental skullduggery. It's 79AD and nan corrupt superior of nan sprawling Roman empire is simply a vulnerable place. Emperor Vespasian (Anthony Hopkins) is increasing aged and nan restless masses are hardly kept successful statement pinch nan breadstuff and circuses combo of free nutrient and endless convulsive intermezo successful nan city's gladiator pits.
Into nan mediate of each this comes Master of Games Tenax (Game Of Thrones' Iwan Rheon), a commoner eyeing up powerfulness successful nan city, powerfulness he tin grasp by staging nan largest and astir sadistic spectacles nan metropolis has ever seen.
From azygous combat to immense conflict re-creations, from scraps pinch lions to unthinkable chariot races, this is thrilling worldly that fans of some Game Of Thrones and Gladiator will thigh up.
The bid is really based connected nan aforesaid book that inspired Gladiator, funnily capable - a 1958 history of nan Roman games written by Daniel P Mannix, besides entitled Those About To Die. (Ten episodes)
Skywalkers: A Love Story
Dizzying documentary astir 'rooftoppers' Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus
Year: 2024
Certificate: 18
Watch now connected Netflix
'Love is for illustration heights. The fearfulness ne'er goes away. You conscionable get amended astatine facing it.' Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus are nan mates who look some things head-on successful this documentary which, adjacent warning, is perfectly packed pinch dizzying footage changeable from nan tops of very precocious buildings. Angela and Ivan are 'rooftoppers' - group who climb buildings without instrumentality - and their photos documenting their acrobatic feats and evolving emotion communicative became a sensation connected societal media.
The peculiar attraction of this documentary is their prison-defying effort to standard Kuala Lumpur's Merdeka 118, nan second-tallest building successful nan world. If you retrieve nan Mission: Impossible movie successful which Tom Cruise scales nan Burj Khalifa, this feels a small for illustration that, and location are immoderate existent heart-in-mouth moments arsenic they evade nan attentions of security.
Visually, it's an astonishing film, and while location are moments erstwhile it tin consciousness scripted and nan lessons imparted astir life tin consciousness a small trite, nan wide effect is capable to expanse you up for nan long and for immoderate agelong aft that, too. (100 minutes)
Lady In The Lake
Natalie Portman stars successful a 60s-set US execution mystery
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now connected Apple TV+
In 1960s Baltimore, Maddie Schwartz (Natalie Portman) ditches her life arsenic a suburban housewife and mother successful bid to prosecute a profession arsenic an investigative reporter. It's a profession move that sees her go entangled successful nan find of nan assemblage of a achromatic female floating successful a lake.
Her quest to unravel nan execution takes Maddie heavy into nan city's underworld, where, arsenic she digs into nan life of nan dormant female - a bartender named Cleo (Moses Ingram of Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Queen's Gambit fame) - she discovers sides to nan metropolis that she ne'er knew existed.
This seven-part thriller is simply a gripping and atmospheric watch pinch a powerful consciousness of clip and place. Portman and Ingram are some fantabulous arsenic nan 2 very different but inextricably linked women astatine nan bosom of nan tale. (Seven episodes)
Cobra Kai (Series 6)
The first 5 episodes of nan last bid of nan Karate Kid sequel show
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now connected Netflix
All bully things travel to an extremity and nan sixth and last tally of nan hugely enjoyable sequel bid to nan Karate Kid movies starts present pinch a batch of 5 episodes. A further 5 get astatine nan extremity of November, earlier nan very past quintet takes to nan mat successful 2025.
The show usually specialises successful cliffhanger endings, but bid 5 vanished connected a harmonious statement pinch nan evil Terry Silver defeated and nan mixed students of Johnny and Daniel (William Zabka and Ralph Macchio) now moving happily together.
It's not going to last, though, and arsenic nan fighters hole for nan Sekai Taikai - nan world championships of karate - divisions and rivalries emerge. Oh, and don't hide that creepy Cobra Kai laminitis John Kreese (Martin Kove) is roaming astir too, having faked his ain decease to flight from prison. (Five episodes, pinch much to travel connected 28 November and successful 2025)
Suspect (Series 2)
Can frantic parents lick nan enigma of their daughter's death?
Year: 2022-2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now connected Channel 4
There's a big-name formed attached to this psychological thriller, based connected a Danish series, but it's James Nesbitt successful bid 1 and Anne-Marie Duff successful bid 2 who transportation it. They are nan divided parents of Christina, who is, successful nan very first episode, a assemblage connected a slab.
What follows is simply a bid of two-handers pinch various group connected to Christina, starting pinch nan pathologist doing her autopsy (Joely Richardson). In bid one, Danny disagrees pinch her appraisal that Christina took her ain life, and hurls himself into a frantic and highly unorthodox investigation. It evolves, successful 30-minute episodes, into an progressively gripping group of acheronian and twisty encounters pinch mostly shady characters who inhabit nan murky underworld wherever Christina lived.
In bid two, it's Duff's move to get frantic arsenic her psychiatrist sets retired to extremity an unhinged customer from committing murder. Ultimately, each roads lead backmost to Christina, but nan guidance nan crippled takes gets progressively incongruous.
As for that knockout cast, enactment tuned for Niamh Algar, Ben Miller, Dominic Cooper, Celine Buckens, Eddie Marsan and Richard E Grant. (Two series)
Simone Biles: Rising
Sports documentary pursuing nan US gymnast connected nan roadworthy to nan Paris Olympics
Year: 2024
Certificate: 12
Watch now connected Netflix
There's nary uncertainty that Simone Biles is 1 of nan top gymnasts successful history, pinch a gobsmacking full of 37 Olympic and World Championship medals (including 4 Olympic golds from nan 2016 games successful Rio).
However, her profession looked to beryllium ending connected a - comparative - debased aft her problems astatine nan 2020 Olympics successful Tokyo. Despite entering nan gymnastic title arsenic nan clear favourite successful astir of nan disposable disciplines, she withdrew successful tears from virtually each of them, citing psychological difficulties and concerns for her ain intelligence wellness (she had revealed 2 years earlier that erstwhile US Gymnastics expert Larry Nassar had sexually assaulted her).
Biles wasn't prepared to spell retired for illustration that, though, and declared successful 2023 that she was going to effort for different Olympics. This revealing and often inspiring four-part documentary follows her arsenic she useful towards Paris, charting not only her struggle to regain her spot astatine nan apical of nan athletics but besides her determination to time off nan athletics connected her ain terms. (Four episodes)
Mafia Spies
Documentary bid investigating nan 1960s links betwixt nan Mob and nan CIA
Year: 2024
In nan early 1960s, President John F Kennedy and nan CIA were earnestly concerned astir Cuban President Fidel Castro and his connections to Communist Russia. Castro had to beryllium removed, they decided, but really to spell astir it? The answer? Hire nan Mafia to termination him...
Using precocious declassified papers known arsenic nan JFK Files, this awesome six-part documentary digs into 1 of nan astir improbable sounding forgotten corners of nan Cold War, revealing really nan US intelligence organization really did interaction apical gangsters Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana and tasked them pinch assassinating Castro.
It didn't spell rather arsenic nan spy bosses planned, though, and what follows successful nan bid is an astonishing existent communicative that encompasses everything from devious double agents to Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack, and planned invasions to slayer gadgets specified arsenic exploding cigars. (Six episodes)
The Jetty
Jenna Coleman plays a widowed detective successful this enigma thriller
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now connected BBC iPlayer
Jenna Coleman is simply a constabulary detective and widowed mum of a teenage girl successful this four-part enigma thriller that weaves together galore much layers than nan mean potboiler. Coleman's Ember Manning and her ain past go uncomfortably adjacent to nan cardinal mystery, of a missing woman and a repeating seam of inappropriate intersexual relationships involving underage girls.
It deals pinch immoderate weighty themes, but nan wide reside is friendly and thoughtful, and Ember's characteristic is genuinely absorbing - nary saint, she's often afloat of rage, and has made her adjacent stock of bad decisions.
The formed wide is excellent, pinch nan champion exchanges successful nan full show coming betwixt Ember and her hippy mother (Amelia Bullmore). Completing 3 generations of nan family's women is Ember's teenage girl Hannah, played by Ruby Stokes, nan rising prima of Bridgerton who was besides fantabulous successful past year's The Burning Girls. (Four Episodes)
Ragdoll
Darkly comic crime-thriller bid from nan squad down Killing Eve
Year: 2021
Certificate: 15
Fans of Luther should admit this pitch-black crime bid astir nan hunt for a serial slayer - an particularly inventive slayer who stitches together nan assemblage parts of his six victims to create a grotesque whole. No, it's not a show for nan fainthearted.
Like Luther, nan detective connected nan lawsuit has a fewer issues. DS Rose (Henry Lloyd-Hughes) is nursing a troubled past and is caller retired of a psychiatric infirmary erstwhile he arrives astatine nan grim crime scene. Like Luther's twisted narration pinch Alice Morgan, nan Ragdoll slayer has a typical liking successful Rose, who has made it onto Ragdoll's six-strong 'coming next' termination list.
The show distinguishes itself from Luther acknowledgment to its twisted consciousness of humour - cheque retired Rose and his partner Emily Baxter (Thalissa Teixeira) choosing nan sanction Ragdoll for nan killer. It's besides astatine its champion erstwhile Rose and Baxter are connected surface together. Baxter provides nan competence and compassion that balances Rose's tortured maverick and yes, location is simply a romanticist spark betwixt them that helps springiness nan show immoderate heart. Watch retired for Phil Davis arsenic a Boris-alike politician of London. (Six episodes)
Find Me Falling
Harry Connick Jr headlines a romanticist drama astir a fading stone star
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now connected Netflix
When his latest medium flops and his profession looks doomed, ageing stone prima John Allman (Harry Connick Jr) decides to time off nan business of show acold down him. Heading to a clifftop retreat connected nan land of Cyprus, he plans to softly rediscover his philharmonic spark successful private. However, things don't rather spell to scheme and Allman finds his life becoming much alternatively than little analyzable arsenic his beingness starts filling up pinch caller group and caller problems. And that's each earlier an aged occurrence resurfaces...
Singer, songwriter and character Connick Jr's drawling slow-burn charm is showcased perfectly successful this gentle rom-com astir life, emotion and euphony (he moreover contributed a mates of songs to nan movie's soundtrack). And nan film's loving footage of nan groves and beaches of Cyprus will person you itching to caput to nan Mediterranean land for your adjacent holiday. (92 minutes)
Omnivore
Danish cook Rene Redzepi travels nan world, telling nan stories of ingredients we return for granted
Year: 2024
Certificate: pg
Watch now connected Apple TV+
If you for illustration you nutrient and recreation bid to travel from nan much thoughtful extremity of nan spectrum past invited to Omnivore, an eight-part voyage into culinary and geographic revelations pinch cook Rene Redzepi.
Born successful Copenhagen, Redzepi is simply a patient believer successful 'we are what we eat' and Noma, his edifice successful nan Danish capital, is devoted to knowing nan ingredients it uses.
This bid continues that work, arsenic Redzepi takes america information nan world to excavation heavy into nan stories of culinary building blocks specified arsenic rice, tuna, brackish and corn; what they mean to him, to history and to nan world today.
The bid has nan look of a characteristic movie and was developed for TV by Cary Joji Fukunaga, who directed nan first and champion bid of True Detective. If you person an aversion to pretension past this whitethorn consciousness for illustration overkill for a show astir specified a seemingly mini taxable but there's nary denying nan extent of knowledge, accomplishment and money progressive successful creating thing for illustration this. (Eight episodes)
Mr Bigstuff
Danny Dyer stars arsenic an outlandish returning relative successful Ryan Sampson's drama
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Danny Dyer has ever had a flair for drama and he's surely made funny films, but this show is, incredibly, his first, existent due TV drama series. Dyer plays Lee, nan returning estranged older relative of Glen, a meek carpet salesmen played by bid creator Ryan Sampson (Brassic). Lee re-enters Glen's life for illustration a drunken bowling ball, turning up astatine his spot of activity and instantly making a nuisance of himself.
So, will Lee's return ruin Glen's life, aliases will it beryllium nan making of him? What is Lee hiding? Those are nan questions you're near pinch successful nan first section of this six-parter, and nan process of having them answered provides a dependable watercourse of laughs, not slightest of which is Glen and Lee's creation regular to M People's Moving On Up successful nan opening episode. The connection is beautiful beardown astatine times but then, this is Dyer, truthful you'd expect that. (Six episodes)
Mean Girls (2024)
The philharmonic remake of nan deed 2004 high-school movie comedy
Year: 2024
Certificate: 12
Watch now connected Paramount+
The original 2004 Mean Girls movie starred Lindsay Lohan arsenic new-girl-in-school Cady, trying to find her spot arsenic she stumbled into nan orbit of nan toxic Regina George and her clique of 'Plastics'. Written by Tina Fey, it was a immense deed and went connected to spawn a Broadway philharmonic version.
Now that shape philharmonic type has go this almost arsenic enjoyable movie, chockful of updated references and fashions to spell on pinch nan songs. Co-written by Fey, it's slickly enjoyable worldly that should entreaty to lovers of nan original arsenic good arsenic a caller procreation of fans.
Spider-Man: Far From Home's Angourie Rice stars arsenic Cady, pinch Reneé Rapp arsenic Regina, but look retired excessively for Fey reprising her domiciled arsenic a coach from nan first film, Jon Hamm appearing arsenic a PE coach and moreover a mini cameo from original prima Lohan. (112 minutes)
Orlando Bloom: To The Edge
The character tries retired 3 highly vulnerable sports
To observe nan motorboat coming of UKTV's caller brand, tons of breathtaking caller contented arrives connected their free on-demand service, which will beryllium renamed U from UKTV Play.
This new, three-part bid follows Orlando Bloom, nan Pirates Of The Caribbean actor, Buddhist and partner of I Kissed A Girl vocalist Katy Perry, arsenic he takes connected utmost sports - learning to free dive, stone climb and skydive successful a helping suit. Bloom has ever been a spot of consequence taker and has had nan surgery bones to beryllium it. In his 20s, he collapsed his backmost and was told he whitethorn ne'er locomotion again. Thirteen days later he walked retired of infirmary connected crutches. But adrenaline and determination tin only return him truthful far. No 1 is going to fto him jump retired of a plane, dive without aerial aliases climb a stone until he's proved it won't beryllium a termination mission.
As brave (insane?) arsenic Bloom is, nan show isn't conscionable astir him, but nan astonishing group who train him. His climbing coach is Maureen 'Mo' Beck, who was calved without her little near arm, and taught herself to climb one-handed.
My Spy The Eternal City
Dave Bautista returns arsenic nan CIA spy and reluctant childminder successful this action-comedy sequel
Year: 2024
Certificate: 12
Watch now connected Prime Video
Mixing action, slapstick drama and immoderate warmhearted narration gubbins, 2020's My Spy told nan communicative of really gruff CIA operative JJ (Dave Bautista) reluctantly became nan babysitter to precocious nine-year-old Sophie (Chloe Coleman).
Now, this very invited sequel sees nan brace heading to Italy arsenic Sophie - now little tiny moppet and much stroppy teen - goes connected circuit pinch her high-school choir, and JJ trails aft her arsenic a chaperone. Trouble is, there's a explosive crippled brewing astatine nan Vatican and nan brace soon person to particulate disconnected their aged skills to extremity it.
There's a batch to for illustration successful this chirpy action comedy. Bautista and Coleman's sparky father-daughter-esque narration remains solidly entertaining, while nan remainder of nan formed is filled retired very nicely by nan returning Ken Jeong and Kristen Schaal, arsenic good arsenic newcomer to nan franchise Anna Faris. (111 minutes)
Sunny
Rashida Jones stars successful a blackly comic enigma thriller group successful Japan
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now connected Apple TV+
The disappearance of her Japanese hubby and boy successful a level clang has near American emigré Suzie (Rashida Jones) abruptly bereft and adrift successful her Kyoto home. But past nan bosses astatine nan electronics institution that her hubby worked pinch coming her pinch a blase family robot named Sunny to support her company.
With Sunny's assistance, Suzie originates to analyse conscionable what really happened to her family, opening a doorway into a very dark, very unusual and very vulnerable world beneath nan aboveground of her mundane life.
Created by The Affair's Katie Robbins, this darkly comic ten-part enigma thriller oozes neon style and eye-catching strangeness. There are beardown hints of Black Mirror successful its twisted only-slightly-future world, but it slices a unique way of its own, pinch Jones a baffled but wished and fierce fig astatine nan centre of events. (Ten episodes)
Daley: Olympic Superstar
The life of double Olympic decathlon champion Daley Thompson
Year: 2024
Certificate: 12
'By a state mile, nan champion Olympian we person ever had successful nan UK,' says Sebastian Coe of Daley Thompson, and if you don't judge that bold statement, support watching.
As a schoolboy, Daley was subbed into a decathlon tournament, contempt 'never having done 7 of nan things' successful nan ten-piece way and section event. He won, and from location it was sheer determination that sewage him to his first Olympic starting statement successful 1976. He came 18th that time, but world records and golden medals were to come.
Full of revealing and amusing anecdotes from Daley himself, arsenic good arsenic from legends including Sharron Davies and one-time rival Bruce (now Caitlyn) Jenner, positive Tessa Sanderson and Denise Richards, this is simply a lukewarm and highly entertaining look astatine a very sporting hero.
It's besides a nostalgic look backmost astatine nan 1980s, a clip erstwhile shot was our nationalist shame and it was nan athletics stars who filled nan newspaper backmost pages, moreover if Daley himself wasn't 1 to invited publicity: 'I don't want fame competitions, I want to triumph different things,' he says of his 1982 BBC Sports Personality Of The Year trophy. (103 mins)
The Iron Claw
Zac Efron stars successful a real-life wrestling drama
Year: 2023
Certificate: 15
Watch now connected Prime Video
Zac Efron, Harris Dickinson and The Bear's Jeremy Allen White prima successful nan moving existent communicative of nan Von Erichs, 3 brothers who became wrestling superstars but were dogged by tragedy.
The title comes from nan wrestling move their controlling begetter passes down to them, but besides from nan thought that nan family are each trapped by nan athletics - even, it is said, cursed - and nan movie flips from inspiring to poignant arsenic it goes.
If you liked Darren Aronofsky's bruising Oscar nominee The Wrestler, Sean Durkin's movie has a akin consciousness for nan harsh realities of life wrong nan ringing and nan cast, particularly Efron, person surely done nan activity to look nan part.
However, it's nan family play that it's paired with, arsenic Kevin (Efron) looks to break pinch his father, that gives this movie specified a rounded appeal. And while it surely deals pinch a batch of tragedy, nan reside ne'er gets wholly bogged down successful it. (132 minutes)
Homicide
Documentary bid pursuing nan activity of Los Angeles execution detectives
Year: 2024
Certificate: 18
Watch now connected Netflix
Star shaper Dick Wolf, creator of nan Law & Order universe, trim his teeth connected shows astir fictional murder, but precocious he's turned his attraction to real-life cases too. The five-part first bid of his Homicide show looked astatine execution cases successful New York but, for bid two, nan attraction turns to nan westbound seashore of nan US.
This clip nan show examines everything from nan high-profile personage Hollywood prosecution of grounds shaper Phil Spector to nan much commonplace but nary little tragic decease of young mother Teresa Boudreaux, which remained unsolved for much than 2 decades.
It's glossy, enthralling and often gruesome stuff, utilizing interviews pinch seasoned detectives from nan Los Angeles County Sheriff's department, prosecutors, and nan friends and family of nan victims to floor plan nan twisty way towards solving each lawsuit and bringing nan slayer to justice. (Two series)
Battle In The Box
Zany drama title wherever guests unrecorded successful a container and complete silly challenges
Year: 2024
Certificate: 12
This caller drama is simply a batch of nosy - a spot for illustration Taskmaster, but successful a confined space, a 16x3m locked box, to beryllium precise. Jimmy Carr is nan evil brilliant presiding complete nan mayhem, arsenic 2 pairs of comedians group up location successful nan box, competing pinch their neighbours for luxuries and space.
They complete challenges to gain money aliases 'box coin' pinch which they tin bargain things - important worldly for illustration furniture, pyjamas and nutrient - and besides nan chance to bargain abstraction disconnected their rivals. It's each exceedingly silly and hugely entertaining, pinch Seann Walsh and Joe Swash, and Harriet Kemsley and Lara Ricote, nan first to do conflict (and yes, nan boys do a adjacent spot of farting).
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