12-04-2025
The best films to watch on TV this week, from Tombstone to Twisters
Saturday 12 April
Fiddler on the Roof (1971) ★★★★★
BBC Two, 1.30pm
Its sweep at last week's Olivier Awards (for Jordan Fein's revival at Regent's Park) proved that Fiddler on the Roof ranks among the all-time great musicals. Norman Jewison teases a wonderful performance from Chaim Topol as Tevye, a milkman who must juggle the toils of life with the harsh realities of being poor and Jewish in Tsarist Russia in 1905. Despite its jolly songs, it has a tragic core. Also on Thursday (BBC Four, 9.30pm).
Black Box (2021) ★★★★
BBC Four, 9.40pm
Yann Gozlan's thrilling French-Belgian mystery has echoes of Michael Mann's The Outsider (1999) and Brian De Palma's Blow Out (1981); it's fast and frantic, but human too. Pierre Niney stars as a talented young black-box analyst at the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety who is tasked with investigating a mysterious fatal plane crash. Lou de Laâge and André Dussollier co-star.
Gangs of New York (2002) ★★★★
Channel 4, 10pm
Martin Scorsese's 19th-century epic tempted Daniel Day-Lewis out of retirement and introduced Leonardo DiCaprio as the new post-De Niro fixture in his films. He plays the son who returns to New York to avenge the death of his Irish immigrant father at the hands of Day-Lewis's Bill the Butcher, only to be sucked into the city's gang culture. Cameron Diaz, Liam Neeson and Stephen Graham are along for the ride.
Sunday 13 April
Easter Parade (1948) ★★★★★
BBC Two, 12.55pm
With charming lead performances from Judy Garland and Fred Astaire, terrific dance routines, and 17 original songs by Irving Berlin, it's no wonder this springtime classic was trumpeted as 'the happiest musical ever made'. It's a gorgeous vision of a world in which no man leaves the house without a top hat and tails; all the women, meanwhile, swan around in fabulous gowns and Easter bonnets. Also on Thursday (BBC Four, 7.50pm).
The Bad Guys (2022) ★★★
ITV1, 1.40pm
DreamWorks have perfected the formula for crafting intelligent, fun and modern children's animations – just look at the success of Shrek, Despicable Me and Kung Fu Panda. This is similarly hilarious: a vivid heist comedy about a group of anthropomorphic criminal animals who, upon being caught by the police, pretend to attempt to reform themselves as model citizens. Sam Rockwell and Richard Ayoade are among the stellar voice cast.
Scent of a Woman (1992) ★★★★
BBC Two, 10pm
The film that finally got Al Pacino his Oscar is a stirring tale of a student (Chris O'Donnell) who's hired to look after a grumpy, blind ex-army officer (Pacino) over a weekend around Thanksgiving. Its ending may be a little mawkish, but thanks to some wonderfully uplifting scenes – ie Pacino's impromptu tango – Martin Brest's drama is definitely worth a watch. Philip Seymour Hoffman is excellent in support.
Monday 14 April
Greedy People (2024) ★★★
Sky Cinema Premiere, 8pm
Potsy Ponciroli's crime comedy owes an obvious debt to the films of Quentin Tarantino and the Coen brothers. Greedy People follows a rookie cop who, while trying to prove that he's got what it takes to one day upstage his established partner, winds up involved in an accidental murder – and the owner of a large bag of criminal cash. Himesh Patel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Lily James star. Streaming from Saturday.
Greta (2018) ★★★
BBC Three, 9.55pm
Not a profile of the climate activist, instead Greta is a greasily watchable stalking thriller from director Neil Jordan. Isabelle Huppert does her best Isabelle Huppert as an unsettling, widowed piano teacher who ensnares Chloë Grace Moretz's needy waitress. There's promising shades of lesbian drama Carol in the set-up, but Huppert threatens to unspool into self-parody. You can also catch it on Sunday (BBC One, 12.10am).
Hi Mom! (1970) ★★★★
Talking Pictures TV, 11.05pm
After serving in Vietnam, Jon Rubin (Robert De Niro) arrives in NYC and asks sleazy producer Joe Banner (Allen Garfield) how he can direct a porn film. After becoming obsessed with his beautiful neighbour (Jennifer Salt), Rubin has the idea to start shooting her – and others – through his window. Brian De Palma's black comedy hasn't aged well feminism-wise, but it's worth a watch as one of De Niro's early films.
Tuesday 15 April
Tombstone (1993) ★★★★
Film4, 9pm
There's few line deliveries as memorable as 'I'm your huckleberry'. George Pan Cosmatos's Western is rollicking good fun, mainly thanks to the late Val Kilmer's scene-stealing turn as gunfighter Doc Holliday. There's so much facial hair on display it's sometimes hard to tell who's who, but Kurt Russell, sporting a moustache as big as an albatross, is also great as Earp. For more Kilmer, Top Gun is on Great! Movies on Sunday at 6.40pm.
Smile 2 (2024) ★★★
Sky Cinema Premiere, 9pm
Part of the new world order of blockbuster horror films made on a shoestring budget, Parker Finn's bloody, relentlessly gory sequel will test even the most strident of fright-lovers. Naomi Scott plays Skye Riley, a pop star whose life is turned upside down by a series of disturbing events. Expect blood, murder and plenty of screaming. Peter Jacobson, Kyle Gallner and Rosemarie DeWitt also star. Also streaming on Paramount+.
The Australian Dream (2019) ★★★★
BBC Four, 10.50pm
Written by award-winning Australian journalist Stan Grant and directed by Brit Daniel Gordon, this thought-provoking sports documentary offers a window into the world of Australian professional football. It focuses on Australian Football League (AFL) player Adam Goodes, and his battle against racism in the sport as an Aboriginal player, as well as exploring his activism and early life and upbringing.
Wednesday 16 April
Inglourious Basterds (2009) ★★★★
Film4, 9pm
Quentin Tarantino's homage to classic war films offers all the hallmarks of the director's audacious style. It's bloody, darkly comic and anchored by actors playing thrillingly against type. Christoph Waltz won an Oscar for his incendiary turn as a fearsome SS colonel known as the 'Jew Hunter'; Brad Pitt is almost as memorable as the chief Nazi-killer, Aldo 'the Apache' Raine. Eli Roth and Mélanie Laurent also star.
Surrogates (2009) ★★★★
Great! Movies, 9pm
Real people stay at home and live vicariously through their good-looking robot facsimiles in Jonathan Mostow's sci-fi thriller. Hence we get to see Bruce Willis as an FBI agent with hair and smooth skin before his surrogate is destroyed and he has to revert to his paunchy, wrinkled self in order to solve a series of murders in which people's brains are 'liquified in their skulls'. Ving Rhames and Rosamund Pike co-star.
Hideous Kinky (1998) ★★★★
BBC Two, 11.30pm
Based on Esther Freud's novel of the same name, this moving drama, directed by Gillies MacKinnon, gave Kate Winslet a meaty role to sink her teeth into following the blockbuster success of Titanic the year previously. Winslet plays a young mother who moves from London to Morocco with her two daughters in the early 1970s, keen to find new friendships, community and, eventually, romances.
Thursday 17 April
Touch (2024) ★★★★
Sky Cinema Premiere, 4.30pm
Baltasar Kormákur's sweeping romantic drama centres on Kristófer (Palmi Kormákur) and Miko (Kōki), whose illicit love affair in 1960s London is cut short by their respective families. Decades later, the story is interlaced with scenes of Kristófer as an old man, tirelessly in pursuit of Miko and set on rekindling their love. Fans of Past Lives or Before Sunrise will find much to love.
The Client (1994) ★★★★
ITV4, 11.30pm
One of countless John Grisham film adaptations (along with The Rainmaker, A Time to Kill, and many others), this legal drama, directed by Joel Schumacher, stars Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones. When 11-year-old Mark (Brad Renfro) witnesses the suicide of a mob lawyer, the police try to get him to testify in court. But Mark isn't keen, and instead hires a feisty attorney (Sarandon, deservedly Oscar-nominated) to protect him.
Denmark (2019) ★★★
BBC Two, 11.50pm
Welshman Herb's (Rafe Spall) life is a right old mess. His welfare payments have stopped, he can't find a job, his son hates him, and his diet consists of cheap beer and tinned mush. So when he watches a documentary about Danish prisoners' high quality of life – and how they're treated to great healthcare, TV, and a countryside location – he travels across Europe on a mission: to get arrested in Denmark and sent down. Wickedly funny.
Friday 18 April
Twisters (2024) ★★★★★
Sky Cinema Premiere, 8pm
Glen Powell staked his claim to be the new King of Hollywood (he was mentored by Tom Cruise, after all) in Lee Isaac Chung's terrific follow-up to Twister (1996). Powell is a cocky storm-chaser who teams up with Daisy Edgar-Jones's gifted scientist to investigate an outbreak of devastating tornadoes in Oklahoma. It's silly in the sort of way the best action movies are, and the climactic scene is a corker.
The King's Speech (2010) ★★★★★
BBC Two, 10pm
Tom Hooper's stirring film about the future King George VI's struggle to overcome his stammer won multiple Oscars, including Best Actor for Colin Firth and Best Picture (beating the dazzling likes of Black Swan, The Social Network and True Grit). But it's his double-act with Geoffrey Rush, as the King's speech therapist Lionel Logue, and their doubleheaders, courtesy of screenwriter David Seidler, that give the film its heart.
Fall (2022) ★★★
BBC One, 10.30pm
It's perhaps wise to avoid Scott Mann's survival thriller if you have a fear of heights: its protagonists spend the majority of the film stuck atop a 2,000-foot-tall broadcasting tower. Becky and Hunter (Grace Caroline Currey and Virginia Gardner) find themselves stranded after climbing to the top to scatter a partner's ashes; what ensues is their descent into psychosis, as the heat, starvation and sheer terror pushes them to the brink.
