If you’re looking for some brilliant TV shows to watch this weekend, look no further.
From a highly unusual music documentary about a star whose career is threatened by a neurological disease to a quick-fire newsroom satire that becomes darker and twistier, there is something to suit every taste.
Our critics have picked out the must-watch movies, as well as laugh-out-loud comedy shows and series.
Read on to find the perfect show to get your teeth into this weekend.
My Lady Jane
Vibrant and fantastical reimagining of the life of Lady Jane Grey
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Prime Video
It can be really nice when TV surprises you, and My Lady Jane is nothing if not a surprise. Billed as a ‘swashbuckling romantasy series set in an alt-fantasy Tudor world’, the eight-parter is based on a string of novels that reimagine the life of Lady Jane Grey, the teenager known as the ‘Nine Days Queen’ who was beheaded by Bloody Mary after a depressingly short stint on the throne.
The purpose of the books is to give Jane a more fun and full existence than she had in our world, and the series certainly does that. It’s full to the brim with colourful costumes, characters and events from the very start, as we meet Jane (Emily Bader) and her unlovely mother (Anna Chancellor), who is scheming to marry her off to the son of the hilariously poisonous Lord Dudley (Rob Brydon).
That’s the high-society meat grinder Jane is fighting her way out of in this unpredictable show, but it comes with another twist – in this ‘alt-fantasy Tudor world’, part of the population can transform into animals at the drop of a hat; so you’re never quite sure who’s going to suddenly do what next.
While it’s unlikely to be for costume drama purists, and won’t have the depth to please others, if you fancy a breath of fresh air My Lady Jane is undeniably that. And the ‘adult’ cast (who also include Dominic Cooper and Jim Broadbent) have some very funny moments while the youngsters do their thing, too. (Eight episodes)
I Am Celine Dion
Documentary about the singer’s struggle with illness
Year: 2024
Certificate: 12
Watch now on Prime Video
This is not your standard music documentary. Yes, it has many clips of the Canadian singer in concert and the studio. Yes, there are home videos that highlight Celine Dion’s rise from a family of 14 children in Quebec to stardom around the world, but that’s not the film’s real subject – it’s actually about what happens when a rare neurological disease puts all that success under threat.
The documentary charts the singer’s life after she was diagnosed in 2022 with stiff-person syndrome, a condition that causes muscle stiffness and limb spasms. It’s an emotional and candid film in which Dion isn’t afraid to show herself struggling through physical therapy and in tears as she cancels concerts and contemplates possibly never being able to perform again.
Throughout it all she comes across as authentic and resilient, with a robust sense of humour about herself and a passion for life, performance and clothes. Shoes, in particular, come up often. Dion really loves them and isn’t fussy about size – if she likes what she sees, she will cram her feet in any which way she can (she wears the shoes, they don’t wear her, is how she puts it). The singer also has a healthy attitude towards her many, many staff, reflecting that ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’
All that, together with her endearing and very clear need to make her fans understand why she can’t perform for them how she could is what holds this occasionally meandering film together, leaving you with a strong image of an admirable and unique showbiz character. (102 minutes)
Land Of Women
Desperate Housewives’ Eva Longoria stars as a socialite wife and mother forced to start anew
Year: 2024
Watch now on Apple TV+
At first glance, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Land Of Women was Apple’s stab at a rival to the Sex And The City sequel series, And Just Like That. This six-part mix of drama, comedy and thriller only starts in New York, though, where we meet Manhattan socialite Gala (Desperate Housewives’ Eva Longoria), a wife and mother who seems to have everything until her husband screws it up and a couple of gangsters come calling.
That unpleasant event triggers a multi-generational girls’ trip, as Gala gathers up her mother from a nursing home and her daughter from college, and the three make a new start at her mum’s old house in a Spanish village. Needless to say, that new start isn’t simple – and the complications Gala initially encounters may remind you of a TV movie romcom.
Still, the root of this show really lies in women finding strength in each other and themselves; and out of the three, the one who has most to rediscover is Gala’s mother, a woman who clearly left a lot unresolved in her hometown.
Based on a novel by Sandra Barneda, this series is a nice mix of old and new that carries a refreshingly strong sense of its Spanish identity, evidenced by how it isn’t afraid to make us read subtitles once in a while. (Six episodes)
The Bear (Series 3)
The award-winning drama about a Chicago restaurant returns for a third run
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Disney+
After an incredible second run that improved on an already excellent first series, the drama about a Chicago restaurant returns. Series three begins with chef Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) having finally completed transforming the family-owned eatery from a humble sandwich joint into high-end restaurant The Bear. It all came at a cost, though, in terms of finances as well as relationships, whether familial, professional or romantic, and those bills need to be paid as service begins in earnest.
The show’s ability to keep the overall story simmering while still rustling up side dishes of character development remains mouthwatering. The ensemble cast is excellent (and ever improving, with the addition of the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis in series two) but it’s the core trio of White, Ayo Edebiri and incomparable Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the foul-mouthed Richie who make this a truly gourmet experience. (Ten episodes)
Andy Murray: Will To Win
Story of a British tennis great
Year: 2024
Certificate: pg
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
This one-off takes a look back on the career of the Dunblane boy who took home the men’s singles trophy from the All England Club not once but twice, in 2013 and 2016 – with the whole country cheering him on.
Plagued by injury in recent years, he is considering retirement after the 2024 summer season. The documentary hears from Andy himself as he describes his highs and lows and what fuels his ‘will to win’.
We also hear from his mum Judy and other family members as they recall what Andy was like growing up and what it meant for the Murrays when Andy left home as a teenager to train in Spain and dedicate his life to being number one. (59 minutes)
Supacell
Edgy south London superhero story made with big-budget panache
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Netflix
This edgy, six-part British take on the superhero story unfolds in south London, where we’re introduced to a number of people struggling to make ends meet – including one played by Tosin Cole (Ryan in Doctor Who) – who may just have powers they didn’t know existed. Other dots to join in the opening episode include a number of missing persons reports, a sinister centre that seems to be holding people prisoner and an overly helpful woman in a hospital.
If you remember Misfits on Channel 4, Supacell is superficially similar but it’s less of a comedy and more of a deep dig into the lives of its characters, making the most of its south London setting in the process – for anyone who lives around there, it will be clear how much of the show was actually filmed where it says it is, which adds to the feeling of authenticity.
As the story unfolds you’ll see that the show isn’t just good at being credible and telling good stories about everyday people’s lives, either. It has a pretty hefty superhero tale in its back pocket, one that’s executed with all the heady cinematic panache of Marvel. (Six episodes)
Douglas Is Cancelled
Cancel culture takes aim at Hugh Bonneville’s veteran newsreader
Year: 2024
Certificate: 12
Written by Steven Moffat, of Sherlock, Inside Man and Press Gang fame, this comedy drama starts out as a quick-fire newsroom satire before, over four episodes, it gets significantly darker and twistier.
The blistering opening episode unleashes pure pandemonium with Hugh Bonneville on dazzling form as Douglas Bellowes, the presenter of a teatime news show who, rather than reading the news, becomes the news. Karen Gillan co-stars as his clever co-anchor Madeline Crow, with Ben Miles as their sweary, scary boss and a fine turn from Alex Kingston as Douglas’s overwrought newspaper editor wife.
Veteran journalist Douglas is urged frequently to be bland and boring, so when a Twitter/X user declares they heard him telling a sexist joke at a wedding, against the uneasy backdrop of cancel culture, he is set to endure a trial by social media.
There’s a lot of blind panic and bluster in the first episode but as this four-parter settles the focus tightens to a darker, more Machiavellian mystery centred on Madeline and her motives. (Four episodes)
Before We Was We: Madness By Madness
The British two-tone pop band tell their colourful story in their own words
Year: 2021
Certificate: 12
Find out where the band came from, the London they grew up in, and the events that shaped them and their music in this entertaining look at Madness’s formative years. The band members are all great raconteurs, with many a colourful story to tell about their youth, misspent and meandering around the bleak landscape of London in the late 1960s and early 1970s – until they formed the band and found a purpose.
Many of the original band were working-class lads, or came from broken homes, their young lives marked by boredom, petty crime and an awful lot of, as frontman Suggs puts it, ‘farting about’. Examples include climbing up drainpipes to get into cinemas and breaking into the home of singer Lynsey de Paul (but not stealing anything). A few had stints inside when the hijinks went too far – and they got caught.
By the end of the first episode, they had nothing else to do but form a band. The remaining two episodes chart those stumbling early years before they hit the big time at home and in America, scoring 16 Top Ten singles including House Of Fun, Baggy Trousers and It Must Be Love. (Three episodes)
Paul Whitehouse’s Sketch Show Years
The Fast Show star presents a history of sketch comedy
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on NOW
Watch now on Sky
The Fast Show’s Paul Whitehouse is quite the scholar of comedy, and has personally curated this four-part survey of British sketch shows, which opens with a round-up of the early years on radio with Tommy Handley’s It’s That Man Again (parodied by Whitehouse as Arthur Atkinson in The Fast Show) and The Goons.
The focus shifts to TV from there, with each episode centered on a single decade. The episode on the 1970s alone gives us clips of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Morecambe & Wise and plenty more besides – Benny Hill, Dick Emery, The Two Ronnies and The Goodies – all woven together into a highly entertaining and educational mix by Whitehouse’s insightful narration.
And we haven’t even mentioned the newly remastered Monty Python material that’s being shown for the first time here, or what follows in the episodes about the later decades… (Four episodes)
Love & Translation
Three American bachelors try to find love with 12 international women who don’t speak English
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Discovery+
‘No one speaks English, how are we supposed to communicate?’ Three American bachelors move in with 12 international women in a cheeky dating show that’s reminiscent of Love Is Blind except, instead of not being able to see each other, the romantic hopefuls don’t share a language.
The ‘science’ behind this is the familiar statistic that 90 per cent of communication is non-verbal, but this show is much more about people than science. Of the trio of bachelors, ex-Marine Tripp seems like the most promising. He hankers to make connections with women from other cultures, and has always hoped for a ‘love at first sight’ moment. Tripp is also well-placed to overcome the language barrier, quickly recalling and applying the Marine philosophy of ‘adapt and overcome’ when the moment arrives.
There’s an unusually clever technological twist here – the women are provided with clever automatic translating earbuds that allow them to communicate with each other, but leave the men completely in the dark. There’s a lot of fun to be had in the people-watching side of what comes of it all, not to mention that it’s pretty funny watching them all flail about, too. (One series)
The Plymouth Shootings
The tragic 2021 massacre in Devon – and what caused it
Year: 2024
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
Gun crime and mass shootings are usually associated with America but they do happen here. In 2021, 22-year-old Jake Davison killed five people in a quiet cul-de-sac in Plymouth – including a three-year-old girl and her father, two passers-by and his own mother. It was the worst mass shooting in Britain since the 2010 killings in Cumbria.
In the aftermath of the horrific events in Plymouth, questions were asked about the perpetrator and his state of mind. His LK21 XXI Online Stream Movie & Series Netflix footprint pointed to a fascination with the Incel movement, where young men consider themselves unable to attract the opposite sex, and are often hostile towards women and men who are sexually active.
This documentary examines this aspect of Davison’s life, as well as exploring what went wrong to enable a disturbed young man to commit mass murder – and have access to a firearm. (45 minutes)
Diane Von Furstenberg: Woman In Charge
Documentary exploration of the fashion icon’s life
Year: 2024
Certificate: 12
Watch now on Disney+
There are no shortage of good stories to tell about Diane Von Furstenberg. The inventor of the wrap dress in the 1970s, she became a feminist icon as famous for her lifestyle as her fashion choices. This documentary digs into it all, from her marriage to a prince to her days as a Studio 54 It girl, from her battles with cancer as a single mother to her battles to break through the glass ceiling of the male-dominated fashion industry. It even finds time to contrast all of this with the story of Von Furstenberg’s mother, a Holocaust survivor who’s unwavering determination helped shape her daughter.
Neatly balancing the personal with the name-droppingly public (if you were famous in the 1970s then DVF almost certainly partied with you), it’s upbeat, life-affirming stuff that has women from Oprah Winfrey to Hillary Rodham Clinton queuing up to pay tribute to the designer. (97 minutes)
You Shall Not Lie
Spanish thriller about a scandal set in a high school
Year: 2022
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Channel 4
A picturesque and upmarket coastal town is the setting for this gripping Spanish drama which takes the old teacher-student indiscretion and turns it into a full-blown mystery thriller, with a pleasing undercurrent of humour and satire. It’s clearly taking its cue from Big Little Lies, but doesn’t quite scale the heights of that marquee series.
Teacher Macarena (Irene Arcos) is beautiful, has a stunning home, a successful husband and a moody teenage daughter, but her comfortable life is blown apart when a video circulates of her having sex with one of her students, Ivan, the son of her best friend.
Even if she could build bridges after this shocking revelation, what happens next makes her public enemy number one. Despite her protestations that the further accusations against her are fake, Macarena is fully and firmly cancelled – sacked, thrown out of her home, and persona non grata wherever she goes. As the idyllic town of Belmonte starts to show its true colours and its façade crumbles, can Macarena get to the bottom of the lies? (One series)
Fancy Dance
Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone stars in this powerful drama
Year: 2023
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Apple TV+
Lily Gladstone was Oscar-nominated for her performance in Killers Of The Flower Moon, and her grounded and entirely believable performance in this uplifting drama should only elevate her career further.
Gladstone stars as Jax Goodiron, an indigenous woman living on an Oklahoma reservation who has been caring for her niece after her sister disappeared. Then, one day, the authorities decide that Jax isn’t a fit guardian, and favour sending the girl to her white father, Frank (Boardwalk Empire’s Shea Whigham), instead. So, Jax and Roki hit the road together.
The movie certainly has a social message but it’s a drama about people first, and the real heart of it is the relationship between Jax and Roki (Isabel DeRoy-Olson). The story evolves as the film goes on and becomes a bit of a thriller in its later stages, but it’s never less than a finely acted, powerful experience throughout. (90 minutes)
The Serpent Queen
Samantha Morton stars as the serpentine Catherine de Medici
Year: 2022-
Certificate: 15
Watch now on MGM+
This lavish drama tells the story of a queen who had a huge impact on history. Catherine de Medici, the infamous 16th-century Queen of France, earned her serpentine nickname through a predilection for poisoning her rivals, and was the inspiration for the Evil Queen in Snow White; she also popularised high heels and was instrumental in the development of ballet.
Her ruthless scheming might have secured her position as the most powerful woman in Europe, but this eight-part series depicts Catherine in a very different light – that of a vulnerable woman, abandoned and abused in childhood, who used every weapon in her armoury to survive at a time when France was riven by civil war.
Samantha Morton is mesmerising as the sinister queen in a drama that tells her story with a modern spin and a sly humour, with a rock music soundtrack and Fleabag-style winks to the camera. Series two is coming on 12 July. (One series)
A Family Affair
Generation-gap romcom starring Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron
Year: 2024
Certificate: 12
Watch now on Netflix
Romcoms don’t do so well in cinemas these days, but the upside of that is that you get big stars doing them on streaming services, so we can watch them in our homes. Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron play the lovers in this example, a couple whose romance triggers an allergic reaction in poor personal assistant Zara (Fargo’s Joey King).
The reason for this is that Zara knows both of them very well. Brooke (Kidman) is her widowed mother, while Chris (Efron) is her boss, a selfish and self-obsessed movie star who she hates. Zara is convinced Chris will hurt her mum and is reeling from the possibility that he could also be the man to replace her father.
The journey to us finding out whether or not the whole thing is a good idea is peppered with slapstick comedy, neat Hollywood satire and the odd heartfelt moment of mother-daughter bonding. (111 minutes)
The Rookie
Castle’s Nathan Fillion stars as the oldest rookie in the LAPD
Year: 2018-
Certificate: 15
Watch now on NOW
Watch now on Sky
There’s a certain type of show that US TV has always done really well, and The Rookie is one of those. It has a snappy concept – what would happen if a fortysomething became the oldest rookie in the LAPD? – a charming star in Castle’s Nathan Fillion, a good-looking wider cast and tight scripts that are funny, dramatic and manage to squeeze in a lot of action on the way, backed by a budget that allows all that to shine.
It has something to offer everyone in short and makes for immensely easy-to-watch TV, especially in its early series as Officer Nolan (Fillion) and his fellow rookies move through their training, learning lessons and making occasionally hilarious mistakes. The storylines turn darker and become more socially responsible in its later series, but The Rookie never forgets the reason that it’s there – to entertain and, even in those moments when it does turn dark, a twinkle is rarely far from Fillion’s eye. There will be a seventh series. (Six series)
The Shamrock Spitfire
Second World War biopic about Irish Spitfire ace Paddy Finucane
Year: 2024
Certificate: 12
Watch now on NOW
Watch now on Sky
The story of Paddy Finucane is relatively little-known now, but his deeds during the Second World War were genuinely legendary. A dog-fighting Spitfire pilot of huge skill, he quickly progressed up through the Air Force ranks, becoming first a squadron leader and then at the age of 21 the RAF’s youngest ever wing commander.
This old-fashioned and adventurous war movie owes much more to films such as The Dam Busters and Douglas Bader biopic Reach For The Sky than it does to more recent war movies, spinning a tale of a determined young Irishman (played here with square-jawed charm by Shane O’Regan) who refused to let anything stand in the way of him fighting against the threat of Nazi Germany. With the rose-tinted direction of Dominic and Ian Higgins bringing the Battle of Britain to vibrant life, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable slice of action nostalgia. (108 minutes)
Owning Manhattan
Estate agents try to sell New York’s most expensive properties in this new reality show
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Netflix
Watching high-powered and highly stressed agents shifting glitzy properties in cities from Los Angeles to Miami and from Dubai to London is one of the hit telly genres of the last few years. The best shows of this type mix hefty chunks of jaw-dropping property porn with the bitchy backbiting of the competing estate agents to scintillating effect. And Owning Manhattan is definitely one of the best.
Estate agency boss Ryan Serhant is a slickly polished property shark in charge of a team of commission-hungry monsters so full of ambition and short of self-awareness that one of them genuinely says that success is his middle name. They’d be compelling to watch in any environment, let alone in Manhattan where the prize for flogging a $250 million apartment with eye-popping views across the city is a cool $10 million.
If Serhant is a familiar face it may be because he starred in US soap As The World Turns before his estate agency days – but British viewers are more likely to have seen him in the property series Million Dollar Listing New York. (One series)
Withnail And I
The ultimate cult film from Richard E Grant and Paul McGann
Year: 1987
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Channel 4
Writer-director Bruce Robinson’s film – a black comedy starring Paul McGann (as ‘I’; uncredited in the film, but known as Marwood) and Richard E Grant (as Withnail) – is what the word ‘cult’ was invented for. Its small army of devotees quote lines (gems such as ‘We’ve gone on holiday by mistake’), effuse on the genius of key scenes (the lighter fluid scene is a favourite, as is the discovery of ‘matter’ in the kitchen), and go all gooey-eyed at the memory of their first viewing.
Far from mainstream, it has little story and plenty of fruity language, while its two main characters – especially Grant’s Withnail – spend the entire film off their heads on alcohol, drugs, or both. You can’t take your eyes off Grant, who wafts through the film like a strungout Shakespearean ghost. McGann, on the other hand, is permanently terrified, with a growing sense of unease about their lifestyle.
Set in 1969, as the Swinging Sixties came to an end, it is, actually, a very simple coming-of-age story, told with acerbic wit, and featuring two utterly spellbinding performances from Grant and McGann. (107 mins)
