There may be plenty of movies available on streaming platforms and being released weekly in cinemas, but nothing quite beats the feeling of finding a hidden gem while flicking through the TV.
With such a raft of options – old and new – to pick from this weekend, it can often feel like a bit of an insurmountable task to find one that really tickles your fancy. But that’s where we come in to do the hard work for you, picking out some of the most stellar options available to tune into.
This weeks selection includes everything from Julia Roberts classics Notting Hill and Erin Brockovich to the wonderful 60s screwball Charade – starrinG Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn.
There’s something for everyone and if you’re wondering where to find some of the best films on the terrestrial channels this week, we’ve got you sorted.
Read on for an expertly compiled list of the best flicks airing across the next seven days.
Friday 29 May
Gangs of New York – 9pm, Great TV
Oscar-nominated period crime drama from director Martin Scorsese, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz and Daniel Day-Lewis. New York in the mid-19th century: young boy Amsterdam Vallon witnesses his father’s death in a bloody battle between rival street gangs. Years later, Amsterdam worms his way into the group responsible, determined to wipe out its sinister leader, Bill “the Butcher” Cutting. Read our full review
Love, Simon – 9:05pm, ITV2
Romantic comedy drama starring Nick Robinson. High-school student Simon is anxious about coming out as gay and begins an online correspondence with the anonymous “Blue”, another local student who has recently posted about the same issue. When Simon’s secret is discovered by a classmate, he is blackmailed into playing Cupid for them – with increasingly tangled results. Read our full review
Love and Mercy – 11pm, BBC Two
Biographical drama starring Paul Dano and John Cusack. While recording an album with his band, the Beach Boys, in the 1960s, singer Brian Wilson struggles with panic attacks that concern his bandmates. Later, in the 1980s, an older Wilson tentatively enters into a relationship with a Cadillac saleswoman, but his therapist’s intense scrutiny threatens to derail the union before it gathers any momentum. Read our full review
The Kid Detective – 11:40pm, Film4
Comedy drama starring Adam Brody. Two decades since his glory days as a fêted child crime-buster, Abe Applebaum now struggles with addiction, depression and a failing PI business. But when he is approached to solve his first murder case, Abe spots a chance to turn it all around… Read our full review
Saturday 30 May
Groundhog Day – 4:40pm, Film4
Comedy fantasy starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. Cynical TV weatherman Phil Connors is sent to cover the annual Groundhog Day festival at a small town in Pennsylvania. Stranded by a snowstorm, which he failed to predict, Phil wakes up the following morning to discover that it’s still the day before, and it slowly dawns on the world-weary forecaster that he’ll never have to worry about tomorrow. Read our full review
Rio Grande – 4:45pm, Great Action
Classic John Ford western starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. On the Mexican border in the 1880s, Lieutenant Colonel Yorke of the US cavalry is conducting a lonely, vain campaign against marauding Apaches. When his trooper son arrives at the fort, followed by Yorke’s estranged wife, family conflict adds to his troubles. Read our full review
Notting Hill – 6:40pm, Film4
Romantic comedy starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. An American film star bumps into a humble bookshop owner and they begin an unlikely affair. But their relationship is put under strain when the press finds out. Read our full review
Taken – 10:50pm, ITV1
Action drama starring Liam Neeson as former CIA operative Bryan Mills, who calls upon his tried-and-tested skills in a race-against-time bid to rescue his daughter from the sex traffickers who have kidnapped her during a holiday in France. Read our full review
Everything Went Fine – 12:30am, BBC Two
Drama starring Sophie Marceau and André Dussollier. Shortly after he suffers a stroke, Emmanuèle’s father asks her if she will help him end his life. It’s a difficult request for a daughter to take on, but, as Emmanuèle discovers, it’s also just another facet of her complicated family life. Read our full review
Sunday 31 May
The Searchers – 3:30pm, BBC Two
Classic western starring John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter and Natalie Wood. John Ford’s masterpiece tells the story of Ethan Edwards and his five-year search for the last surviving member of his murdered family – a young girl captured by Comanches. Read our full review
Shrek 2 – 4:45pm, BBC One
Sequel to the hit animated fantasy, featuring the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz. On returning from their honeymoon, Shrek and Princess Fiona are invited to stay with her parents in the kingdom of Far Far Away. But King Harold is less than enchanted by his new son-in-law, and the Fairy Godmother has good reason to want the ogre out of Fiona’s life. Cue assassin-for hire Puss-in-Boots… Read our full review
The Nice Guys – 10:30pm, BBC One
Crime comedy starring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe. A burned-out PI is hired to investigate the death of a porn star but, while navigating the sleazy underbelly of 1970s Los Angeles, he collides with a violent enforcer. After they learn that a missing young woman could be in danger, the two men team up as the mystery develops into a full-blown conspiracy. Read our full review
The Blues Brothers – 10:45pm, BBC Two
Musical comedy starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as brothers Jake and Elwood Blues who re-form their legendary band to raise money for their old orphanage, which is threatened with closure. But the pair find themselves pursued across country by a mysterious woman, a band of neo-Nazis, an irate country and western group and the police, culminating in one of the biggest and most spectacular car chases in movie history. Read our full review
Lion – 12:05am, Channel 4
Drama based on a true story, starring Dev Patel and Sunny Pawar. Saroo Brierley, a five-year-old boy from a village in India, is looking for work with his brother when the two are separated. After falling asleep on a train, Saroo ends up lost in Kolkata, where he is adopted by an Australian couple when the authorities cannot trace his family. Years later, as a young man, Saroo begins using Google Earth to try to locate his home town. Read our full review
Monday 1 June
The Andromeda Strain – 1:40pm, Film4
Science-fiction thriller, based on Michael Crichton’s bestselling novel, starring Arthur Hill and David Wayne. Piedmont, New Mexico: two technicians die in mysterious circumstances while attempting to recover an American space satellite, their blood congealed to powder. A deadly virus is on the loose and a team of scientists is called in to tackle the crisis. Read our full review
Quatermass II – 9:50pm, Talking Pictures TV
Science-fiction thriller starring Brian Donlevy. When Professor Quatermass hears about a shower of meteorites that has landed in a local community, his investigations lead him to a sinister top-secret installation. Read our full review
Die Another Day – 10pm, ITV4
Spy adventure starring Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry and Toby Stephens. After being betrayed during an operation in North Korea, agent James Bond is held prisoner by a ruthless military leader. A trade-off secures Bond’s freedom, but his “00” agent status is withdrawn when he is suspected of leaking secret information. Eager for revenge, and with a traitor on the loose, Bond sets off on his own mission – to get close to evil megalomaniac Gustav Graves and uncover the secrets of his Icarus Project. Read our full review
Tuesday 2 June
Charade – 4:30pm, Film4
Romantic comedy thriller starring Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn and Walter Matthau. The body of a man hurtles from the carriage of a train speeding across the French countryside, and for Regina Lampert life becomes bewildering. It also becomes sinister when she returns to Paris to find her flat stripped bare. Who is telling the truth, and whom can she trust? Read our full review
Django Unchained – 9pm, Film4
Western directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Samuel L Jackson and Christoph Waltz. After being freed from slavery and trained in the ways of a bounty hunter by Dr King Schultz, Django sets out to free his wife from a vicious plantation owner. Read our full review
Everest – 11:50pm, BBC One
Adventure thriller based on a true story, starring Josh Brolin, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jason Clarke and Robin Wright. In 1996, climbers from two expeditions simultaneously embark on a final push to reach Everest’s summit. But with this being one of the harshest and most unforgiving environments on earth where too long on the mountain will kill you, the last thing the explorers need is a life-threatening blizzard. Read our full review
Wednesday 3 June
Deep Impact – 6:40pm, Film4
Science-fiction drama starring Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni and Morgan Freeman. A reporter believes that she has discovered a sex scandal in the US government. As it turns out, “Ele” isn’t a mistress, but something used to describe an event so cataclysmic that it could destroy the planet. Read our full review
When We Were Kings – 10pm, Sky Documentaries
Leon Gast’s Oscar-winning documentary charting the challenge of an ageing Muhammad Ali for George Foreman’s World Heavyweight title held in Zaire in 1974. The film explores the impact of Ali’s visit to Africa before focusing on the epic fight, dubbed the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’, which has gone down in history as one of the greatest of all time. Spike Lee and Norman Mailer are among the contributors offering personal opinions on its importance to them. Read our full review
M3GAN – 11:25pm, Film4
Sci-fi horror starring Allison Williams and featuring the voice of Jenna Davis. Robotics scientist Gemma develops an AI-powered, child-sized doll she dubs the Model 3 Generative Android, or M3GAN. The prototype bonds with Gemma’s orphaned niece, but soon grows a little too protective of her human charge. Read our full review
Thursday 4 June
The Caine Mutiny – 12:45pm, Film4
Courtroom drama based on Herman Wouk’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, starring Humphrey Bogart as martinet skipper Philip Queeg who’s put in charge of the naval minesweeper Caine. But the strain of maintaining discipline among his restless crew begins to affect his ability to command. Read our full review
Cape Fear – 9pm, Legend
Thriller starring Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte and Jessica Lange. After 14 years behind bars, brutal rapist Max Cady is free to exact revenge on the man who could have kept him out of jail, lawyer Sam Bowden. Too clever to attack his victim directly, the devious ex-convict begins a reign of terror that threatens Bowden’s wife and teenage daughter. Determined to crush the family, Cady’s sadistic campaign causes underlying tensions to explode with devastating results. Read our full review
Erin Brockovich – 9pm, Film4
Oscar-winning biographical drama starring Julia Roberts. When she loses a lawsuit following a car accident, unemployed single mother Erin Brockovich browbeats her lawyer, Ed Masry, into giving her a job. Soon she discovers that a power company has been dumping toxic waste and poisoning the residents of a small town. Masry’s firm takes up the case – making Brockovich the unlikely linchpin in one of corporate America’s biggest ever lawsuits. Read our full review
Friday 5 June
Nope – 9pm, Film4
Sci-fi horror starring Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer. Siblings OJ and Em Haywood have taken over their late father’s California ranch, where they train horses for use in Hollywood productions. After a series of bizarre occurrences around their property, OJ and Em take measures to record and capture the source of the chaos: a monstrous UFO. Read our full review
Bring Them Down – 11pm, BBC Two
Revenge drama starring Christopher Abbott, Barry Keoghan and Paul Ready. In rural Ireland, neighbouring farmers Michael and Gary have been locked in long-standing rivalry. When Gary’s son Jack steals a couple of Michael’s rams to help with his family’s money problems, the feud between the two families turns increasingly violent. Read our full review
Bodies Bodies Bodies – 11:20pm, BBC One
Black comedy horror starring Amandla Stenberg and Maria Bakalova. A group of spoilt 20-somethings congregate at a remote family mansion, ready to let their hair down at a “hurricane party”. But events take a terrifying turn when they play a raucous game and discover that there is a killer in the house. Read our full review
The Lighthouse – 1:05am, Channel 4
Psychological horror starring Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe. In 1890s New England, a young man arrives on a small island to join a more experienced lighthouse keeper as a fellow “wickie”. The two men clash, but the situation worsens when a storm strands them together for longer than intended. How long will they last before descending into madness? Read our full review
If you have Netflix, we have rounded up the best movies on Netflix and the best series on Netflix to watch now – and Disney Plus viewers can check out our best movies on Disney Plus guide. Got Prime Video? We also have the best movies on Amazon Prime.
Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
