If you’re looking for something to keep you entertained on TV this weekend, look no further as our critics have picked out the 20 must-watch shows on demand you won’t want to miss.
From steamy sexual chemistry in a lavish period drama to a crime series that’s immersed in the dark underbelly of Japanese society, there is something for everyone.
For sports fans, there is a great football documentary that will keep you gripped until the final whistle.
There is a rock concert film that will have you playing along with your air guitar, and comedy lovers looking for a few belly laughs this weekend won’t be disappointed.
Bridgerton (Series 3 Part 1)
More Regency romance in the third series of the racy high society drama
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Netflix
After just two series, Bridgerton has already become shorthand for lavish period settings and steamy sexual chemistry. Series three does nothing to alter that winning formula. Series one focused on Daphne and Simon’s romance, while series two followed Anthony and Kate. This time, loveable wallflower Penelope Featherington (Derry Girls’ Nicola Coughlan) steps into the spotlight as her search for love in the high society world of Regency England becomes the motor that drives this third run.
A certain Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) may have agreed to help her find a suitable suitor, but is it possible that he’s developing feelings for her himself? Full of beautiful settings and equally beautiful people, this is just as swooningly romantic as previous series, with Coughlan’s step up from support to leading lady proving that there’s much more to her than perfect comic timing. (Four episodes, with four more to follow on 13 June)
Tokyo Vice
Deep dive into the neon-drenched criminal underbelly of Tokyo
Year: 2022-
Certificate: 15
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
Inspired by a true story, this 1990s-set crime drama follows idealistic American reporter Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort) as he immerses himself in Japanese culture in Tokyo and its dark underbelly. He forges an uneasy friendship with veteran detective Hiroto Katagiri (Ken Watanabe) who acts as his guide – when the overenthusiastic young pup actually listens, that is. Jake is young and naïve and Elgort, with his boyish looks, is well cast.
Watanabe, meanwhile, is a veteran Japanese actor who will be familiar to western audiences for his roles in Hollywood films including The Last Samurai. He plays Katagiri as a weary detective who, in his obsession with bringing down the Tozawa yakuza clan, starts crossing moral lines.
It’s a complex and thrilling deep dive that, after establishing its wide ensemble of characters in series one, feels even more focused and satisfying in series two. (Two series)
99
Telling the behind-the-scenes story of Manchester United’s treble-winning season
Year: 2024
Across ten days in 1999, Manchester United would play for and win the Premier League, the FA Cup and – in incredibly dramatic last-gasp fashion – the UEFA Champions League, becoming the first English team to win all three in a single season. It was an almost unbelievable achievement, made all the more incredible – as this three-part documentary reveals – by the internal divisions, dressing room politics and media meltdowns that peppered their season.
Made by the team that were behind last year’s Beckham documentary, this fantastically detailed and insightful series boasts access to all the main figures at Man Utd, from David Beckham and manager Sir Alex Ferguson to the likes of Gary Neville, Paul Scholes, Peter Schmeichel, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and many more. It genuinely feels like the defining account of one of English football’s greatest moments. (Three episodes)
The Responder
Riveting drama starring Martin Freeman as a policeman cracking under pressure
Year: 2022
Certificate: 18
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
Watch now on Disney+
Martin Freeman has come a long way from his early work in sitcom The Office. Not only has he conquered Hollywood with the lead role in the Hobbit films, but he left aspirational office worker Tim Canterbury in the dust a long time ago thanks to his John Watson in the hit TV series Sherlock.
In this dark and moody show Freeman’s character Chris Carson is undergoing therapy in the opening scenes. He’s a Liverpudlian night patrol police officer (Freeman’s accent is flawless) who operates in a moral grey zone – he clearly wants to be a good man for his family, but the demands of the job and the mounting moral compromises Chris makes are like a swamp dragging him down. The biggest compromise is with crime boss Carl Sweeney, played with almost pantomime enthusiasm by Ian Hart.
In series two, which starts six months later, Chris is still working the relentless night shift and trying his best to avoid more trouble – but, of course, trouble finds him when he’s asked to do a dodgy car stop by his boss, DCI Debb Barnes (Amaka Okafor), and he’s unwillingly drawn into a drug war. (Two series)
The Big Cigar
A movie producer helps the founder of the Black Panthers flee to Cuba in this heist-style real-life drama
Year: 2024
Watch now on Apple TV+
Huey P Newton was the founder of the Black Panther Party in the US and, in 1974, fled to Cuba to escape the FBI with the help of a film producer and a plan based around an entirely fake location shoot. Apple’s six-part drama takes that story and presents it like a heist movie made during the period, filling it with surprisingly subtle performances that swing between humour and seriousness and layering a soundtrack that must have cost a fortune to licence on top.
André Holland (Moonlight) gives a fully rounded performance as Newton, while Alessandro Nivola (Black Narcissus) feels like a keen but uncertain ally as producer Bert Schneider who, in real life, was behind films like Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces. ‘You’re the hotshot producer, man, you produce this,’ Newton tells Schneider about his escape attempt, as the story kicks into high gear near the end of episode one. The series that follows has that appealing ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ feel and, while it’s a slow-burn at times, has a lot of style and crackle for most of its screen time – especially in the scenes between Holland and Nivola. And the title? That’s the codename they use in the plan for Cuba. (Six episodes)
Bodkin
Will Forte plays an American podcaster pitched into an Irish mystery in this comic thriller
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Netflix
Cultures clash in a comic thriller that pitches an American podcaster (The Last Man On Earth’s Will Forte) into a small-town story in Ireland that he’s really not equipped to tell. Joining him are a cynical, disgraced reporter (The Dry’s Siobhán Cullen) and a constantly apologetic assistant (Robyn Cara) in a series that makes a clunky start, but steadily sheds its cliches, both Irish and American, to unroll a decent mystery over seven episodes.
Some of the cliches are just true and funny, too, so they’re easy to forgive. Gilbert (Forte) is looking for his roots, and walks around telling the locals that he’s Irish while sounding very American indeed, something Americans do all the time when they’re abroad. And Dove’s (Cullen) hardened journalist image is steadily justified by a backstory that’s given to us in drips, and softened by the way she becomes a mentor to Emmy (Cara).
It’s a cliche to say it, but ultimately the mystery of Bodkin is one that makes these characters address the mysteries of their own lives, and hopefully come away with answers to both. They give us some decent laughs and surprises in the meantime and, yes, some cliches – but it’s hard to mind that much. (Seven episodes)
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3
The second sequel to Nia Vardalos’s 2002 romcom hit takes the family to Greece
Year: 2023
Certificate: 12
The first My Big Fat Greek Wedding took cinemas by storm – way back in 2002 – with Nia Vardalos as Toula, the 30-year-old Chicagoan with a loud family and a lust for more in life. She finds it (spoiler alert) with a high school English teacher called Ian, played by Sex And The City’s John Corbett, and a short-lived TV series followed, starring Vardalos (they re-cast Corbett). Then, more than a decade later, we picked up Ian and Toula’s story for 2016’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2.
Corbett returned for that sequel, but it was a low point – all about navigating life’s challenges – but number three is more of a return to form as Toula, Ian and her boisterous clan travel to Greece for a family reunion. The beautiful scenery and the outlandish cast of characters are the main selling points here, so if you’re in the mood for something brisk to lift the spirits then do give it a whirl. (92 minutes)
Rebus
Grisly reboot of Ian Rankin’s dark Scottish detective
Year: 2024
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
This gritty reboot of the Ian Rankin stories – previously adapted between 2000 and 2007 starring john Hannah then Ken Stott – reimagines the brooding Scottish detective as a younger officer, with Outlander’s Richard Rankin (no relation) in the lead role.
It’s hard to like rough DS John Rebus at first – he’s a hard-drinking, chaotic young divorcee with a messy love life who has no compunction about breaking the rules. He soon comes into his own, though, when investigating a violent stabbing in the streets of Edinburgh, alongside new detective Siobhan Clarke (Henpocalypse!’s Lucie Shorthouse), a fast-tracked detective whom Rebus treats with some disdain.
‘I think long-term fans will get a shock because they’re seeing young Rebus,’ says Rankin (the author). ‘They’re getting the quite macho Rebus from the early books but set in contemporary times.’ Be warned, there’s violence and swearing from the outset. (Six episodes)
The Gathering
A dark mystery unravels after a girl is attacked at an illicit rave on Merseyside
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Channel 4
This labyrinthine six-part mystery drama, set on Merseyside, has a lot of pieces in play and it can be a bit confusing, but stick with it because all will become clear. We follow events leading up to a vicious assault on a teenager at an illegal gathering on a beach. At the start, we don’t know who the victim is but information is drip-fed over eight episodes, with each focusing on the perspective of a different character.
We start with Kelly and Jessica (Eva Morgan and Sadie Soverall), friends and promising gymnasts from opposite sides of the track. The two girls both have their struggles, and their respective single parents (Warren Brown’s volatile widower and Vinette Robinson’s pushy mum) have a hand in making matters worse for each of them, though for very different reasons.
You’ll definitely want to see how it plays out for Kelly and Jessica, and their assorted wider circle, which includes hard-up teens as well as shady adults. (Six episodes)
Rob And Rylan’s Grand Tour
Best friends Rob Rinder and Rylan Clark host an unorthodox art history series
Year: 2024
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
Rylan Clark and Rob Rinder aren’t the obvious choices to front a series about the travels of Romantic poet Lord Byron, but in this three-parter, the duo set off on their very own Grand Tour, the cultural trip to Italy taken by 18th-century gentlemen, visiting the Venice, Florence and Rome.
Don’t worry, it’s not all highbrow art and literature; Rylan moderates Rob’s love of opera and poetry with chat about fake tan. ‘Rob’s all about the art, I’m all about going out,’ says Rylan. But as the series progresses, we realise Rylan’s comments do him a disservice – he’s a thoughtful and witty on-screen presence and makes more profound observations than his co-presenter, a self-confessed man of high-culture.
As well as viewing Italy’s most famous artworks and buildings, the duo enjoy more offbeat cultural experiences, such as parading through the streets of Venice with a group of proud drag queens. The pair also get personal over Aperol spritz, discussing their respective divorces and other difficult periods in their lives. It’s an original take on the art history genre. (Three episodes)
The Pod Generation
Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor star in a sci-fi romantic drama about future pregnancy
Year: 2023
Certificate: 12
Watch now on Prime Video
Imagine being able to have a child without the need to grow it in your own body. The idea certainly appeals to career-driven woman Rachel (Emilia Clarke) in this drama set in a near future when couples are able to use detachable pods (like giant eggs) to grow their child from embryo to baby. Her husband Alvy (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is less keen on the idea but goes along with it as the pair embark on a very different kind of pregnancy.
Set in a Black Mirror-esque near future where technology threatens to change almost everything about our lives, this manages to meld romantic drama, moments of comedy and telling questions about the future that science is creating for us – whether we like it or not – into a thoughtful, challenging and clever film. (109 minutes)
The Fortune Hotel
Make a reservation with this high-stakes reality game show
Year: 2024
Certificate: 12
ITV’s new take on the reality game show has an air of The Traitors about it – with even more backstabbing. Set under the Caribbean sun, this show has a very different look, but the air of deception is there from the off as ten pairs of players reveal their game plans. They’re not just there for a free holiday, but to stay long enough to win the £250k prize.
Stephen Mangan oversees proceedings, staying coolly detached as the pairs – a mix of friends, couples, and a mother and her son – check in. Some are rather too confident and smug, others are playing it dumb. Chances are you’ll have your favourites pretty quickly.
Each team receives one of ten briefcases, one holds the prize money and another an early checkout card that sends the holders packing. The aim of the game, then, is to avoid ending the day with the checkout card in your possession, while trying to get your hands on the case with the cash. How the players go about that is rather more interesting than it sounds. Let’s just say that at crunch time, there’s a lot of poker faces in the room. (Eight episodes)
Orphan Black: Echoes
Sci-fi sequel series revisiting a world where humans can be cloned
Year: 2023
Certificate: 12
The original Orphan Black was a five-series thrill-ride of secrets, psychology, conspiracies and cults, powered by the central dilemma of human cloning. The show was complex and riveting with a knockout central performance, or performances plural, from Tatiana Maslany as multiple clones.
Set in 2052, more than 30 years after the original, this sequel stars Krysten Ritter (Marvel’s Jessica Jones) as Lucy, a woman who escapes a laboratory and makes a new life for herself. When her captors catch up with her, it brings Lucy into contact with 16-year-old Jules who looks just like a younger version of her – complete with identical scar on her arm. It’s a mirror of how Maslany’s Sarah Manning discovered she was a clone, by chance, in the original, but there is a significant twist in this tale.
Enter Keeley Hawes, who plays Kira Manning, Sarah’s daughter, who runs the medical biotech firm who made Lucy and Jules – dubbed ‘print-outs’ rather than clones. The addition of Kira’s character is a tie to the original, but also Hawes gets to play a character with her own complexities – not least the fact that she is the daughter of a clone who is herself making clones (wrap your head around that if you can). (Ten episodes)
The Lincoln Lawyer (2011 film)
Legal drama starring Matthew McConaughey as an unscrupulous LA attorney
Year: 2011
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Channel 4
Classy adaptation of one of the LA-set crime novels of Michael Connelly. Matthew McConaughey is remarkably good as Mickey Haller, dubbed the Lincoln Lawyer because his office is the back seat of his car, the great hulking beast that is a Lincoln Continental.
Haller has parked his scruples, and represents anyone who can pay his fees, which in this case is a rich playboy (Ryan Phillippe) accused of a horrific assault on a prostitute. Marisa Tomei and William H Macy co-star. If you’re a fan, there’s also a Lincoln Lawyer TV series starring Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Haller on Netflix. (120 minutes)
Queen Rock Montreal
Digitally remastered concert film of Freddie Mercury and the band in 1981
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Disney+
‘Hello Montreal… long time no see. You wanna get crazy?’ asks Freddie Mercury as Queen take to the stage at the Canadian city’s 18,000-seat Forum in November 1981. He’s not joking – this is a wild ride for fans of Mercury, May, Taylor and Deacon, who were at the peak of their performing powers right then.
As a result, this concert film – shot over two nights using Double Anamorphic 35mm film cameras, and now with digitally remastered visuals and enhanced audio – is about as close as you can get to the experience of seeing the band live. All the hits are here – from Bohemian Rhapsody to Killer Queen – as Mercury dominates the stage en route to a memorable finish with a double-bill of We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions. (95 minutes)
Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal
The history of the website aimed at married people looking for affairs
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Netflix
Boasting the tagline ‘Life is Short, have an affair’, the Ashley Madison website was controversial from the moment it launched in 2002. It was also mammothly successful, clocking up more than 30 million members, all presumably looking to have a sexual relationship with someone other than their longtime partner.
This three-part documentary series looks at the site’s history, meets many of its users and even some of their partners. It’s wry and light-hearted stuff… right up until the moment where it deals with the massive data breach in 2015 that saw hackers releasing the names of every single one of the site’s users. It dominated the headlines as everyone from ordinary married people to television celebrities suddenly found their infidelities dragged into the glare of public scrutiny. It’s a fascinating watch. (Three episodes)
Colony
American sci-fi drama set in a Los Angeles invaded by outside forces
Year: 2016-2018
Certificate: 12
This is one of those US sci-fi shows that offers an intriguing set-up that hooks you in (think Lost, Under The Dome, Manifest) and then adds in a mystery-of-the-week format while keeping up with the domestic dramas of the core characters.
It’s set in a Los Angeles that has been cut off from the rest of the world by invaders (or ‘Hosts’) who have established a ruling class of collaborating humans and sealed everyone else behind huge walls. The people in the colonies have their movements strictly monitored and curtailed by the ‘Transitional Authority’. It was conceived as a metaphor for the Nazi occupation of Paris, and the show gives you a very real sense of how that might play out in contemporary times.
Our main protagonist Will Bowman (Lost veteran Josh Holloway) is a married father and an FBI man before the ‘arrival’. His unique set of skills gets him assigned to the Red Hats, the human military enforcers for the Hosts. He didn’t have a choice because they threatened his family, and it’s how Will balances his official duties with protecting his family that drives the show, as well as the ways he helps the Resistance, of which his wife is secretly a member. (Three series)
The 8 Show
Korean drama that feels like a twisted version of The Circle
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Netflix
If you’ve watched The Circle, the social media reality contest that unfolds between people living together but apart in the same tower block, then this Korean drama will feel creepily familiar. Eight people embark on a game show that ‘doesn’t require any skills or knowledge’, and is set in an eight-storey building where time doesn’t seem to pass as it should, and the prize money just keeps going up and up. What actual price will they have to pay by the time the final episode – the eighth, of course – rolls around?
Finding out isn’t for the faint of heart but, if you’re the kind of TV viewer who likes to sample things from the edge, then this will be worth a try. It’s a slickly executed proposition that has more claim than most to be the next Squid Game, and more depth to it than the average dystopian Korean dramas such as Parayste: The Grey. (Eight episodes)
The Guilty Innocent With Christopher Eccleston
In his first presenting role, the former Doctor Who looks at two British miscarriages of justice
Year: 2024
Certificate: 18
Watch now on NOW
Watch now on Sky
Christopher Eccleston has always been passionate about justice – or, specifically, its failures – and that has driven him to take on his first presenting role with this above-average, two-part examination of two British legal miscarriages. The first is the arrest of minicab driver George Davis for the armed robbery of the London Electricity Board in 1974, and the questionable evidence that led to his imprisonment. The programme is particularly effective at bringing the campaign for his release to life, and it also includes an interview with Davis himself, the first long-form example he’s ever given for TV.
The second focuses on James Hanratty, one of the last men to be hanged in the UK. In 1962, Hanratty was executed for the murder of Michael Gregsten and the attempted murder of Valerie Stoke, and his fate triggered a campaign to end the practice for good. Throughout both programmes, Eccleston radiates a quiet conviction in both his presentation and narration. (Two episodes)
Outer Range (Series 2)
Supernatural sci-fi western mystery drama starring Josh Brolin
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Prime Video
Some series are easy to pigeonhole. Outer Range isn’t one of them. At first glance you could be forgiven for thinking it was yet another Yellowstone spin-off as modern-day Wyoming rancher Royal (Josh Brolin) struggles to preserve his family from themselves and the local rivals who want to take their land. But then there’s the small matter of the gigantic mysterious black hole that’s appeared on the fringes of Royal’s land, a hole that does strange things to space and time…
After series one layered on question after question, this atmospheric mix of the Western and the supernatural finally looks set to deliver some answers in its second run. Just what did happen to Royal’s granddaughter Amy? Is the hole really allowing figures from the Old West to travel through time? And just what is the black sludge oozing out of the ground? (Seven episodes)
