Seven films to see this week

Inception Today, 5pm, OSN Movies Action HD

Christopher Nolan’s high-concept sci-fi noir stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Dom Cobb, an “extractor” – essentially an information thief who acquires ill-gotten gains by infiltrating his victims’ subconscious, usually for the purpose of corporate espionage. When he receives an offer that is too good to be true – to implant ideas in a victim’s head rather than remove them, in return for a criminal pardon and a return to his family – things go awry, as the depth of Cobb’s own consciousness is put on the line and reality itself is called into question.

Bone Tomahawk Tomorrow, 1.50am, OSN Movies Festival HD

S Craig Zahler’s bizarre mix of Western, cannibal horror and frequent, graphic bodily mutilation probably isn’t to everyone’s taste, but it’s a brilliantly weird take on the usual “posse on the hunt” theme – and any excuse to bring Kurt Russell on to our screens is a good one. The movie wasn’t a huge box-office success, but horror fans and the festival circuit loved it, with Russell picking up a Fangoria Chainsaw Award for his role, and director Zahler was similarly rewarded at Europe’s leading horror extravaganza, Barcelona’s Sitges Film Festival.

Good Night, and Good Luck Tuesday, 12.05am, Sundance Channel

George Clooney directs, co-writes, and appears in this tale of the McCarthy witch hunt of communists in 1950s America. Specifically, it offers a harrowing vision of what can happen when the mainstream media strays too far from government policy through the true story of radio journalist Edward R Murrow (David Strathairn) who became, at no small personal cost, a beacon of free speech and independent thinking while McCarthy cut through swathes of the US media and intelligentsia on his mission to rid the world of “the red menace”. The movie picked up six Oscar nominations, including Best Director for Clooney and Best Picture.

Florence Foster Jenkins Wednesday, 5.55pm, OSN Movies First HD

Stephen Frears’ comedy tells the true story of the titular heiress and opera singer – and the emphasis is on the heiress. There was clearly no way the tone-deaf Jenkins would ever have served in the capacity of “opera singer” without her fortune behind her. Music historian Stephen Pile once wrote of Jenkins: “No one, before or since, has succeeded in liberating themselves quite so completely from the shackles of musical notation.” Meryl Streep takes on the role with true abandon, picking up her annual Oscar nomination in the process, and Frears’ directorial touch is typically on point.

Daft Punk Unchained Thursday, 6.55am, Sundance Channel

Herve Martin-Delpierre’s documentary on the lives and careers of French disco-house pioneers Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter, better known as Daft Punk, may not have picked up any Oscars, but if there was an award for Most Hyphens in the Names of a Trio Associated with a Film, this would surely be in the running, despite Bangalter’s poor showing. The film, made up entirely of rare archive footage, follows the duo from their earliest days up to collaborations with the likes of Pharrell Williams, Giorgio Moroder and Nile Rodgers, as well as the release of 2013 album

Random Access Memories. It is worth a watch for the soundtrack alone.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Friday, 10pm, OSN Movies First HD

The most expensive indie movie ever didn’t set the box office alight – Luc Besson’s visual definition of insanity barely clawed back its self-financed US$200 million (Dh734.6m) production outlay. But audience ambivalence should not detract from what is a masterpiece of unhinged filmmaking from the man that brought us Leon and The

Fifth Element. The storyline is largely irrelevant: an intergalactic pair of heroes, plucked from the pages of French comic book Valerian and

Laureline, whizz around in a space ship and crazy things happen. That’s as much as anyone needs to know. Cara Delevingne, Dane DaHaan, Rihanna, Rutger Hauer, Ethan Hawke, Clive Owen and Herbie Hancock all help the madness unfold – don’t be surprised to see this become a future cult classic.

Awakenings Saturday, 8.30pm, Paramount Channel

Robert De Niro, Robin Williams and Max von Sydow head a weighty cast in this triple-Oscar-nominated biopic from director Penny Marshall. The film tells the story of Dr Malcom Sayer, who achieved major breakthroughs with patients who had been catatonic for up to 50 years following an outbreak of encephalitis lethargica in the 1910s and 20s. The patients are forced to deal with their new lives after decades in stasis, while Sayer himself finds his patients’ “awakenings” an enlightening experience. The weepy ending, meanwhile, while not entirely unexpected, is a choker.