PICKOFPAYTV AND MOVIES

NETFLIX

DRAMA DIRTY JOHN (Season 2) HHHH The real-life crime drama is back with a cracker of a case in season two. It’s the story of Betty Broderick, who snaps and kills both her ex-husband and his new wife. Amanda Peet is on fire as Betty, a woman for whom reality is an increasingly slippery concept, while Christian Slater is well-cast as the outwardly proper

Dan. It’s set in 1980s California, and the soundtrack hits just the right notes.

NEW! HOOPS (Season 1) HHH

Dry, sweary and animated US sitcom about a deluded school basketball coach (New Girl’s Jake Johnson). Reminiscent of Family Guy. From Friday.

LUCIFER

NEW! (Season 5,

Part 1) HHH The show starring Miranda’s Tom

Ellis as Lucifer, ruler of Hell

(right), returns for the first half of its penultimate season. The Devil has been away tending his kingdom, but is back in LA with a bang (and a surprise) as the series begins. From Friday.

THE SLEEPOVER

MOVIE (2020) 12 u HHH ‘Guys! Ninjas just stole your parents!’ Children go on a Spy Kids-style adventure in Netflix’s fun comedy romp. From Friday.

AMAZON PRIME

MOVIE THE LAST SAMURAI

(2003) 15 u HHH Tom Cruise stars in this lavish period drama as a US Civil War veteran who finds new purpose as a samurai. Incredibly, it is based on a true story. From today.

MOVIE GRAVITY (2013) 12 u HHHH Sandra Bullock and George Clooney float alone in space in this fiercely atmospheric space survival movie. From Friday.

STARGIRL

NEW! (Season 1) HHH

The latest DC superhero show has a charming retro flavour and blockbuster action scenes. Young Courtney lives an unassuming life in mainstream America; then, she chances upon the ‘Cosmic Staff’ and inherits the power of Starman, the leader of a superhero society that met its end a decade before, but whose enemies are very much alive. Luke Wilson is her stepdad with a secret. From Friday.

MOVIE CHEMICAL HEARTS

(2020) 15 u HHHH Bittersweet high-school romance between two very differently awkward people, based on the novel Our Chemical Hearts. It’s largely free of the male stalker moments that peppered stories like it in the 1980s and is more complex than most of them, too, by the end. Worth the time. From Friday.

SKY ON DEMAND/ NOW TV

DRAMA CURFEW (All eight parts) HH

Sky’s entertainingly bonkers car race through an apocalyptic UK, with Sean Bean and an outlandish Billy Zane. COMEDY BREEDERS (Season 1) HHHH Having young children who don’t sleep will bring out the devil in anyone, and that premise is at the heart of Sky’s dark comedy with Daisy Haggard and Martin Freeman. Both have had children in real life, and play the frazzled parents with total conviction.

JOHN ADAMS

DRAMA (All seven parts) HHHHH Paul Giamatti plays the American Revolutionary in this top-tier HBO drama directed by Tom Hooper. It has an amazing soundtrack, too, the kind that sets the hairs bristling on the back of your neck.

MOVIE FAST & FURIOUS: HOBBS & SHAW

(2019) 12 u HHH Jason Statham and Dwayne Johnson pair up for this pleasingly ridiculous Fast & Furious spinoff, in which Hobbs (Johnson) manages to restrain a helicopter with his bare hands. It’s worth seeing for that moment alone.

BEST OF THE REST

NEW! OUT OF THIS WORLD COLLECTION (Britbox) HHH Space: 1999, The Prisoner and Sapphire & Steel (with Joanna Lumley and David Mccallum, left) are among the

cult additions. From Thursday.

NEW! CAN SEX OFFENDERS CHANGE?

(BBC3 via iplayer) HHHH Frank report on UK offenders. From Thursday, 6am.

NEW! THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN

(2020) PG ● (Disney+) HHH Sweet film about a gorilla’s life in the human world, with a top cast. From Friday.

PAY MOVIES

COME AS YOU ARE

(2019) 15 u (BT TV Store, Sky Store, Virgin) HHH In a frank and unusual road trip movie based on a true story, a carful of young men with disabilities head for a brothel they’ve heard great things about in Montreal, Canada. Much sweeter than it sounds.

YES, GOD, YES

(2019) 15 u (Virgin) HHH Coming-of-age tale about a Catholic schoolgirl who has a physical awakening at a spiritual retreat designed to do quite the opposite. It’s the feature debut of writerdirector Karen Maine. Both from Monday.