The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching
Dalgliesh
P.D. James’ Adam Dalgliesh is back on the case. In a new trio of two-part mysteries set in the 1970s, British actor Bertie Carvel steps into the role of the enigmatic poet and Scotland Yard detective. First, he journeys to a nursing school where one of the female students has died of poisoning—only to find his own life in danger after a second student dies. Available Monday, Nov. 1, Acorn TV
A Cop Movie
Being a police officer is challenging. Being a police officer in Mexico City is nearly impossible. In a film that boldly blends documentary and fiction, director Alonso Ruizpalacios focuses on two good cops, Montoya and Teresa, both bursting onto the screen in full-action mode. But nothing is quite what it seems in A Cop Movie, and the layers of artifice peel back to reveal an especially probing look at policing in a beyondbroken system. Available Friday, Nov. 5, Netflix Dickinson
It was a gamble to present poet Emily Dickinson as if she were the spirited protagonist of a contemporary teen soap opera. But Hailee Steinfeld has helped make the conceit work brilliantly for two seasons, and we now get to see how her Emily responds to America’s Civil War and to the challenges it poses to any writer alert to its violence and its primary cause. Meanwhile, she remains romantically committed to Sue, her sister-in-law, and to sorting out how to sustain that relationship. Available Friday, Nov. 5, Apple TV+
Finch
Call it Cast Away for the apocalypse-obsessed. As in that 2000 survival drama, Tom Hanks again is frequently the only person onscreen, this time playing an ailing robotics engineer who has spent 10 years in a bunker with his dog after a solar event that wiped out most of humanity. But he has also built a robot to care for the pooch after he’s gone, and it’s time to leave the bunker to teach the robot everything it will need to know about the world as it is. Available Friday, Nov. 5, Apple TV+
Attica
The deadliest prison uprising in U.S. history was televised—up to a point. Stanley Nelson and Traci A. Curry’s definitive new documentary brings novelistic detail to the five-day 1971 prisoner takeover of upstate New York’s Attica Correctional Facility and to the horrifying massacre that ended it. The tragedy began in inhumane treatment of the mostly Black and Latino inmates, and the film leaves you worried that reform has never arrived. Saturday, Nov. 6, at 9 p.m., Showtime
Other highlights
The Harder They Fall
Jeymes Samuel’s stylish neo-Western, featuring a showdown between Idris Elba and Lovecraft Country’s Jonathan Majors, arrives on home screens 12 days after its theatrical debut. Available Wednesday, Nov. 3, Netflix Yellowstone
Will Kevin Costner’s John Dutton, shot down in Season 3, return to defend his family’s land and legacy, in the fourth season of this hit modern Western drama series? Sunday, Nov. 7, at 8 p.m., Paramount Network
Head of the Class
One Day at a Time’s Isabella Gomez heads a reboot of the 1980s sitcom about a class of gifted teens. Original cast member Robin Givens returns as Darlene Merriman, now a no-nonsense parent. Available Thursday, Nov. 4, HBO Max