THE GRITTY & THE GLAM
ALL this week in these essential guides, the Mail’s Christopher Stevens and Mike Mulvihill are rounding up the best TV available through streaming and catch-up channels to help you and your family through the coming weeks. We’ve already had riotous comedy, brilliant drama and fascinating factual shows, while tomorrow it’s the best family entertainment. Today, it’s the most unmissable movies available . . . GRIPPING DRAMAS
Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool (2017, 15) APPLE TV
Soft-hearted, fact-based romance starring Annette Bening as Hollywood star Gloria Grahame who, in 1979, was in the twilight of her career but still full of energy. Performing on stage in London, she meets and embarks on a relationship with Peter Turner (Jamie Bell), a young aspiring actor from Liverpool. Julie Walters and Vanessa Redgrave also star.
Foxcatcher (2014, 12) iPLAYER
Sporting biopic following the incredible strange-but-true story of two wrestler brothers (Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo) and a wealthy sponsor (Steve Carell). With excellent performances, it’s a fascinating, twisted character study.
Burton & Taylor (2013, 15) AMAZON PRIME
One of Hollywood’s most glamorous and volatile couples, twice-divorced Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor (Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter) are reunited in New York in 1983 for a stage performance of Noel Coward’s Private Lives. Sparks fly and hard spirits flow, but really the couple are still rather fond of each other.
Made In Dagenham (2010, 15) NETFLIX
The true story of the Ford car plant sewing machinists, whose strike in 1968 paved the way for equal pay for women. It’s told with a light touch and features an endearing cast that includes Sally Hawkins, Bob Hoskins and Geraldine James. Wonder Boys (2000, 15) NETFLIX Michael Douglas is the dope-smoking English professor finding it impossible to complete his second novel, which now runs to thousands of pages. His lack of direction extends to all areas of his life which, in Curtis Hanson’s darkly comic drama, slowly unravels before his eyes. Tobey Maguire is his troubled but brilliant student.
The Cruel Sea (1953, PG) AMAZON PRIME
From a novel by Nicholas Monsarrat who served in the World War II, this tense film follows the men of the Royal Navy convoys as they face U-boats, and nature’s wrath, on the Atlantic. Jack Hawkins and Donald Sinden star.
Suffragette (2015, 12) ALL4
The fight of the suffrage movement in Britain is brought vividly to life. Carey Mulligan plays a working-class mum empowered by the drudge of her menial work to stand up for her rights, with Meryl Streep as Emmeline Pankhurst.
All The Way Home (1981, PG) MY5
An adaptation of James Agee’s novel A Death In The Family, with Sally Field as the Tennessee widow raising her children alone in 1915. William Hurt and Ned Beatty also star. If you’re missing the theatre, this was filmed as a live stage production.
The Mirror Crack’d (1980, PG) MY5
Angela Lansbury is Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, who finds her sleepy village of St Mary Mead a swirl of excitement when a film crew arrive to shoot a costume drama. Elizabeth Taylor and Kim Novak play two stars with a poisonous rivalry.
The Favourite (2018, 15) NOWTV/SKY
Intoxicating drama with Olivia Colman as Queen Anne in a performance that won her an Oscar. Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’s vision of British history is unlike any you’ve ever seen. Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018, 15) NOWTV/SKY Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant
make quite a double act in this fact-based drama about a struggling writer who makes money from literary forgeries. McCarthy is cat-loving Lee Israel, with Grant as her drinking buddy Jack Hock.
Mary Queen Of Scots (2018, 15) N0WTV/SKY
Saoirse Ronan stars as Mary Stuart, with Margot Robbie as Elizabeth I, in this sumptuous historical drama charting the cousins’ rivalry and the bitter politics that powered it.
The Mule (2018, 15) NOWTV/SKY
Director and star Clint Eastwood plays to his strengths as a man in his 90s who turns to drug-running after losing his flower farm livelihood. Bradley Cooper is the DEA officer on his tail.
The Old Man And The Gun (2018, 12) NOWTV/SKY
Inspired by the life of career criminal and prison escape artist Forrest Tucker, this stars Robert Redford as a charming wanted man who, at 61, has no intention of going straight. Sissy Spacek is the woman he falls for. Marriage Story (2019, 15) NETFLIX The breakdown of the relationship between a self-absorbed theatre director (Adam Driver) and his actress wife (Scarlett Johansson) is observed in intimate close-up. Laura Dern won an Oscar for her portrayal of a divorce lawyer.
The Two Popes (2019, 12) NETFLIX
Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce engage in lively conversation as Pope Benedict XVI and his successor, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, in a series of fictionalised face-to-face meetings.
The Laundromat (2019, 15) NETFLIX
Steven Soderbergh’s fact-based black comedy stars Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas as the shameless lawyers at the heart of the Panama Papers scandal. Meryl Streep is one of the victims.
The Irishman (2019, 15) NETFLIX
Martin Scorsese’s gangster drama follows Robert De Niro’s ageing hitman as he recalls his dealings with gangsters and Al Pacino’s union boss Jimmy Hoffa. A thrilling three-anda-half hour epic. Operation Finale (2018, 15) NETFLIX Fact-based post-war drama following the story of Israeli Mossad agents as they sought to bring notorious SS officer Adolf Eichmann to justice. Oscar Isaac and Ben Kingsley star.
Roma (2018, 15) NETFLIX
Emotionally powerful Oscar-winner from Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron. It’s not a commercial picture like his 2018 space epic Gravity with Sandra Bullock, but a labour of love inspired by his childhood in Mexico City.
The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs (2018, 15) NETFLIX
An anthology western from the Coen brothers that strings together a series of short stories, some funny, most tinged with violence. Liam Neeson and Tom Waits star.
Beasts Of No Nation (2015, 15) NETFLIX
Disturbing but persuasive drama about child soldiers in a fictional West African state in the grip of civil war. Idris Elba is the charismatic but sinister warlord who recruits nine-year-old Agu (Abraham Attah) after the young boy flees his village when his family are slaughtered.
Troop Zero (2020, PG) AMAZON PRIME
Uplifting comedy drama about a group of young school misfits who, in 1977, band together in order to win a talent show. Christmas Flint (McKenna Grace) wants her voice to be recorded on the Golden Record that will be sent up with the Voyager shuttle in the hope her dead mother will hear her sing.
The Professor And The Madman (2020, 15) AMAZON PRIME
More than two decades after Braveheart, Mel Gibson is back in Scottish brogue, but dials it down for a subtle performance as James Murray, the Scottish professor who compiled the Oxford English Dictionary in 1879. Sean Penn is the madman and murderer who provided assistance.
The Aeronauts (2019, PG) AMAZON PRIME
Soaring historical drama in which Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne go up, up and away as a balloon pilot and a meteorologist who, in 1862, try to get to grips with the weather by flying higher than anyone had before.
Fisherman’s Friends (2019, 12) AMAZON
The soothing true story of a Cornish all-male singing group from Port Isaac, whose jolly sea shanties topped the charts in 2010. Daniel Mays, James Purefoy and Tuppence Middleton star.
Stan & Ollie (2019, PG) AMAZON
Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly are convincing as Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in this biographical drama charting the comedy duo’s comeback tour of the UK in 1953. Stan’s had enough and Ollie’s health is poor, but their close bond remains. Special mention to Nina Arianda and Shirley Henderson as longsuffering wives.