Top films to watch on TV this week

WEDNESDAY

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) BBC1, 10.40p.m.

Jon Watts’ slick reboot of the Marvel Comics superhero – the third iteration in 15 years – spins an impressive web of rites-of-passage drama, buddy comedy and bombastic spectacle.

Set several months after Tom Holland made his debut as the webslinger in Captain America: Civil War, Peter Parker (Holland) has managed to conceal his crime-fighting alter ego from Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) with the help of his mentor, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr).

When salvage company owner Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) takes flight as a larcenous winged menace called Vulture, Peter foolishly tries to prove himself to the Avengers by tackling the airborne madman alone.

THURSDAY

Lion (2016) Film4, 6.40p.m. Director Garth Davis’ moving drama is adapted from the memoir A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley. As a five-year-old in India, Saroo became separated from his older brother at a station and boarded the wrong train, taking him more than 1,000 miles away from home to the city of Kolkata. Unable to speak the language or tell anyone where he is from, the youngster is eventually adopted by a loving Australian family (headed by Nicole Kidman).

As an adult, Saroo (now played by Dev Patel in a powerful performance) decides to try to find his birth family, but will he be able to locate them after all these years, and how will his search his affect his adoptive parents?

FRIDAY

Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022) Film4, 9p.m.

Narratologist Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) travels from London to Istanbul for a conference, armed with a passion for the history of storytelling. In the bustle of the Grand Bazaar, she purchases a delicately twisted glass bottle. Back at her hotel, Alithea cleans it with an electric toothbrush, unleashing an ancient Djinn (Idris Elba) who promises to grant three wishes. Well-versed in cautionary tales, Alithea refuses the Djinn’s tantalising offer and asks questions instead.

Three Thousand Years of Longing is a visual effects-laden fantasy loosely adapted from AS Byatt’s short story The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye. Mad Max director George Miller’s dazzling yet flawed vision distils familiar tropes in technically ambitious flourishes and couldn’t wish for more lavish or lustrous production design.

SATURDAY

Saving Private Ryan (1998) Channel 4, 9.25p.m.

Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed Second World War drama tells the story of a platoon of American soldiers (led by Tom Hanks) following orders to scour the battlefields of France in search of a missing infantryman, the titular Private Ryan (Matt Damon), who has been granted permission to return home on compassionate grounds.

Spielberg is a true modern-day master of film and it came as no surprise when Saving Private Ryan scooped five Oscars in 1999. The opening scenes depicting the Normandy invasion (filmed on location in County Wexford) are harrowing to say the very least and are among the most realistic ever made. This superb film is capped off by some impressive performances from Hanks, Damon, Tom Sizemore, Ed Burns and Jeremy Davies.

SUNDAY

Memento (2000) BBC2, 12.20a.m. The film which set Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan on the road to stardom is a fiendishly clever and ambitious thriller, starring Guy Pearce. He plays former insurance investigator Leonard Shelby, who suffers from a rare, untreatable form of memory loss that prevents him remembering what happened 15 minutes ago. The condition has plagued Leonard since he discovered a masked assailant brutally assaulting his beautiful young wife (Jorja Fox) and he was knocked unconscious in the ensuing struggle.

Ever since, Leonard has spent every waking minute in the pursuit of vengeance. For Leonard, the past is a vast blank canvas. The time has come to fill in the missing details. Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano provide solid support.

MONDAY

Hope and Glory (1987) BBC2, 10p.m. Director John Boorman’s semi-autobiographical drama explores the Second World War through the eyes of London schoolboy Bill (Sebastian Rice-Edwards). To him, the Blitz seems like a big adventure, while his teenage sister (Sammi Davis) is also excited about the Canadian soldiers stationed in the neighbourhood. But for their mum Grace (Sarah Miles), it’s a chance to reflect on how her life may have turned out differently if she’d followed her heart instead of her head.

This funny, touching film is a delight from start to finish, whether Bill is roaming the bomb sites or trying to make sense of the grown-ups’ emotional outbursts. When the action later moves out of London and into the country, we also get Ian Bannen’s gloriously over-thetop performance as Bill’s cantankerous grandfather.

TUESDAY

Born on the Fourth of July (1989) Film4, 9p.m.

Director Oliver Stone’s double- Oscar-winning movie, the middle part of his Vietnam-based trilogy which also comprises Platoon and Heaven and Earth. This harrowing drama is based on the true story of Ron Kovic who, as a gung-ho raw recruit, joins the Marines and is sent to Vietnam, where he receives horrific injuries which leave him paralysed from the chest down.

Tom Cruise gives a powerful performance in the lead role, charting the fighter’s early patriotism, through his eventual disillusionment to his long physical and mental recovery. It’s not always the easiest film to watch, and some may argue Stone can be a bit heavy-handed in making the point about the futility and waste of war. However, this is perhaps one of Cruise’s best turns.