Five to watch this week
The Sympathizer (7 episodes, streaming from May 27 exclusively on Now)
Oscar winner Robert Downey Jr plays multiple roles in an espionage thriller based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen, which broadcasts on Sky Atlantic and streams exclusively on Now. A half-French, half-Vietnamese communist spy (Hoa Xuande) serves in Saigon as a captain for the South Vietnam army during the final days of the Vietnam War. The undercover mole flees to America with his General (Toan Le) and continues to gather intelligence. The agent is offered a job as a consultant on a Hollywood film about the conflict directed by auteur Niko Damianos (Downey Jr) and reliving the past through a lens reopens old wounds.
The Beach Boys (12, 113 mins, streaming from May 24 exclusively on Disney+)
In 1966 at Abbey Road Studios in London, The Beach Boys previewed their 11th album, Pet Sounds, to The Beatles, who were recording in Studio 2 at the time. The two sides of the Pet Sounds LP open with the songs Wouldn’t It Be Nice and God Only Knows, and both tracks feature in this nostalgic documentary directed by Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny.
New interviews with Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, David Marks and Bruce Johnston
from The Beach Boys trace the band’s ascent, accompanied by the words of Carl and Dennis Wilson.
Dom – Season 3 (8 episodes, streaming from May 24 exclusively on Prime Video,}
Pedro Dom (Gabriel Leone) enters the final stretch of his bloodsoaked journey to become the most wanted criminal in Rio de Janeiro in the third and concluding series of the acclaimed Brazilian crime drama.
Pedro lies low from the police and drug dealers in Rocinha, the biggest favela in Rio, surrounded by enemies on all sides.
His father, Victor Dantas (Flavio Tolezani), is bravely battling lung cancer while attempting to save his son from self-destruction. Stalked by death, Victor invests every last drop of his energy into protecting his misguided flesh and blood.
MK Ultra (15, 98 mins, streaming from May 24 exclusively on Paramount+)
Joseph Sorrentino writes and directs a provocative thriller set in the early 1960s, which is inspired by the CIA’s covert MKUltra programme to identify psychoactive drugs that could be used in interrogations to dramatically alter a target’s mental state. CIA agent Galvin Morgan (Jason Patric) approaches psychiatrist Dr Ford Strauss (Anson Mount) with an offer to run an offshoot of the MKUltra programme in a Mississippi hospital. Dr Strauss obliges and conducts the experiment on four emotionally unstable subjects with harrowing pasts.
As the test returns shocking results, Dr Strauss questions the morality of the exercise and his culpability in the patients’ suffering.