SCREEN TIME
Best movies and TV shows to watch: Robert Downey Jr. documentary, plus Tilda Swinton in ‘The Eternal Daughter’
This week’s new entertainment releases include the return of the holiday display TV contest “The Great Christmas Light Fight” and Tilda Swinton starring in the ghost story “The Eternal Daughter.” Family secrets, betrayal and power struggles are abundant in the new Amazon Prime Video series “Riches” about an affluent Black family in London that runs a multimillion beauty company. And Robert Downey Jr. affectionately pays tribute to his late father, Robert Downey Sr. in “Sr.,” an intimate documentary the younger Downey spent three years filming with his dad before his death.
Here’s a collection of the best of what’s arriving on TV and streaming services
this week.
‘Sr.’ a Robert Downey Jr. doc
Robert Downey Jr. affectionately pays tribute to his late father, Robert Downey Sr. in “Sr.,” an intimate documentary the younger Downey spent three years filming with his dad before his death in 2021 at 85. Downey Sr. was a noted cult filmmaker in the ’60s and ’70s. His freewheeling movies also featured his son’s first steps into acting, and had a profound influence on him. “Sr.,” which debuts Friday on Netflix, lovingly celebrates their on and off-screen life together.
Tilda Swinton in ‘The Eternal Daughter’
Joanna Hogg, the British filmmaker of the stunning two-part memory piece “The Souvenir,” reteams
with longtime collaborator Tilda Swinton in “The Eternal Daughter.” The film, which opens in theaters and on video on demand Friday is a ghost story. Swinton plays a middle-aged filmmaker on a cozy and quiet holiday with her elderly mother, who Swinton also plays. “The Eternal Daughter,” which premiered earlier this fall at the Venice Film Festival, hauntingly digs into the joy and guilt that can come from mining one’s family for fiction.
‘Riches’
Family secrets, betrayal and power struggles are abundant in the new Amazon Prime Video series “Riches.” When a selfmade cosmetics king and the patriarch of an affluent Black family in London suffers a stroke, his surviving relatives from two sets of families swoop in to take control of his empire. The stakes are high, and so is the level of drama. All six show episodes featuring a cast that includes Deborah Ayorinde, Hugh Quarshie, and Sarah Niles, drop on Friday. Show creator and writer Abby Ajayi worked previously on ABC’s “How to Get Away With Murder” and the Netflix series “Inventing Anna.”