Show of the week

Small Axe

When an Oscar-winning filmmaker drops five new movies in one month, attention is due. Director Steve McQueen ( 12 Years a Slave) is telling stories about West Indian immigrants in the London of the 1960s through ’80s, but the artistry on display makes his anthology an event for viewers everywhere. The mood can be festive, as it is in the series’ second film, Lovers Rock, set at a 1980 house party. But the first film, Mangrove, dramatizes a famous 1970 trial in which black activists faced prison for protesting police violence, and it plays like history on fire. Available for streaming Friday, Nov. 20, Amazon Prime