Our pick of the 20 best shows and films to stream this weekend

Question

Gripping thrillers, romantic comedies and period dramas - they are all featured in our critics' picks of the best shows to watch On Demand right now. The experts have chosen their top 20 programmes streaming this weekend, as well as reviewing new releases. Read on to find out what to watch this weekend...

Our picks of the week:

Alice & Jack

Disarmingly funny romance starring Domhnall Gleeson and Andrea Riseborough.

Year: 2024

Certificate: 15

Watch now on Channel 4






 Relationships don't always happen like in the movies, and here's one that starts messy, and stays that way, over a 15-year period and six episodes. Written by Victor Levin, a writer with form in romantic comedies (TV show Mad About You, Destination Wedding), it follows Andrea Riseborough's wealthy loner Alice and Domhnall Gleeson's gentle scientist Jack.

They fall for each other, and into bed with each other, pretty instantly and Jack is smitten, but Alice constantly pulls away. She wants someone kind like Jack, but she's also self-aware enough to believe that she's wrong for him.

Riseborough and Gleeson are superb, making their flawed characters eminently watchable and likeable. (Six episodes)

This Is Me… Now: A Love Story

Jennifer Lopez stars in a weird and wonderful musical based around her life.

Year: 2024

Watch now on Prime Video






Mixing styles and genres with playful audacity, this new musical extravaganza sets out to offer a look inside the lives and loves of Jennifer Lopez.

Fusing music from her new album - also called This is Me… Now - with a story of multiple romantic entanglements (watch out for a cameo by her former-and-current beau Ben Affleck), the end result is a trippy, mind-bending affair that spirals from tributes to classic musicals to high-budget pop promos and dance sequences that look as if they're inspired by Mad Max.

It's not easy-going but it is exhilarating and J.Lo fans will find plenty to fall head over heels for in the amazing song-and-dance numbers. (65 minutes)

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

The record-setting New York detective drama starring Mariska Hargitay.

Year: link palsu 1999

Certificate: 15

Watch now on Netflix






It may have started as a spin-off from Law & Order, but the series focusing on the Special Victims Unit - named after a real-life police unit that handles sex crimes - has long since surpassed the show that spawned it. As of 2024 it's the longest running primetime live-action TV drama on American TV, having clocked up a ridiculous 25 series since it began in 1999.

Netflix has multiple series available so set aside plenty of time to binge the cases handled by the New York unit. Lead detectives Stabler and Benson (played with sharp-eyed empathy by Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay) are great, but watch too for the late Richard Belzer (a transfer over from parent show Law & Order) whose turn as deadpan detective John Munch is a masterclass in laconic scene stealing.

The New Look

The Second World War experience of Coco Chanel and Christian Dior.

Year: 2024

Watch now on Apple TV+






The scars and secrets of war are the subject of this complex ten-part drama, based on what actually happened to fashion designers Christian Dior and Coco Chanel in occupied Paris during the Second World War. If you're new to the history of it, there will be surprises - chiefly that Chanel collaborated with the Nazis, and that Dior fought to save his younger sister, a French resistance fighter, from death at their hands in the camps.

The drama focuses on the whys, hows and consequences of their choices and moves across their lives, taking us through the occupation and liberation of Paris and beyond. It comes from Todd A Kessler, who brought us the brilliant Damages, and whose reputation and script has attracted a first-rate cast. 

Juliette Binoche has by far the trickiest job bringing dimension to Chanel, who is clearly set up as the villain of the piece but whom Binoche manages to frame as a survivor, while Ben Mendelsohn (who starred in Kessler's Bloodline on Netflix) radiates vulnerability and quiet nobility as Dior.

The horror of the occupation is keenly realised in the opening episodes, which also feature Game Of Thrones' Maisie Williams as Dior's sister and Dracula's Claes Bang as Chanel's slippery introduction to the Nazis. Glenn Close, who picked up multiple awards as the force-of-nature lawyer Patty Hewes in Kessler's Damages, pops up later in a series of such high quality that it feels uncommonly addictive for its type. (Ten episodes)

The Grand Tour: Sand Job

Clarkson, Hammond and May race 1,000km across the Sahara.

Year: 2024

Watch now on Prime Video






Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond are off to Mauritania for this special, a West African country none of them claim to have heard of before, and which they're appalled to learn is alcohol-free. What the trio have heard of, of course, is cars - which is just as well because they're converting three of them into desert racers for the Sand Job, the exciting focus of which is a race across the Sahara.

The three desert-modified motors are a Jaguar F-Type with fancy lights (Clarkson), an Aston Martin ‘you can live in' (Hammond) and a very cool-looking Maserati with a roll cage (May). Will they make it across the Sahara, though?

There's the small matter of their escapade taking place in a Foreign Office ‘red zone' with a small war not too far off and, as Hammond's satnav thinks he's just south of Manchester, there could be a few other problems in store, too. We won't spoil what they are, that's all part of the fun of watching this Boys' Own-style adventure.

Lady Macbeth






Florence Pugh dazzles in her leading-role debut in a feature film.

Year: 2016

Certificate: 15

Watch now on Netflix

Long before she became part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Florence Pugh made a big impression in this dark British period drama - which was also, incredibly, her leading role feature debut. The title alludes to Shakespeare's scheming queen, but the film is a loose adaptation of a 19th-century Russian novella, with the location moved to England in 1865.

Pugh plays Katherine, a teenager contained in a loveless marriage, expected to live in the dour service of her inadequate husband and his cruel father. She is not a victim, but as a heroine, she is complex. Her opportunities, when she grasps them, are bold, self-serving and deadly. In a drama with only four other main characters, including her lover and maid, Katherine is the only one who, by hook or by crook, thrives. (89 minutes)

Past Lives

Tender tale of lost love which foregrounds the migrant experience.

Year: 2023

Certificate: 12

Watch now on Netflix






It's impossible not to shed a tear while watching this discreet and delicate film about two childhood sweethearts who were separated in youth and then brought together again as adults. South Korean-born Nora (Greta Lee) is best friends with Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), but when her family move from Seoul to Canada the pair lose contact. Years later Nora, now a married writer living in New York, reconnects with her old friend. They reunite for one week - but do they regret the life they've lost together?

This extraordinary directorial debut by South Korean-Canadian Celine Song was indisputably one of the movie highlights of 2023.