Nuremberg to Back to Black: the seven best films to watch on TV this week

Pick of the week
Nuremberg

It is just over 80 years since the Nuremberg trials, when top-ranking Nazis were charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Aside from a harrowing sequence of actual death camp footage, James Vanderbilt’s intense drama comes at the historic event from the angle of cocky American psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), tasked with assessing the defendants’ mental health. He finds himself in a battle of wills with lead Nazi Hermann Göring (a chillingly smug Russell Crowe), one that he’s not really capable of winning. Michael Shannon gets a chunk of screentime as US judge Robert Jackson, but it’s when Malek and Crowe go head to head that the film really clicks. Simon Wardell
Friday, 12.20pm, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere

Back to Black

Tears dry on their own … Marisa Abela as Amy Winehouse in Back to Black. Photograph: StudiocanalUK

Marisa Abela was always on a hiding to nothing trying to sing just like the late Amy Winehouse in Sam Taylor-Johnson’s biopic. But she delivers a vocal impersonation of impressive style and gusto, alongside a sensitive performance as the young London singer who had a meteoric rise but fell victim to alcoholism and bulimia. Her amour fou – AKA “toxic co-dependency” – with Blake Fielder-Civil (Jack O’Connell) and interactions with her nan (Lesley Manville) and dad Mitch (Eddie Marsan), rather than her music, provide the tragic drama’s central thrust.
Sunday, 10pm, BBC Two

Trafic

Gadgets galore … Jacques Tati as Monsieur Hulot in Trafic. Photograph: United Archives GmbH/Alamy

The last film by Jacques Tati to feature his much-loved Monsieur Hulot character takes aim at our obsession with motor vehicles. He stars as a designer for a car firm who is attempting to get his latest model, a gadget-stuffed campervan, from France to a motor show in Amsterdam. There is a lot of Tati’s trademark physical comedy revolving round the odd things we do while driving, including a delightfully balletic car crash scene, while the business world is depicted as a frantic mix of efficiency and idiocy. SW
Wednesday 7 January, 3.30pm, Talking Pictures TV

Dog Day Afternoon

Bank job … Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon. Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

In 1975, Al Pacino reunited with his Godfather co-star John Cazale for Sidney Lumet’s fact-based crime drama. But their characters here are no Corleones; Sonny and Sal are amateurish armed robbers who hold up a Brooklyn bank (to get money for a sex-change operation for Sonny’s lover) but become trapped in a hostage situation. For the most part it’s a caper, as the bank’s staff get caught up giddily in Sonny’s plans and he exploits the media circus and excessive police operation that spring up around the siege. SW
Thursday 8 January, 10.55am, Sky Cinema Greats

People We Meet on Vacation

Sun-spangled romdram … Emily Bader as Poppy and Tom Blyth as Alex in People We Meet on Vacation. Photograph: Daniel Escale/Netflix

The first movie based on a novel by bestselling author Emily Henry comes to Netflix, established home of easily digestible, sun-spangled romdrams. Emily Bader plays travel writer Poppy, who meets up with her best friend Alex (Tom Blyth) every summer for a holiday. Over many years and a series of trips to picture-postcard locations – Barcelona, New Orleans etc – it slowly dawns on them that perhaps they should be together. Jameela Jamil, Molly Shannon and Alan Ruck co-star.
Friday 9 January, Netflix

The Tale of Silyan

So sweet and moving … Nikola with the rescued stork in The Tale of Silyan. Photograph: Jean Dakar/Ciconia Film

A documentary that melds folk tale with fly-on-the-wall realism, Tamara Kotevska’s sweet, moving film follows Macedonian farmer Nikola. He lives in a village with the largest number of white storks in the country, but the struggle to earn a living from the land is depopulating the area. Just as the storks migrate for food, so do Nikola’s daughter and family, with his wife joining them in Germany. But then he takes in a stork with a broken wing and finds a glimmer of purpose. A multilayered fable with elements of natural history amid a stark dissection of rural woes.
Friday 9 January, 10pm, National Geographic

The Old Oak

Ken Loach’s swan song … Dave Turner (far right) with (from left) Trevor Fox, Chris McGlade and Jordan Louis in The Old Oak. Photograph: TCD/Alamy

Is this Ken Loach’s final film? If so, as he has suggested, it’s a fitting end to a long career committed to exploring the lives of – and agitating for an improvement in the lives of – working-class people. The drama focuses on the friction caused by Syrian refugees arriving in a depressed former mining village in Durham. Dave Turner stars as TJ Ballantyne, the landlord of the titular pub, which is a community hub – one of the few left – but also a business that could suffer if he provides space and solidarity for Ebla Mari’s incomer Yara and her kin but alienates his patrons.
Friday 9 January, 11pm, BBC Two