One Battle After Another to On Swift Horses: the seven best films to watch on TV this week

Pick of the week
One Battle After Another

Paul Thomas Anderson finally gets his Oscar – and with one of his most riotously enjoyable films. His take on Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland ejects the author’s trademark impenetrability and gives us a larger-than-life action caper with political undertones. Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio), part of a US left-wing revolutionary group betrayed by his own lover, lives off-grid with teen daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti). That is until white supremacist Col Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn) comes searching for Willa – who may be his child – and she and Bob are forced on the run. Also in the mix are Benicio del Toro’s martial arts teacher/migrant activist, two assassins and a bunch of radical nuns. Breathless fun.
Thursday, 10.30am, 10.20pm, Sky Cinema Premiere/HBO Max

On Swift Horses

Desire … Will Poulter, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jacob Elordi in On Swift Horses. Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy

When discharged Korean war soldier Julius (Jacob Elordi) visits his brother Lee (Will Poulter) in Kansas, he and Lee’s fiancee Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) seem to have an instant connection. However, in Daniel Minahan’s plaintive, episodic 50s-set drama, it’s not in the way you might expect. In an era when sexual fluidity was taboo/illegal, the two’s seemingly different experiences – one stuck in the domestic routine in San Diego; the other a card sharp in Vegas – are linked by their stymied desire to be their true selves.
Saturday, 8.20am, 9.45pm, Sky Cinema Premiere

La Chimera

Engaging … Josh O’Connor in La Chimera. Photograph: Tempesta/ Ad Vitam/ Amka Films/ RAI

Alice Rohrwacher’s wonderful 2023 drama digs itself into your heart, just as the ragtag bunch of Italian grave-robbers she introduces unearth the ancient past and plunder it. Josh O’Connor, at his most engagingly diffident, plays Arthur, an English archaeologist with an innate ability to root out Etruscan tombs. He has just been freed from prison but falls straight back into the activity that got him banged up, while pining for his missing, possibly dead lover. Carol Duarte is a real find as Italia, a maid who is very much alive and may be his route out of a dissolute life.
Saturday, 9.20pm, BBC Four

Theater Camp

Make belief … Ben Platt and Molly Gordon in Theater Camp. Photograph: AP

A mockumentary that manages to avoid mocking most of its subjects, Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman’s sweet film follows a season at a financially precarious but much-loved youth performing-arts summer school. With the director having had a stroke, her son, “business vlogger” Troy (Jimmy Tatro), takes charge, much to the bemusement of the kids and staff, including teachers and besties Rebecca-Diane (Gordon) and Amos (Ben Platt). A love letter to institutions such as this that provide havens for the unconforming and outcast, both young and old.
Tuesday, 9pm, Film4

Superman

High flying … David Corenswet in Superman. Photograph: Album/Alamy

The problem with being an all-powerful alien is: to whom are you accountable? James Gunn’s witty reboot of the DC comics legend – with added superdog! – explores that question, as Kal-El AKA Clark Kent (David Corenswet) struggles with questions about his role on Earth. These come from girlfriend/reporter Lois Lane (a perfectly cast Rachel Brosnahan) and Nicholas Hoult’s jealous tech billionaire Lex Luthor – who, naturally, also has a fiendish plan.
Thursday, 8.05am, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere/HBO Max

Billy Idol Should Be Dead

Punk rocker … Billy Idol Should Be Dead. Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy

He was there at the birth of British punk, as one of the “Bromley contingent” of Sex Pistols fans that included Siouxsie Sioux. But it was as a US-based, groupie-magnet pop singer that Billy Idol really made his mark on the public. Jonas Åkerlund’s colourful documentary leans heavily on the drugs and sex (and more drugs) anecdotes, of which Idol has plenty (“It’s only when I tried to get off heroin that I started to smoke crack”). But his key role in the popularisation of MTV is also assessed, while he has to be admired for his survival from overdoses, bike crashes and changing musical tastes.
Thursday, 2am, Sky Arts

Femme

Powerplay … Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and George MacKay in Femme. Photograph: Signature Entertainment

Provocative, sexy and featuring bold, vivid performances from its two leads, Sam H Freeman and Ng Choon Ping’s thriller immerses us in a night-time world of transgression and community. Nathan Stewart-Jarrett is drag performer Jules, who is the victim of a homophobic assault by the thuggish Preston (George MacKay). However, months later, Jules spies Preston in a gay sauna so plots to seduce him and post the footage online. A tale of revenge that morphs into a fascinating emotional and sexual powerplay between the two men.
Friday, 11pm, BBC Two