Gladiator II to Garbo: Where Did You Go? The seven best films to watch on TV this week

Pick of the week
Gladiator II

Considering the occurrence of the original, it’s a astonishment it has taken 24 years for Ridley Scott to return to the Colosseum. But there’s inactive a batch of familiarity successful his past Roman sequel – from returning characters to elaborate combat scenes and carnal antics. Paul Mescal stars arsenic Lucius, the lad of Russell Crowe’s Maximus, who is surviving a quiescent beingness successful northbound Africa until an invading Roman service instrumentality him into slavery. From there, it’s a abbreviated hop to becoming a gladiator and reviving his father’s rebel stance, portion his owner, Macrinus (a lip-smacking Denzel Washington), plots to overthrow the unstable duplicate emperors. Mescal is much of a brooder than Crowe, which lends the movie an elegaic, end-of-an-era feel.
Monday 12 May, Paramount+

Speed

‘There’s a weaponry connected that bus!’ … Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock successful Speed. Photograph: Rrex/Shutterstock

There is simply a weaponry connected a Los Angeles autobus that volition detonate if it drops beneath 50mph. Enter Keanu Reeves. His Swat squad serviceman Jack jumps connected committee to assistance rider turned operator Annie (Sandra Bullock) thwart the extortionist (Dennis Hopper astatine his unhinged best) who enactment the instrumentality connected there. Reeves’s imaginable arsenic an enactment leader had been unearthed successful Point Break a fewer years earlier and is enhanced successful Jan de Bont’s brilliantly tense thriller, aided by his large chemistry with Bullock. Top-notch stunt enactment rounds retired a cleanable popcorn flick.
Saturday 10 May, 11.10pm, ITV1

Johnny Guitar

A classical of queer coding … Joan Crawford successful Johnny Guitar. Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

Nicholas Ray’s western is 1 of the large misnamed films. Sterling Hayden’s titular gunslinger does footwear the crippled off, but it’s his aged flame, saloon proprietor Vienna (a fierce, forceful Joan Crawford), who is the drama’s blazing heart. With a railroad being built nearby, she faces absorption from townsfolk who fearfulness alteration – and blasted her for it, not slightest Mercedes McCambridge’s Emma. But successful this classical of queer coding, does Emma’s wrath fell a concealed tendency for Vienna? Check retired Crawford’s costume changes for a motion of who wears the trousers circular here.
Sunday 11 May, 12pm, Great! Action

Rodeo

Compelling … Julie Ledru successful Rodeo. Photograph: TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy

The subculture of municipality dirt-bike riding successful France is simply a fruitful milieu for Lola Quivoron’s involving drama. Julie Ledru plays Julia, a motocross devotee who edges her mode into an all-male radical of riders done her accomplishment astatine stealing bikes. Her tentative relationship with the imprisoned pack leader’s neglected woman and lad gives this outsider a consciousness of belonging, but her autarkic cognition – and sex – origin hostility from immoderate of the guys. Ledru, continuously connected screen, is compelling arsenic a pistillate who knows she’ll lone get what she wants successful beingness by taking it.
Sunday 11 May, 1am, Channel 4

Garbo: Where Did You Go?

Giddy … Garbo: Where Did You Go. Photograph: Photo by adoc-photos/Sky

Lorna Tucker, who directed Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist, delves into the beingness of different expansive taste fig successful this beguiling documentary. From a puerility successful a Stockholm slum to becoming the astir celebrated pistillate prima successful Hollywood, Greta Garbo’s upward trajectory was giddy – but the film suggests that she mislaid a portion of her psyche on the way. Using her ain letters, positive modern quality stories and interviews, a representation emerges of a reluctant personage who truly did conscionable privation to beryllium alone.
Wednesday 14 May, 9pm, Sky Arts

Five Easy Pieces

Zeitgeisty … Karen Black and Jack Nicholson successful Five Easy Pieces. Photograph: Columbia/Sportsphoto/Allstar

A acceptable substance successful immoderate treatment astir the New American Cinema, Bob Rafelson’s zeitgeisty 1970 drama stars Jack Nicholson arsenic Bob, who works connected a California lipid rig and is successful a narration with waitress Rayette (Karen Black) – but is noticeably disaffected by both. He’s besides hiding a past arsenic the classically trained pianist lad of a middle-class philharmonic family. On a roadworthy travel backmost location to Washington authorities to spot his ailing father, his rootlessness comes to the fore – but is helium moving distant from boredom, failure, committedness oregon conscionable the hard concern of surviving an mean life?
Friday 16 May, 6am, Sky Cinema Greats

Bodies Bodies Bodies

A brutally comic gen Z takedown … Amandla Stenberg and Maria Bakalova successful Bodies Bodies Bodies. Photograph: Album/Alamy

Posing arsenic a generic “cabin successful the woods” fearfulness successful the vein of And Then There Were None (though it’s really acceptable successful a mansion), Halina Reijn’s film soon develops into a sly, brutally comic takedown of entitled procreation Zers. A radical of friends (the on-point formed includes Amandla Stenberg, Myha’la and Rachel Sennott) hole to enactment successful a big, acheronian house, but storm-related powerfulness cuts and a bloody decease precipitate a breakdown of order. Bitchy, indiscreet and jealous, the pals crook retired to beryllium hilariously incapable of staying agreed with a imaginable slayer connected the loose.
Friday 16 May, 11.30pm, BBC One