Best films to watch on TV today, tonight and this week
Whatever your taste, there's a movie on for everyone.
With so many movies available on streaming platforms and in cinemas, it can often feel as though there is too much choice.
That's why, these days, nothing quite beats the feeling of finding a hidden gem while flicking through the TV.
There are plenty of options – old and new – to pick from this weekend, including classics like Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park and chilling Stephen King adaptation Misery, to Bridge of Spies and Django Unchained.
If you're wondering where to find some of the best films on the terrestrial channels this week, we've got you sorted.
We've compiled a list of the best flicks airing across the next seven days for you to choose from below.
Friday 29th August
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - 2:30pm, 5 Action
Western starring James Stewart and John Wayne, and featuring Lee Marvin. In 1910, a US senator and his wife return, unannounced, to the frontier town of Shinbone to attend the funeral of an obscure rancher. A local reporter takes an interest in their arrival, and the senator then begins to tell the story of Shinbone's wild days, when gunman Liberty Valance terrorised the town. Read our full review
King Rat - 3:45pm, Talking Pictures TV
Second World War prison drama starring George Segal, Tom Courtenay and James Fox. Captured American soldier Corporal King runs the black market in food and supplies inside a Japanese PoW camp. His fellow inmates come to depend on him for survival, but King always looks after himself first. Read our full review
Atonement - 11pm, BBC Two
Period romantic drama starring Keira Knightley, James McAvoy and Romola Garai. At a magnificent country house in 1935, sisters Cecilia and Briony Tallis clash over Cecilia's affair with servant's son Robbie Turner, leading to a life-changing flashpoint that cruelly splits up the young lovers. As Turner goes to war, eventually finding himself stranded on Dunkirk beach, Cecilia must live in hope that one day they will be reunited. Read our full review
Gaia - 12:55am, Film4
An injured forest ranger on a routine mission is saved by two off-the-grid survivalists. What is initially a welcome rescue grows more suspicious as the son and his renegade father reveal a cultish devotion to the forest. Horror, starring Monique Rockman, Carel Nel and Alex Van Dyk. Read our full review
Saturday 30th August
GI Blues - 10am, BBC Two
In his first film after finishing with military service, Elvis plays Tulsa McCauley, an American soldier stationed in West Germany who has plans to open a night club when he returns home. To raise money for the venture, he makes a bet that he can spend the night with Lili, a frosty cabaret dancer. Then just as Tulsa realises that his feelings for Lili are changing, she finds out about the bet. Read our full review
Jurassic Park - 4pm, ITV4
Steven Spielberg's blockbuster adventure, starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough. Billionaire tycoon John Hammond has built the ultimate theme park – an island populated by genetically engineered dinosaurs. A group of guests, including Hammond's grandchildren, are invited to preview the attraction, touring the park in remotely controlled cars. But, as a tropical storm gathers, an unscrupulous employee shuts down the elaborate security system, leaving the tour stranded – and mayhem about to break loose. Read our full review
The Day After Tomorrow - 6:40pm, Film4
Disaster movie from Independence Day director Roland Emmerich, starring Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal. When climatologist Jack Hall tries to warn Washington that the planet is facing an imminent, catastrophic climate shift, government officials fail to take him seriously. But, when the Earth abruptly plunges into a new ice age, it soon becomes clear that the human race is facing extinction. Read our full review
Boston Strangler - 11:05pm, Film4
Historical crime drama starring Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon. In early 1960s Boston, Massachusetts, newspaper reporters Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole investigate a string of connected murder cases. Over the next few years, the pair endure sexism, institutional failings and plenty of false leads as they work to crack the mystery of the elusive serial killer. Read our full review
Legend - 11:55pm, BBC One
Biographical drama starring Tom Hardy and Emily Browning. The notorious Kray twins rule the East End underworld with iron fists. But while no outsiders dare challenge their dominance, Reggie Kray suffers a personal battle when he is increasingly forced to choose between loyalty to his unpredictable brother Ron and his wife Frances. Read our full review
Sunday 31st August
A View to Kill - 2:45pm, ITV1
Spy adventure starring Roger Moore and Christopher Walken. James Bond is on the trail of industrialist Max Zorin after a duplicate of a top-secret British microchip is discovered. Zorin retaliates by unleashing his lethal assistant May Day to prevent 007 from sabotaging his evil plans. Read our full review
Stagecoach - 3:45pm, 5 Action
Classic western starring John Wayne and Claire Trevor. The Ringo Kid, a fugitive from justice, joins an assortment of passengers on the stagecoach to Lordsburg, a journey that takes them through Native American territory. Read our full review
The Old Man & the Gun - 7:10pm, Film4
Forrest Tucker, a criminal since the age of 15, has escaped from most of the prisons that tried to hold him. At the end of his career, he has become a gentleman bank robber. However, cop John Hunt becomes determined to catch him. Fact-based crime drama, starring Robert Redford, Casey Affleck and Sissy Spacek. Read our full review
Misery - 10pm, BBC Two
Psychological thriller based on the novel by Stephen King, starring James Caan and Kathy Bates. In a remote area of the Colorado Mountains, successful novelist Paul Sheldon is injured in a car accident and taken in by ex-nurse Annie Wilkes, a devoted fan of Sheldon and his fictional heroine, Misery Chastain. But events take a sinister turn when the novelist allows Wilkes to read a proof of his latest book. Read our full review
Meet the Fockers - 10:55pm, Film4
Comedy sequel starring Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller. Following her engagement to male nurse Greg Focker, Pam Byrnes and her family decamp to Florida to check out the prospective in-laws. But how will uptight ex-CIA man Jack Byrnes react to the free and easy lifestyle of hippy sex therapist Roz Focker and her eccentric husband Bernie? Read our full review
Monday 1st September
Night Train for Inverness - 1:25pm, Talking Pictures TV
An ex-convict runs away with his estranged son, unaware the boy has diabetes and could die without his medication. Thriller, starring Norman Wooland and Jane Hylton. Read our full review
Transformers: Dark of the Moon - 6pm, Film4
Sci-fi adventure starring Shia LaBeouf. Sam Witwicky and the Autobots must spring back into action when a Decepticon, secretly planted on the Moon in the 1960s, becomes a clear and present danger. Not only is the technology contained within it potentially devastating to humankind, but Sam is also dealing with relationship problems. Read our full review
Lethal Weapon - 9pm, ITV4
Action thriller starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. Martin Riggs is a detective whose almost suicidal recklessness makes him a walking time bomb for criminals and colleagues alike. His reluctant partner, Roger Murtaugh, is a mature family man who plays everything by the book and wants to see out his police years as safely as possible. The duo are reluctantly teamed together to take on a vicious international heroin ring being run by former Vietnam mercenaries. Read our full review
Tuesday 2nd September
The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw - 12:50pm, Film4
Comedy western starring Kenneth More and Jayne Mansfield. Timid English gentleman Jonathan Tibbs inherits a company that makes guns and decides to take his wares to the Wild West. Unwittingly set up as sheriff, Tibbs finds himself the keeper of law and order in the toughest town in the West. Read our full review
The Devil-Ship Pirates - 5pm, Legend Xtra
Period swashbuckler starring Christopher Lee. Following Sir Francis Drake's defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, a pirate and his crew set out for the Cornish coast aboard a crippled galleon. On arrival, they attempt to convince local residents that they are an invasion force. Read our full review
Planet of the Apes - 11:55pm, BBC Two
Science-fiction adventure starring Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter. Four American astronauts hurtle into the far reaches of space and time and crash-land in the wilderness of an unidentified planet. It is a place where evolution has taken a strange turn – apes are the dominant species and man is the beast. Read our full review
Wednesday 3rd September
Far from the Madding Crowd - 4pm, Film4
Period romantic drama adapted from the novel by Thomas Hardy, starring Julie Christie, Terence Stamp, Peter Finch and Alan Bates. Rural England in the late 19th century: Bathsheba Everdene is a captivating and headstrong young woman who inherits her uncle's farm and has a profound effect on the three men in her life – the dashing Sergeant Troy, the rich and ageing William Boldwood and the ever-faithful shepherd Gabriel Oak. Read our full review
Bridge of Spies - 10:40pm, BBC One
Spy thriller based on a true story, starring Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance. At the height of the Cold War, it falls to insurance lawyer James B Donovan to represent Soviet spy Rudolf Abel and broker a prisoner swap involving two American men – pilot Francis Gary Powers and student Frederic Pryor. Read our full review
Bowling for Columbine - 11pm, Sky Documentaries
Documentary from Michael Moore that looks at America's gun laws in light of the Columbine high school shootings of 1999, taking in race, the welfare system and a confrontation with National Rifle Association president Charlton Heston. Read our full review
Thursday 4th September
Some Like It Hot - 8pm, BBC Four
Classic comedy starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. Chicago, 1929, the era of Prohibition and tough racketeers. When two underemployed musicians witness the St Valentine's Day Massacre, they nearly become victims themselves. Their only escape is a jazz band heading for Florida, but there's a problem – it's an all-girl orchestra. Read our full review
The Taking of Pelham 123 - 10:45pm, ITV1
Denzel Washington and John Travolta star in this remake of the 1974 thriller. An armed gang holds passengers on a New York subway train hostage, and threatens to start killing them unless they receive a huge ransom. As the minutes tick by, the tense situation becomes a battle of wits between gang leader "Ryder" and train dispatcher Walter Garber. Read our full review
The Lady in the Van - 12:40am, Talking Pictures TV
Comedy drama based on Alan Bennett's memoir and play, starring Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings. London, 1970: when writer Alan Bennett grudgingly allows elderly, eccentric bag lady Miss Mary Shepherd to park her van (and home) in the driveway of his Camden townhouse, little does he know that the arrangement will last for 15 years. Read our full review
Friday 5th September
The Caine Mutiny - 1:20pm, Film4
Courtroom drama based on Herman Wouk's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, starring Humphrey Bogart as martinet skipper Philip Queeg who's put in charge of the naval minesweeper Caine. But the strain of maintaining discipline among his restless crew begins to affect his ability to command. Read our full review
The History of Mr Polly - 10:45pm, ITV1
Period drama adapted from the novel by HG Wells, starring John Mills and Sally Ann Howes. Reflecting on a life of missed opportunities, draper Alfred Polly hits upon a drastic solution to his seemingly insurmountable problems. Read our full review
Django Unchained - 9pm, Film4
Western directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Samuel L Jackson and Christoph Waltz. After being freed from slavery and trained in the ways of a bounty hunter by Dr King Schultz, Django sets out to free his wife from a vicious plantation owner. Read our full review
If you have Netflix, we have rounded up the best movies on Netflix and the best series on Netflix to watch now – and Disney Plus viewers can check out our best movies on Disney Plus guide. Got Prime Video? We also have the best movies on Amazon Prime.
Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Authors
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.
