Best films to watch on TV today, tonight and this week
Whatever your taste, there's a movie on for everyone.
With endless options on streaming platforms and in cinemas, it can often feel as though the choices of which movies to watch are endless.
And while they most certainly are 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, from recent viral hits like Saltburn to all-time classics such as Jaws, so there really is something for everyone.
If you're wondering where to find some of the best films on the terrestrial channels this week, we've got you sorted with our picks for the next seven days.
With so many amazing films airing, we've compiled a list of the best flicks for you to choose from below.
Friday 20th June
The Green Mile - 9pm, Film4
Fantasy prison drama based on the novel by Stephen King, starring Tom Hanks and featuring Michael Clarke Duncan. Retired warder Paul Edgecomb remembers his time in charge of death-row inmates in a Louisiana penitentiary, and the strange powers of convicted child killer John Coffey. Read our full review
Jaws - 9:05pm, ITV4
Steven Spielberg's classic adventure thriller, starring Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss. The Atlantic resort of Amity Island is preparing for its lucrative summer season when death strikes in the form of a Great White shark. Rather than turn away business, Mayor Vaughn orders police chief Brody to keep the beaches open. Read our full review
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - 11pm, BBC Two
Comedy drama starring Terence Stamp, Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce. Two drag artists and a transgender woman set off on a bus journey from Sydney to the town of Alice Springs where they have been invited to perform in a club. Crossing the desert, they leave chaos in their wake. Read our full review
I Give It a Year - 11:25pm, BBC One
Comedy starring Rose Byrne and Rafe Spall. After a seven-month courtship Nat and Josh decide to tie the knot. But the couple's close friends have doubts about the longevity of the relationship because of their very different personalities. So as the first anniversary approaches, who will be proved right? Read our full review
Saturday 21st June
Pokemon: Detective Pikachu - 2:25pm, BBC One
Part-animated fantasy adventure starring Justice Smith and featuring the voice of Ryan Reynolds. Tim teams up with an unlikely partner to solve the mystery of his father's death. But there's a slight complication: this partner is a talking Pokémon creature who only Tim can hear. Read our full review
Jurassic World - 6:30pm, ITV2
Decades on from the creation of Jurassic Park, a fully operational attraction filled with genetically engineered dinosaurs has been opened on the island. In need of a new attraction, the company behind the park creates an entirely new species - only for it to escape and terrorise the tourists. Action adventure sequel, starring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. Read our full review
Saint Omer - 9pm, BBC Four
Courtroom drama starring Kayije Kagame and Guslagie Malanda. Novelist Rama travels to Saint-Omer to watch the trial of a Senegalese student, Laurence Coly, who is accused of murdering her infant daughter. As the case proceeds, Rama draws disturbing connections between her own life in France and that of the defendant. Read our full review
Shallow Grave - 11:25pm, Film4
Black comedy drama starring Kerry Fox, Christopher Eccleston and Ewan McGregor. Three friends are seeking a fourth person to share their well appointed flat in Edinburgh, and think they have found the ideal candidate in Hugo. But they soon discover that Hugo is not all he seems, and their friendship is under threat. Read our full review
A Bigger Splash - 11:55pm, BBC Two
Drama starring Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes. Rock star Marianne Lane enjoys a holiday with her lover on a remote Sicilian island, but tensions arise when her hedonistic ex-husband Harry arrives with a young woman in tow. Read our full review
Sunday 22nd June
True Grit - 12:50pm, Film4
Oscar-winning western starring John Wayne as one-eyed US marshal "Rooster" Cogburn. When a young girl discovers that her father has been robbed and murdered, she persuades the hard-drinking Cogburn to track down the killer. Read our full review
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service - 1:20pm, ITV1
Spy adventure starring George Lazenby, Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas. James Bond resigns from the Secret Service in order to continue his relentless quest to track down arch villain Blofeld. A liaison with a beautiful but wilful playgirl leads Bond to a notorious criminal who helps him track his quarry to a mountain hideaway in Switzerland. Read our full review
Saltburn - 10:30pm, BBC One
Black comedy thriller starring Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi. After shy Oxford University student Oliver crosses paths with rich classmate Felix, the two become unlikely friends and Felix invites Oliver back to Saltburn, his family's sprawling mansion, for the summer. But it soon transpires that this awkward outsider is not quite the harmless loner that he appeared to be. Read our full review
Walk the Line - 10:50pm, BBC Two
Oscar-winning musical biographical drama starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. John R Cash emerges from humble farm beginnings to become country-and-western legend Johnny Cash. But the road to stardom for the "Man in Black" is not without hardship and heartbreak, although salvation appears in his dependable soulmate, June Carter. Read our full review
127 Hours - 11:25pm, Film4
Drama based on a true story, directed by Danny Boyle and starring James Franco. While solo climbing in Utah, Aron Ralston falls into a crevasse and becomes trapped by a falling boulder. As time slips by, he resigns himself to the fact that his survival depends on resorting to desperate measures. Read our full review
Monday 23rd June
The Great Escape - 5:30pm, Film4
Classic Second World War adventure based on a true story, starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough and Charles Bronson. In an attempt to contain rebellious PoWs, the Nazis transfer the leading troublemakers to a seemingly escape-proof security camp. However, with the finest escape team in military history now under one roof, the German guards are hard pressed to prevent the Allied prisoners from breaking out. Read our full review
A Quiet Place: Part II - 9pm, Film4
Horror thriller starring Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe. More than a year after humanity was attacked by monsters with sensitive hearing, the surviving members of the Abbott family hold the secret to killing the creatures. Followed by a troubled neighbour, hearing-impaired Regan sets out to an island radio tower, hoping to broadcast their discovery - but it isn't only the monsters she has to watch out for. Read our full review
Trainspotting - 10:50pm, Film4
Drama starring Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlyle. Mark Renton, a young heroin addict, lives with a group of friends in a squalid Edinburgh flat. Determined to change his life, but equally dependent on the drug culture around him, he visits his dealer for the last time. Read our full review
Tuesday 24th June
The Oxbow Incident - 1pm, Great Movies Action
Western drama starring Henry Fonda and Dana Andrews. Shortly after riding into a Nevada town, two cowboys become unwilling members of a lynch mob hastily organised to track down the rustlers responsible for shooting a local rancher. But the mob's determination to exact swift and brutal revenge leads to tragedy. Read our full review
Creed - 9pm, ITV4
Boxing drama starring Michael B Jordan and Sylvester Stallone. Life comes full circle for former heavyweight champion Rocky Balboa when he's called upon to mentor and train a hungry new fighter - the son of his old adversary Apollo Creed. Read our full review
T2: Trainspotting - 11:15pm, Film4
Danny Boyle's sequel to his 1995 drama, starring Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Ewen Bremner and Robert Carlyle. Twenty years after making off with £16,000 of his friends' money, Renton returns home to Edinburgh to make amends with Spud and Sick Boy. However, he hasn't counted on a vengeful Francis Begbie escaping from prison with a score to settle. Read our full review
Wednesday 25th June
The Lavender Hill Mob - 4:45pm, Film4
Classic Ealing crime comedy starring Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway. Meek, respectable Henry Holland supervises gold bullion deliveries to the bank where he is a trusted employee. But behind his modest exterior lurks a criminal mind harbouring unbounded ambition. His dream of stealing one million pounds worth of gold bars starts to assume reality when he teams up with foundry owner Pendlebury and two professional crooks. Read our full review
Playtime - 11:25pm, Talking Pictures TV
Comedy starring Jacques Tati. Monsieur Hulot continues his meandering life, looking for a friend in a modern glass-and-steel office block in which he is bound to get lost. What he does find is a group of American tourists, and their joint confusion leads them to an unfinished nightclub, where Hulot struggles with the hostility of the inanimate objects in typical fashion. Read our full review
The Card Counter - 11:35pm, Talking Pictures TV
Thriller starring Oscar Isaac. Poker player William Tell lives an almost monastic life on the road, keeping a low profile to avoid the attention of the casinos. But his mysterious military past comes back to haunt him when he meets a young man who plans to kill Tell's former commanding officer. Read our full review
Thursday 26th June
Le Mans ‘66 - 6pm, Film4
Motor-racing drama based on a true story. In the early 1960s, automobile designer Carroll Shelby is enlisted by Ford Motors to build a car that will beat Ferrari in the annual Le Mans race. Shelby recruits hot-headed Brit Ken Miles as his test driver and the two commence work on a project that proves dangerously underfunded. Will all their efforts come undone during the gruelling 24-hour motoring marathon? Read our full review
Jaws - 9:50pm, ITV2
Steven Spielberg's classic adventure thriller, starring Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss. The Atlantic resort of Amity Island is preparing for its lucrative summer season when death strikes in the form of a Great White shark. Rather than turn away business, Mayor Vaughn orders police chief Brody to keep the beaches open. Read our full review
Persuasion - 10:15pm, BBC Two
A woman living with her oppressive family is forced to refuse a poor man's hand in marriage, only for him to return much the richer years later - though now he's set his heart on her sister-in-law. Fine romantic period drama, skilfully adapted from Jane Austen's novel, starring Amanda Root, Ciaran Hinds, Susan Fleetwood and Corin Redgrave. Read our full review
Friday 27th June
The Bedford Incident - 12:55pm, Film4
Cold War adventure starring Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier. A journalist joins the crew of a destroyer assigned to hunt down enemy submarines in the north Atlantic. But the relationship between the authoritarian captain and his meek, young ensign has disastrous results. Read our full review
The Proud Rebel - 3:35pm, Great Movies Action
A Confederate veteran in town to see a doctor is framed for assault and arrested. Soon, he finds himself working for a struggling local farmer. Read our full review
Cowboys & Aliens - 11:05pm, Channel 4
Sci-fi adventure starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford. An amnesiac stranger stumbles into a desert town that's ruled by a humourless colonel. When terrifying airborne marauders attack, the amnesiac discovers his skills with a gun could help save the town's inhabitants from annihilation. Read our full review
Red Sparrow - 11:25pm, Film4
Spy thriller starring Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton and Matthias Schoenaerts. After her ballet career ends in injury, a young Russian woman begins work as a spy and is sent to entrap a CIA operative. But when the assignment becomes more complicated than anticipated, the spy considers becoming a double agent. 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.
