Pick of the weekThe Beast<\/p>\n
Inspired by a Henry James novella, Bertrand Bonello\u2019s anguished sci-fi romance crosses space and time to explore the loneliness, fear and desire that are all part of what makes us human. In 2044, Gabrielle (L\u00e9a Seydoux) is persuaded by the AI that controls the world to undergo a past-life regression to \u201cpurify\u201d her DNA and rid herself of unacceptably complicated emotions. But in each existence she discovers a deep connection with George MacKay\u2019s Louis. In 1910, she\u2019s a bourgeois Parisian wife with an existential dread of disaster (\u201cthe beast\u201d) attracted to his English gentleman. In 2014 Los Angeles, she\u2019s an actor menaced by his incel stalker. Back in the future, could he be her soulmate?
Wednesday 19 August, 11.40pm, Film4<\/p>\n
Signal OneLearning the language \u2026 Isabelle Fuhrman is tech prodigy Annika in Signal One. Photograph: Mark Kudel<\/p>\n
One for fans of Denis Villeneuve\u2019s film Arrival and the Netflix thriller 3 Body Problem, Jonathan Sobol\u2019s science-fiction puzzler also digs into the complexities of first contact with extraterrestrials. Dennis Quaid\u2019s tech billionaire Sam lures computer genius Annika (Isabelle Fuhrman) to his Caribbean island, where David Thewlis\u2019s physicist Perry is on the verge of communicating with aliens. But how do you talk to them? And are they friendly or hostile? A sharp mystery in which scientific hubris vies with humanity.
Saturday 15 August, 3.05pm, 10.20pm, Sky Cinema Premiere<\/p>\n
The BatmanMoody \u2026 Robert Pattinson in The Batman. Photograph: Landmark Media\/Alamy<\/p>\n
Probably the most brooding Batman on record, Robert Pattinson\u2019s masked vigilante barely raises his voice above a whisper or his hopes above the despairing in Matt Reeves\u2019s wonderfully dark take on the urban hero. In a crime-sodden Gotham, the murder of the mayor by a killer with a penchant for riddles plunges Bruce Wayne and his alter ego into a reckoning with widespread corruption and his own legacy. Zo\u00eb Kravitz, as the cat-like Selina Kyle, and Colin Farrell, unrecognisable as the Penguin, provide the zing as our implacable do-gooder battles chaos.
Saturday 15 August, 9pm, ITV2<\/p>\n
The Wedding SingerPerfect harmony \u2026 Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler star in The Wedding Singer. Photograph: Moviestore\/REX\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
The first inkling that there was more to Adam Sandler than puerile physical comedy came with this 1998 romantic comedy set in 1985. A streak of melancholic sweetness runs through his portrayal of the titular musician, Robbie, who loses his way after being dumped at the altar. Will helping the ineffably lovely Julia (Drew Barrymore) plan her own nuptials cure him of his gloom? As weird as it may seem to make a film nostalgic for the previous decade, the wall-to-wall 80s bangers make it a pretty joyful experience.
Monday 17 August, 6.20pm, Sky Cinema Greats<\/p>\n
Monkey ManTaking revenge \u2026 Dev Patel stars in Monkey Man. Photograph: NBC Universal\/Universal Studios<\/p>\n
You wouldn\u2019t necessarily expect Dev Patel\u2019s directorial debut to be an extremely violent action thriller. But this was a passion project for the actor, and he throws himself wholeheartedly into the tale of an Indian underground fighter who wears a monkey mask and is paid to take a beating. Then he sees the police chief (Sikandar Kher) who murdered his mother when he was a kid and vows revenge. Mixing social and political commentary in with the close-quarter fisticuffs, it\u2019s an impressive first effort.
Wednesday 19 August, 11.30pm, BBC One<\/p>\n
Novak Djokovic: The Wolf in WinterA different man \u2026 Cameras follow the tennis great in Novak Djokovic: The Wolf in Winter. Photograph: Amazon MGM Studios<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s soft and gentle \u2026 but he\u2019s also angry.\u201d Jelena Djokovic\u2019s assessment of her husband is the knotty thread that runs through Jason Hehir\u2019s documentary about a giant of tennis who has yet to be forgiven for surpassing the achievements of crowd favourites Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. His intensity and stubbornness (a Serbian national trait, we\u2019re told) hasn\u2019t endeared him to the public but, as we go behind the scenes at the 2025 Australian Open and meet an honest, engaging family man with a long history of tough choices, this film could go some way to changing minds.
Thursday 20 August, Prime Video<\/p>\n
Les Yeux Sans VisageFace time \u2026 Edith Scob and Alida Valli in the unsettling Les Yeux Sans Visage. Photograph: Cinetext\/The Criterion Collection\/Allstar<\/p>\n
Georges Franju\u2019s arresting 1960 horror is as interested in dreamlike images as jump-scare moments of terror \u2013 and in Edith Scob\u2019s Christiane has a monster with the pathos of Frankenstein\u2019s creature. Disfigured after a car accident, she sports a lifelike but eerie facial mask and drifts around her country house like a pale white ghost. Meanwhile, her surgeon father, Dr G\u00e9nessier (Pierre Brasseur), and his assistant Louise (Alida Vall) abduct young women to supply full-face skin grafts for her. It\u2019s occasionally grisly but mostly unsettling.
Friday 21 August, 12.50am, Talking Pictures TV<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pick of the weekThe Beast Inspired by a Henry James novella, Bertrand Bonello\u2019s anguished sci-fi romance crosses space…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-737657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}