Monday

Dog Soldiers, Film 4, 11.10pm

Shot on a minuscule budget, Neil Marshall's werewolf horror flick splices gore and lashings of blood, with a sick and twisted sense of humour. A squad of British Army officers, led by Sergeant Wells (Sean Pertwee), takes part in a routine military exercise on the Scottish Highlands. They stumble on a pile of human remains and an injured comrade who appears to have been attacked by an animal. Wells and his men soon find themselves under attack from giant, wolf-like creatures. Dog Soldiers is a triumph of invention over slick special effects, and puts to shame some of Hollywood's more lavish gore-fests. but it won't suit anyone with a weak stomach.

Tuesday

American Ultra, Film 4, 11.10pm

American Ultra is an enjoyably bonkers mash-up of a stoner comedy, spy thriller and misfiring romance. The CIA’s top secret Ultra program is deemed a failure and the remaining assets – government-sanctioned assassins – are declassified. Their memories are wiped so they can lead normal lives with new identities. One of the agents is Mike Howell (Jesse Eisenberg), who works at a convenience store in West Virginia. Mike is blissfully unaware of his blood-spattered past and frets about proposing to his pretty girlfriend, Phoebe (Kristen Stewart). CIA handler Victoria Lasseter (Connie Britton) re-activates Mike, only for the stoner to go on the run with Phoebe.

Wednesday

The Martian, Film 4, 6.15pm

The six-strong crew of the Ares 3, led by Commander Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain), are gathering samples on Mars when sensors pick up an approaching storm. Lewis gives the order to evacuate and during the trek back to the ship, botanist Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is hit by flying debris. Believing him to be dead, the rest of the crew blasts off without him. Little do they realise that back on Mars, Watney is alive. Meanwhile on Earth, the Nasa top brass cut corners to let Mark know the cavalry is coming, but can he last until they arrive? Adapted from the bestselling novel by Andy Weir, Ridley Scott's film is a riveting survival thriller set 140 million miles from home, which bears obvious similarities to the Oscar-winning Gravity in both set-up and execution.

Thursday

Film of the week

Paths Of Glory, BBC Four, 11.05pm

For his fourth feature, the follow-up to 1955 breakout hit The Killing, Stanley Kubrick turned to 1935 novel Paths Of Glory. Written by Italian-Canadian first world war veteran Humphrey Cobb, it’s based on the true story of a group of French soldiers executed for cowardice as a result of a gross miscarriage of justice. Kubrick had read and loved the novel as a teenager, but two decades after its publication it was largely forgotten.

Teaming up with Kirk Douglas’s company Bryna Productions, and bringing in noir fiction great Jim Thompson to co-write the script, the resulting film was banned in France, Switzerland, Franco’s Spain and on all American army bases, which speaks to the power of its anti-war message. That power is undiminished and, screening on Remembrance Day, it makes a timely addition to BBC Four’s ongoing Thursday night series of movie classics.

Douglas stars as French infantry commander Colonel Dax. A successful lawyer in civilian life, he takes it upon himself to defend three soldiers from his regiment who have been chosen at random to face court martial by spiteful Brigadier General Paul Mireau (George McCready) after the suicidal attack he demanded in order to secure a promotion was repulsed by the Germans. The resulting courtroom drama is necessarily underplayed – the verdict of death by firing squad seems to be a foregone conclusion. But it’s the interplay between the accused soldiers, the scenes in the trenches and of the attack itself, and the final emotional showdown between Dax and cynical corps commander Major General Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) which give Paths Of Glory its oomph.

Filmed in stark black and white, Kubrick’s natural métier, the gripping war scenes feature a night-time sortie into no-man’s-land and a long, bloody attack in which Douglas leads his men over the top and they struggle towards the German position under withering machine gun fire. Most memorable is a typically elaborate (and now-famous) tracking shot in which Mireau walks through trenches lined with weary and shell-shocked troops as bombs explode overhead. ‘Ready to kill some Germans, soldier?’ he asks before returning to his palatial headquarters to sip cognac.

Among a fine supporting cast are Timothy Carey, German actress Susanne Christian (who married Kubrick in 1958, a year after release) and Joseph Turkel. Eagle-eyed Kubrick fans will recognise him from a later role in The Shining, though he’s best known for playing Dr Eldon Tyrell in Blade Runner.

Friday

Up In The Air, BBC One, 11.55pm

Corporate downsizing expert Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) spends most of his time flying around the country firing employees he has never met before because their bosses are too chicken to do the dirty deed. Ironically, Ryan is threatened with redundancy when efficiency expert Natalie (Anna Kendrick) puts forward a plan that agents should conduct the terminations via video conferencing. Meanwhile, the usually cool Mr Bingham, who prides himself on his lack of emotional baggage, falls under the spell of fellow jetsetter Alex (Vera Farmiga). Up in the Air elegantly navigates a path between the bleak and the wryly amusing, anchored by a charming lead performance from Clooney as a corporate middleman who loathes the prospect of standing still and is now almost numb to the anguish he wreaks.

And one to stream …

Battle Royale, Arrow/Amazon Prime

Before Squid Game and The Hunger Games there was Battle Royale, veteran director Kinji Fukasaku’s cult 2000 adaptation of Koushun Takami’s controversial dystopian novel, published a year earlier. A mix of satire, black comedy and splatter movie, it still packs a punch two decades on.

Japan is on the verge of economic collapse. Unemployment has skyrocketed, the education system is in chaos and what used to be called juvenile delinquency is on the rise – so much so that the government passes the so-called BR Act. To cut a long story short, it means that every year a school class is chosen at random to take part in a fight. To the death. With other, so that at the end of three days there will be one winner. Each ‘player’ is given a bag containing a map, basic supplies and a ‘weapon’, which could be anything from a torch to a semi-automatic rifle. They’re also fitted with explosive neck braces in case they entertain ideas of trying to escape.

Fukasaku’s earlier films influenced everyone from Exorcist director William Friedkin to Quentin Tarantino, and in the first 20 minutes of Battle Royale you can see how much Squid Game has borrowed from this one film alone. A deserted island used for the ‘games’? Check. Pupils gassed on their way there so they don’t know where they’re going? Check. Creepy classical music blasted out of loudspeakers? Check.

Neat on-screen graphics flash up the names of the dead as they fall and how many competitors are left, and Fukasaku establishes enough of a storyline before the carnage begins for us to know who we’re supposed to be rooting for – Noriko (Aki Maeda), her sort-of boyfriend Shuya (Tatsuya Fujiwara) and Shogo (Taro Yamamoto), a previous winner of the game who has returned for reasons of vengeance. Will any of them leave the island alive?