Saturday

La Belle Epoque, BBC Four, 9pm

Daniel Auteuil stars in this smart French romantic comedy as Victor, a cartoonist whose career has taken a nosedive and whose marriage to Marianne (Fanny Ardant) is on the rocks. So, when he discovers an immersive theatre company that allows customers to pay for their own historical re-enactments, he decides that instead of going back to a famous event, he wants to recreate a much happier time in his life - the night in 1974 when he first met Marianne. He hopes it will help him reconnect with her, but instead he finds himself falling for the actress (Doria Tillier, very plausible as a younger version of Ardant) playing her.

Brightburn, Film 4, 10.45pm

This superhero horror gleefully corrupts the Superman origin story and anoints the gravity-defying protagonist not as mankind’s greatest hope, but as the most terrifying threat to our existence. In rural Kansas, Kyle Breyer (David Denman) and wife Tori (Elizabeth Banks) try unsuccessfully for a child until the universe answers their prayers with a falling meteorite. Inside is a baby boy and the Breyers tell their family that they have adopted a child. When Brandon (Jackson A Dunn) reaches his awkward high school years, spaceship wreckage hidden in the barn emits an ominous red glow and the hormone-addled teenager exhibits violent mood swings. Named after a fictional town in Kansas where the destruction unfolds, David Yarovesky’s picture boasts plenty of splatter as Brandon goes on the rampage.

Sunday

Ant-Man, BBC One, 4.15pm

Cat burglar Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is released from San Quentin Penitentiary and, desperate to pay child support, agrees to a lucrative heist set up by his former cellmate (Michael Pena). Unfortunately, the robbery lands Scott in a police cell. Inventor Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) offers Scott a way out if he agrees to don a superhero outfit, which shrinks the wearer at the touch of a button. Aided by Hank’s feisty daughter (Evangeline Lilly), Scott masters the suit and learns to mind-control four species of ants. Ant-Man is a boisterous action adventure, anchored by a winning performance of charm and chutzpah from Rudd. The actor flexes his comic muscles as well as his abs and pecs, which are flaunted in an obligatory scene to prove he hit the gym for the role.

Misbehaviour, BBC Two, 9pm

In 1970, the Miss World beauty pageant in London was interrupted by feminist protestors, much to the displeasure of the host, Hollywood veteran Bob Hope. The true story forms the basis for this entertaining comedy drama, which stars Keira Knightley and Jessie Buckley as Sally Alexander and Jo Robinson, two of the prime movers behind the disruption. Gugu Mbatha-Raw stars as Jennifer Hosten, aka Miss Grenada, who was also about to make history that night. There are supporting roles for Greg Kinnear as Hope, and Lesley Manville as his wife Dolores, who has her own reasons for not wanting him to be involved in the pageant.

Monday

The Man With The Iron Heart, BBC Two, 11.15pm

French director Cedric Jimenez and co-writers Audrey Diwan and David Farr traverse similar historical ground to Sean Ellis’ acclaimed 2016 film Anthropoid, dramatising the 1942 plot to assassinate high-ranking Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich, who was one of the architects of the Final Solution. Heydrich (Jason Clarke) is court martialled for his disreputable behaviour and dismissed from the German Navy. He subsequently becomes romantically involved with Lina von Osten (Rosamund Pike) and she encourages him to become an active member of the Nazi Party. Reinhard clambers up the ranks and spearheads the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) intelligence agency at the behest of Heinrich Himmler (Stephen Graham). He eventually moves to Prague where members of the Czechoslovak resistance conceive a plan to execute Heydrich.

Tuesday

Film of the week

Phantom Thread, BBC Two, 11.15pm

While American auteur Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film Licorice Pizza has seen him return to the vaguely rom-com-ish territory of 2002’s Punch-Drunk Love, the brace of films he made with Daniel Day-Lewis are different beasts entirely – studies (intentional or otherwise) in what today we call toxic masculinity. Day-Lewis won an Oscar for his portrayal of ruthless oil man Daniel Plainview in 2007 historical drama There Will Be Blood and, while the character of Reynolds Woodcock in Phantom Thread isn’t a murderous sociopath, he’s still an egotistical monster with ice water for blood.

Reynolds is also a brilliant designer of couture dresses, which art he practices in a massive London townhouse which doubles as home, atelier and showroom. He shares it with sister Cyril (Lesley Manville, doing her best Mrs Danvers impersonation) and whoever is his lover at the time. He doesn’t believe in marriage and is haunted by the memory of his mother, the woman who taught him to sew and who still inspires him from beyond the grave. The year is 1954, the age of deference is still with us, and there’s serious money to be made from wealthy patrons such as Countess Harding (Gina McKee), haughty young Princess Braganza (Lujza Richter), and American heiress Barbara Rose (Harriet Sansom Harris).

Into this rarefied world comes waitress Alma (Vicky Krieps). She and Reynolds meet in a hotel near his massive country pile and he invites her for dinner before whisking her off and fitting her for a dress. As first dates go, it’s certainly different. Alma becomes first his muse and then his lover, but as the relationship progresses she begins to see his darker side. He shouts at her at breakfast for buttering her toast too loudly when he’s trying to sketch a silhouette. He dismisses her rudely for the crime of bringing him a cup of his beloved Lapsang tea. He is horribly cruel to her when she tries to arrange a romantic meal for the two of them (she hasn’t cooked the asparagus the way he likes it). Will the couple ever reach some kind of transactional compromise – or are they set for a brutal collision?

Day-Lewis, whose Best Actor nomination at the 2018 Oscars was one of six for the film, plays Reynolds with unwavering intensity as a softly-spoken and immaculately-dressed aesthete. When he snaps and swears, or is wilfully unpleasant, it’s all the more shocking. The soundtrack, yet another collaboration between the director and Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, keeps pace with the ever-darkening mood. Greenwood was also Oscar nominated, though perhaps appropriately it was for Best Costume Design that the film’s single win came. Not a masterpiece, but a consummate (if troubling) piece of film-making.

Wednesday

Venom, Film 4, 9pm

Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), director of the mysterious Life Foundation, harvests amorphous extra-terrestrials from a comet, which he then uses for secret experiments. Tenacious journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) investigates Drake and consequently loses his job. Soon afterwards, one of Drake’s research team, Dr Dora Skirth (Jenny Slate), provides Eddie with the proof he needs to expose Life Foundation’s dubious morals. In the process, Eddie has an uncomfortably close encounter with one of the symbiotes and a creature called Venom melds with the reporter’s body. Venom is an origin story torn from the pages of Marvel Comics, which bludgeons the senses with digital effects, and injects snarky humour into a bloodthirsty central character with razor-sharp teeth.

Thursday

If Beale Street Could Talk, BBC Four, 9pm

Best friends Tish Rivers (KiKi Layne) and Fonny Hunt (Stephan James) fall in love in 1970s Harlem. One day, Tish endures unwelcome advances from another man and Fonny angrily intervenes. A passing police officer, Bell (Ed Skrein), threatens to arrest Fonny but the owner of a nearby grocery store vouches for the couple. Soon after, a woman (Emily Rios) accuses Fonny of rape and officer Bell’s damning testimony seals his fate. As Fonny awaits trial in prison, Tish confirms she is pregnant to her parents (Regina King and Colman Domingo) and vows to prove her man’s innocence. If Beale Street Could Talk is a sublime adaptation of the novel penned by James Baldwin, which charts a love story against a turbulent backdrop of racial injustice, and features an Oscar-winning supporting performance from King.

Friday

The Big Sick, BBC Three, 10pm

Pakistani-American comedian Kumail (Kumail Nanjiani, playing a fictionalised version of himself) hones his craft in Chicago, while working as a taxi driver to pay the bills. After one comedy gig, Kumail meets spunky audience member Emily (Zoe Kazan) and there is a palpable spark of attraction. Soon after, Emily contracts a serious infection and doctors induce a medical coma. It’s left to Kumail to inform Emily’s parents, Beth (Holly Hunter) and Terry (Ray Romano), and the trio bonds awkwardly in the hospital waiting room and cafeteria. Based on Nanjiani’s real-life courtship of his wife, who co-wrote the script, The Big Sick is a small, perfectly formed gem, which wears an easily broken heart on its sleeve and elicits roaring belly laughs from the central duo’s predicament.