A heart-rendering romance, deranged political satire and the horrifying tale of a real-life stalker… there’s so much to sink your teeth into this weekend.
We’ve selected the 20 best shows to watch On Demand right now – sifting through thousands of options to save you the bother.
Looking for a new series to stream?
Read on to find out the shows worth investing your time in…
Franklin
Michael Douglas shines as Benjamin Franklin in a drama about saving America from defeat
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
There’s a lot to recommend this rich, eight-part drama, and it’s got a wonderfully simple premise: following Benjamin Franklin as he asks the French to save the Americans from defeat by the British.
This desperate quest for help makes it an underdog tale, which is always an appealing thing to watch, and they’ve got a coming-of-age story in there too, as Franklin is accompanied by his naive grandson, a boy who has a lot to learn.
It’s also a political show about double-dealing and betrayal but, first and foremost, it’s a character study of Franklin himself. You need a good actor for that and thankfully they have a great one in Michael Douglas, and watching this Hollywood legend twinkle and scheme his way through one situation after another is a delight in itself.
Daniel Mays is another bright point on the cast as Edward Bancroft, one of his allies in France, as is Ludivine Sagnier as Anne Louise Brillon de Jouy, a married Frenchwoman who catches Franklin’s eye. The scenes between the two of them are the only time when Franklin fully lets his guard down, and give the show a real heart, too. (Eight episodes)
Baby Reindeer
Riveting drama based on comedian Richard Gadd’s experiences with a stalker
Year: 2024
Certificate: 18
Described as ‘not your typical bunny-boiler story’, this bracing seven-part drama is based on Scottish comedian Richard Gadd’s award-winning debut play of the same name. That play came from his horrifying real-life experiences with a stalker who, at the very mild end of things, sent him 41,000 emails.
When Gadd performed that play on stage, Martha was represented by a bar stool. In this TV series which he wrote, produced and stars in she’s a loud and colourful presence, played with vulnerability and a dark, dangerous hilarity by The Outlaws’ Jessica Gunning. She’s a woman who Donny (Gadd) wants to understand – not your typical bunny boiler, in short, and it’s this rounded approach to character that really marks the show out as something special.
Gadd has been very clear that he made mistakes in the way he handled his stalker, and the honesty he’s poured into the script translates into a show that’s very hard to stop watching even when, at some points, you may really want to.
While far from an easy watch, Baby Reindeer (the title comes from Martha’s nickname for him) is certainly a gripping one that plays with your sympathies throughout. And don’t forget that Gadd is also, fundamentally, a comedian – so it’s also a very funny show at times too, sometimes when you least expect it to be. (Seven episodes)
The Regime
Kate Winslet delivers a fascinating performance as an embattled dictator
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
You never know what’s coming next in this six-part mix of drama and political satire, and that’s the glory of it. A big part of why is Kate Winslet’s deranged but somehow emotionally consistent performance as Chancellor Elena Vernham, the leader of a proud but economically hobbled Central European nation.
Vernham is a seemingly unstable woman full of contradictions, the most obvious of which is that she is a trained doctor but is terrified of invisible spores, and has ordered that her palace be constantly monitored for signs of mould. Is she really scared, though, or is her fear just a way of controlling her staff?
Into this nest of paranoia steps a troubled soldier recruited by Vernham to be her new assistant, and we learn steadily more about her regime from that point on. We won’t spoil what happens because the unpredictability of the story and the way it plays with your perspective is part of the fun.
Of the cast, Winslet’s performance is the undoubted centrepiece but there are other standouts, chiefly the chameleonic Andrea Riseborough as Vernham’s most level-headed employee. Hugh Grant is in it too, but the less revealed about why the better – he’s not part of either of the two musical numbers though, we’ll say that much. (Six episodes)
Fallout
Explosive video game adaptation from the creators of the Westworld TV series
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Video game adaptations used to have a bad name – does anyone remember Bob Hoskins playing the Italian plumber Mario in 1993’s Super Mario Bros film? It’s probably best that you don’t.
Those days are now long though, especially after HBO’s The Last Of Us upped the dramatic ante in 2023 and won eight Emmy Awards for its trouble. Fallout looks set to continue that trend, coming as it does from Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, a producing duo with great expertise in serving TV audiences big and complex worlds.
And Fallout is certainly that – the games are set in a sprawling, post-apocalyptic wasteland centuries after a nuclear war has devastated the planet’s surface. Underneath that wasteland are The Vaults, in which cheery survivors have been living lives of order and relative luxury while those above scrabbled for scraps.
That culture clash is at the centre of the series, following Lucy (Yellowjackets’ Ella Purnell) as she leaves the safety of The Vaults for the chaos above. ‘Practically every person I’ve met up here has tried to kill me,’ she despairs in her opening week. There’s a lot of comedy in that clash and we meet a lot of eccentric characters as it unfolds, too, especially Justified’s Walton Goggins as a roaming bounty hunter.
Fallout is primarily an epic action game though, and this ambitious and visually impressive series keeps that very much in mind. It should certainly please those in search of a little popcorn entertainment and, even if it doesn’t quite reach the dramatic heights of The Last Of Us, it’s also a rich evocation of an exciting world. (Eight episodes)
Unlocked: A Jail Experiment
Can prison inmates successfully govern themselves? A documentary series tries to find out
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
American jails are understaffed and overfilled, leading to circumstances in which inmates are regularly locked up in their cells for 23 hours a day, simply because there aren’t enough correctional officers available to supervise them. One sheriff at an Arkansas jail, however, thinks that he’s hit on a solution: unlock the individual cell doors, remove the wardens and allow the prisoners to govern their time and – more crucially – their behaviour themselves. It’s a bold idea, but can it really work?
This genuinely fascinating eight-episode reality series follows this social experiment in progress. Can the men work together for their own good? It’s hard not to root for them. (Eight episodes)
The Greatest Hits
Time-travelling romantic drama about music, a young woman and her dead boyfriend
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Harriet (Lucy Boynton) has been unable to move on with her life since her boyfriend Max (David Corenswet) died in a car crash. When she discovers that certain old favourite songs can literally transport her back in time to moments from their time together, she wonders if perhaps she’s discovered a way to save him and herself.
The neat fantasy concept powers an enjoyably romantic heart-render that is – predictably enough – full of great tunes as well as impressive performances. Bohemian Rhapsody’s Boynton is convincingly bereft as Harriet, with likeable turns from Corenswet as her old love in the past and The Umbrella Academy’s Justin H Min as the new man she might just be falling for in the present. (94 minutes)
Ripley
Andrew Scott stars in an eight-part take on the 1960s-set con artist story
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
The 1999 movie of Patricia Highsmith’s novel, The Talented Mr Ripley, left you wanting more of the con artist character at its centre. Andrew Scott gives you just that in Netflix’s eight-part take on the same source material, following Ripley from New York to Italy as he insinuates himself into the life of clueless American playboy Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) and his justly suspicious fiancée, Marge (Dakota Fanning).
Set in sunny Italy but filmed in black and white, the series has much more space to give us a rounded portrait of Ripley, to the extent that you may even find yourself sympathising with him early on: he’s ripped off by an Italian taxi driver and trudges around the country, unable to speak the language, desperately looking for his ticket to a better life.
You see a lot of his struggle, in short – perhaps a little too much for some tastes. Still, it scarcely matters as Scott is, of course, brilliant in the lead. The character of Ripley is a mimic and Scott, as an actor, is fantastic at that – when he starts to copy Dickie it’s genuinely unsettling and weirdly accurate, despite the fact that Scott looks nothing like Flynn. And that performance is allowed to stand largely on its own, with no fancy cuts and barely any background music. Flynn and Fanning are both excellent too, and Fanning in particular does a lot with a look. But this is Scott’s show, and justly so. (Eight episodes)
Oppenheimer (2023)
Christopher Nolan’s epic biopic about the atom bomb inventor
Year: 2023
Certificate: 15
Two films dominated the summer of 2023. One was Greta Gerwig’s brilliant, neon-bright Barbie movie, but the other was this darkly stunning account of obsessive scientist J Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and his part in the Second World War Manhattan Project that created the world’s first atom bomb.
Visually stunning and intellectually complex (it is shot through with foreboding about just what Oppenheimer’s terrible creation might mean for all mankind), it’s a film packed with great performances, with Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr and Emily Blunt all on fine form. The film is dominated by Murphy’s Oscar-winning turn as the titular scientist, though, a driven, hypnotic figure creating something that only serves to destroy. Murphy’s gong was one of seven wins for Oppenheimer at the Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor for Downey Jr. (181 minutes)
Scoop
Gillian Anderson stars in a drama that tells the inside story of the BBC interview with Prince Andrew
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
The BBC journalist Emily Maitlis’s 2019 interview with Prince Andrew about the allegations linking him to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was a properly seismic moment in the relationship between the royals and the media. But the behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing that went on to arrange and air the interview were just as groundbreaking. This film tells that frankly fascinating story, deploying an almost unbelievably good cast to spectacular effect and telling the tale with no shortage of cheek.
Gillian Anderson is predictably perfect as Maitlis, facing off Frost/Nixon-style with an almost-unrecognisable Rufus Sewell as Prince Andrew, but Billie Piper almost nicks the film as Sam McAlister, the brilliant Newsnight producer who arranged the whole thing. The actual interview itself makes for electrifying viewing, particularly in its emotionally-arrested portrayal of Andrew, and it’s a testament to everyone involved in the film that they’ve managed to make this such a compelling experience. When making movies about recent history, particularly when it involves the Royal Family, it’s all too easy to play it safe and make something boring – this is very much not that. (102 minutes)
Ministry Of Evil: The Twisted Cult Of Tony Alamo
Chilling docuseries based on the life of televangelist Tony Alamo
Year: 2019
Certificate: 15
This four-part docuseries is a deep dive into Susan and Tony Alamo’s Christian Foundation. Founded in 1969 to bring those ‘dirty hippies’ into the fold, their message back then was: ‘repent or perish’.
Susan, who had faked cancer for years, died of breast cancer in 1982, aged 56, and although Tony and her followers fully expected her to rise from the dead, Tony had to work hard without Susan’s charisma to keep the ministry and its multiple businesses afloat.
Susan’s estranged daughter Christhiaon is one of the more prominent contributors, describing Tony as ‘extra baggage’ and reminding us that it was Susan who ‘started this mess’. Without her, the ministry was to descend into criminal chaos, when it was already pretty corrupt. (Four episodes)
What Jennifer Did
Documentary film investigating just who really killed a young Canadian woman’s parents
Year: 2024
Certificate: 12
In 2010, a trio of armed men entered the suburban home of the Pan family near Ontario. They shot both parents, killing Mrs Pan and leaving Mr Pan badly wounded, but their 24-year-old daughter Jennifer was able to call 911 and summon help from the police, causing the three men to flee. Or at least that’s what Jennifer told the police.
When law enforcement investigated the crime, they began to suspect that there was much more to events than there at first seemed. Slowly they began to wonder if Jennifer had actually arranged her parents’ murder… A true-crime story of lies, coercion, domineering parents and a habitually deceitful daughter, this is a chilling watch. (87 minutes)
Parade’s End
Superbly starry adaptation of a much-discussed literary masterpiece
Year: 2012
Certificate: 15
This spacious, handsome adaptation of a quartet of novels by Ford Madox Ford gets off to a hugely impressive start. Benedict Cumberbatch as Christopher Tietjens, a Yorkshire squire and the ‘cleverest young man in London’, gives a mesmerising performance, encompassing all the tensions and contradictions in his complex character. Rebecca Hall is equally compelling as his impossible wife, Sylvia, who is amoral, sexually voracious, and bent on tormenting her husband. Put all of that against the backdrop of World War I, and it’s not going to end well…
Cumberbatch and Hall are just two of the stars in a lavish production that also includes Miranda Richardson, Janet McTeer, Rupert Everett, Stephen Graham and Anne-Marie Duff. As for Tom Stoppard’s script, it is wonderfully true to the spirit of Ford’s masterpiece. (Five episodes)
Sumotherhood
Spoof London-set gangster comedy with cameos from Ed Sheeran and Jeremy Corbyn
Year: 2023
Certificate: 15
Hopeless East London losers Riko and Kane (Adam Deacon and Jazzie Zonzolo) are determined to reinvent themselves as cool, dangerous gangsters. But as botched crime follows botched crime the pair just see their social standing falling lower and lower and their debts to various local hoodlums rising higher and higher.
Riffing on the urban grime crime aesthetic of the likes of Adulthood and Top Boy, there are definitely laughs to be found in this enjoyable spoof, but most of the viewers are probably going to take a look in order to catch the oddball cameos by various big names. Not least a certain Ed Sheeran and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. (97 minutes)
Constellations
Zoë Wanamaker and Peter Capaldi are among four pairings performing an unconventional romance
Year: 2021
Watch now on National Theatre At Home
A quantum physicist and a beekeeper meet at a barbecue. It sounds like the opening line to a joke, but it’s also the set-up of Nick Payne’s dizzyingly clever love play, a poignant story that shows us the same romance with four different casts.
You can watch one, two or all four pairings on National Theatre At Home but, before you do, there’s another wrinkle to understand: each pair aren’t just performing a romance. They show us how each choice at each stage of the relationship could have played differently, as if we were seeing the same couple in multiple realities across a single hour.
Zoë Wanamaker and Peter Capaldi are the most high profile pair, but there’s also Sheila Atim (The Woman King) and Ivanno Jeremiah (Humans), Russell Tovey (Him & Her) and Omari Douglas (It’s A Sin), and Anna Maxwell Martin (Motherland) and Chris O’Dowd (Bridesmaids).
If you like a love story this is a great twist on that; if you like quality acting it’s a great lesson in how different choices with the same lines can yield subtle variations; and if you like thought experiments, there’s a really interesting through line in this about free will. Long story short, this is a concise argument for the power of performance and utterly gripping to boot. (240 minutes – 60 each)
Anatomy Of A Fall
Gripping, Oscar-winning French courtroom thriller and family drama
Year: 2023
Certificate: 15
When husband and father Samuel falls to his death at a secluded chalet in the French Alps, the police assume murder – and their prime suspect is Samuel’s wife, Sandra. What actually happened, though? Was it even murder? And what does their blind 11-year-old son have to say about it?
Anatomy Of A Fall is one of those films you’ll want to know as little as possible about before seeing, so we’ll leave out the description of the plot, but be prepared to be utterly gripped by this riveting mix of courtroom thriller and family drama. It boasts a particularly strong, justly Oscar-nominated performance by Sandra Hüller (also in the Oscar-nominated The Zone Of Interest) as the wife, but there’s not really a weak point in this movie except, arguably, the two-and-a-half hour running time.
Hüller’s nomination was one of five potential Oscars for the film, although it ultimately came away with only one win – for Best Original Screenplay. (152 minutes)
Grown-Ish
Sitcom spin-off following the college years of the Black-Ish family’s two eldest children
Year: 2018-
Certificate: 15
A coming-of-age comedy spun-off from Black-Ish, the hit sitcom that – following a successful African-American family struggling not to be too white – was the 2010s equivalent of The Cosby Show.
Eldest child Zoey Johnson (Yara Shahidi) is now at college and isn’t getting everything right. Queen Bee at her high school, she’s now on a sharp learning curve of how to be a decent, grown-up (ish) woman. In her first few days, she makes an enemy, fails to register for her preferred class, fawns over a boy and goes on internet shopping binges instead of doing her homework.
But she does manage to make a bunch of good friends, who help her through the trials and tribulations of being almost grown up. Her younger brother Junior then follows her to college, with the final two series focusing on him. (Six series)
Bangers & Cash: Under The Bonnet
Special episodes of the much-loved car auction and renovation show
Year: 2024
Certificate: pg
Bangers & Cash, following a family-run Yorkshire classic car business and the buyers who take on the restoration challenge, is a national TV treasure that revs up our love for vintage vehicles, and does so with great heart and humour. Like The Repair Shop, its success is as much down to the people behind the renovations as to the rust buckets themselves. And while cash does come into it, mostly it’s all done for love.
This special spin-off series, exclusive to UKTV Play, follows some of the more memorable cars featured in the series over its five-year run, including the Mini Cooper S from the very first episode which had rusted in a garage that was itself collapsing around the car. Quite how the Mini and many like it can be restored to roadworthiness is a joy to watch. And no, they don’t build them like that any more. (Three episodes)
Wish
A young girl joins forces with a magical star in an animated Disney adventure
Year: 2023
Certificate: u
Desperate to grant the wishes of the ordinary folk of the kingdom, 17-year-old Asha calls a magical wishing star down from the heavens. But her actions put her at odds with the land’s ruler, King Magnifico, who’s desperate to keep all control over wishes for himself.
Songs, fantasy and heartfelt adventure collide merrily in this animated Disney extravaganza, a worthy wish-fulfilment follow-up to the likes of Encanto and Moana. Broadway star Ariana DeBose gives perfect voice to Asha, while Chris Pine happily plays against his normal heroic type as the secretly evil Magnifico. Having the most fun, though, is Firefly and A Knight’s Tale actor Alan Tudyk, who steals every scene he’s in as mischievous talking goat Valentino. (95 minutes)
Chicago Med
Glossy and addictive hospital drama from top TV producer Dick Wolf
Year: 2015-
Certificate: 15
This long-running US show from legendary producer Dick Wolf (Law & Order) is the closest thing on our screens to that classic medical series ER. The show deals with the ethics of money and treatment in US hospitals but it’s also soapily addictive, and is packed full of beautiful medics.
Those medics include maverick surgeon Dr Connor Rhodes (Colin Donnell), grounded nurse April Sexton (Yaya DaCosta), psychiatry chief Dr Charles (Oliver Platt, the most famous face on the cast and essentially playing the old wise man of the hospital) and Dr Natalie Manning (Torrey DeVitto), a widowed paediatrician in the emergency department (ED) who has the occasional romance with the show’s central figure – plastic surgeon turned ED physician Dr Will Halstead (Nick Gehlfuss).
Will has had some crazy storylines over the years and is the brother of Detective Jay Halstead, a character in one of Med’s two sister shows, Chicago PD. The other is Chicago Fire and the three occasionally run crossovers that unfold across multiple episodes. (Nine series)
How To Date Billy Walsh
British rom-com starring Bridgerton’s Charithra Chandran and set in a school
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
How long can you afford to wait to tell someone that you’ve loved them forever? That’s the dilemma faced by teenager Archie (Heartstopper’s Sebastian Croft) who’s hopelessly in love with his best friend Amelia (Bridgerton’s Charithra Chandran). Just as he’s finally worked up the courage to tell her, though, a new American exchange student named Billy (Cobra Kai’s Tanner Buchanon) sweeps into school and Amelia has eyes for no one else… Can Archie win her back?
It’s fun finding out in this enjoyable teen rom-com, especially since the undeniably talented young cast are more than ably supported by veterans including Guz Khan, Lucy Punch, Nick Frost and The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar. (98 minutes)
