Ninety years ago, on 2 November 1936, something remarkable happened at Alexandra Palace in London. The BBC began the world’s first regular high-definition television service, although what passed for high definition then would barely register as a picture today. There were no video recordings, precious few viewers and two competing technologies battling to shape the future. Nobody could have imagined quite how profoundly that strange new box would transform our lives. BBC Four marks the anniversary with an evening of archive programmes, and it’s one of my highlights of the week.We’re also celebrating Halloween, with a particularly strong collection of horror films and documentaries. There’s the chilling supernatural atmosphere of The Fog, the infamous television hoax Ghostwatch, Brian De Palma’s Carrie, and a chance to reconsider Christopher Lee, an actor whose magnificent portrayal of Dracula brought him worldwide fame but arguably denied him the recognition his wider talents deserved.
My third highlight is one of my favourite films, Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out (1947), starring James Mason. It’s a masterpiece of British cinema, a bleak, atmospheric and deeply human story set against the political tensions of Northern Ireland. Elsewhere, there’s Ingmar Bergman, Jane Austen, artificial intelligence, the struggle for women’s rights, Muhammad Ali and a welcome double helping of The Hunger Games, which I regard as one of the finest dystopian science-fiction film series aimed at younger audiences ever made.
As usual, there are excellent programmes tucked away in the schedules, sometimes at quite unreasonable hours. Here are my selections for the coming week.
Saturday 31 October 2026
Odette (1950) 10.30 am – BBC Two
Anna Neagle stars as Odette Sansom, the remarkable British-based French secret agent who worked with the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War. Captured by the Germans, she endured imprisonment and torture before surviving the war.
The film was made just five years after the conflict ended, when the events it depicted were still painfully fresh. That gives it an immediacy quite different from later wartime dramas.
There is an old-fashioned restraint about its presentation, but the underlying story is extraordinary. At its heart is a woman whose courage was demonstrated not through grand gestures but through her refusal to betray others, even under appalling pressure.
Sense and Sensibility (1995) 1.25 pm – BBC Two
Ang Lee’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel is one of the finest examples of literary cinema from the 1990s. Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet play the contrasting Dashwood sisters, navigating love, money and the suffocating expectations of polite society.
Thompson’s screenplay is wonderfully intelligent, preserving Austen’s wit while making the emotional dilemmas accessible to modern audiences. Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant contribute memorable performances.
Beneath the elegant costumes and romantic entanglements lies something sharper: a society in which women’s economic security depends heavily upon marriage. Austen understood the cruelty of that arrangement, and this beautiful adaptation never quite lets us forget it.
Edward Scissorhands (1990) 5.55 pm – ITV2
Tim Burton’s strange and touching modern fairy tale stars Johnny Depp as an artificial young man whose inventor died before completing him, leaving him with scissors instead of hands.
Taken into a brightly coloured suburban community, Edward initially becomes a curiosity and something of a local celebrity. But public fascination gradually turns into suspicion and hostility.
Burton’s sympathies are unmistakably with the outsider. Beneath the Gothic imagery and eccentric comedy lies a moving story about conformity, cruelty and society’s inability to accept difference. Danny Elfman’s haunting musical score makes it even more memorable.
Boorman and the Devil (2026) 8.00 pm – Sky Documentaries
John Boorman’s Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) has a reputation as one of cinema’s most spectacular failures. This documentary examines how an ambitious filmmaker came to direct a sequel to one of the most influential horror films ever made, and why things went so disastrously wrong.
There’s something rather enjoyable about documentaries examining cinematic catastrophes. Failure can sometimes reveal more about the filmmaking process than success, particularly when powerful personalities, artistic ambition and commercial expectations collide.
Boorman was no incompetent. He made Point Blank, Deliverance and Excalibur. That’s what makes the story so interesting. Even immensely talented directors can make extraordinary misjudgements, and yesterday’s disaster can become today’s fascinating cinematic curiosity.
The Fog (1980) 9.00 pm – Sky Arts
John Carpenter’s atmospheric supernatural horror concerns a coastal Californian community visited by a mysterious fog carrying the ghosts of drowned mariners. As an old injustice returns to haunt the living, the town’s carefully maintained sense of security begins to unravel.
Carpenter understood that horror often works best through anticipation. The approaching fog, the isolated lighthouse and the ominous radio broadcasts create a sense of dread long before the supernatural threat becomes visible.
It’s an excellent Halloween selection. Beneath the ghost story lies a familiar but effective theme: communities sometimes build their prosperity upon crimes they would prefer to forget.
Ghostwatch: The Night That Terrified Britain 9.15 pm – Channel 5
In 1992 the BBC broadcast Ghostwatch, a fictional investigation into a supposedly haunted house presented in the style of live television. Familiar broadcasters, including Michael Parkinson and Sarah Greene, helped give the production an unsettling appearance of authenticity.
Millions watched, and some viewers reportedly believed they were witnessing genuine supernatural events. The programme became one of the most controversial television experiments of its era.
This retrospective explores how the hoax worked and why it provoked such an extraordinary reaction. It’s also a fascinating reminder of a time when familiar television personalities and the BBC’s institutional authority could make an invented story seem alarmingly real.
Fanny and Alexander (1982) 9.20 pm – BBC Four
Ingmar Bergman’s extraordinary family saga is among the great achievements of European cinema. Seen largely through the eyes of two children, it begins in the warmth and theatrical splendour of a prosperous Swedish household before moving into darker territory.
Bergman contrasts a world of imagination, sensuality and artistic freedom with the cold authoritarianism of an austere religious household. The children find themselves confronting an adult world whose moral certainties can conceal extraordinary cruelty.
It’s a long and demanding work, but also surprisingly accessible, full of humour, warmth, mystery and unforgettable images. Bergman understood how childhood experiences shape our understanding of power, love and fear. Few directors have explored those themes with greater sophistication.
Talk to Me (2022) 10.00 pm – Film4
This Australian supernatural horror follows a group of teenagers who discover that an embalmed hand allows them to communicate with the dead. Naturally, what begins as a thrilling party trick quickly becomes something considerably more dangerous.
The cleverness lies in how convincingly the filmmakers portray youthful recklessness. Contacting spirits becomes a social activity, something to film, share and compete over. It’s almost a supernatural version of the pressures created by social media.
Beneath the shocks is a serious exploration of grief, addiction and vulnerability. The violence is disturbing, but it has consequences, and the film is considerably more emotionally intelligent than its premise might suggest.
The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee 10.45 pm – Sky Arts
Christopher Lee possessed one of cinema’s most extraordinary faces and voices. Tall, commanding and capable of projecting menace with the slightest movement, he became internationally famous for playing Dracula in Hammer’s Gothic horror films.
Yet Lee was far more versatile than his reputation suggested. His career encompassed historical drama, thrillers, fantasy and memorable appearances in The Wicker Man, The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. He understood the opportunities horror offered, but also resented being reduced to a succession of monsters.
I have always thought Lee was an underestimated actor, perhaps a victim of his own success. Dracula made him a star, but the role sometimes obscured his range. This documentary should make an excellent companion to Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters, also available on Prime Video.
The Iron Claw (2023) 11.55 pm – BBC One
Sean Durkin’s powerful drama tells the tragic story of the Von Erich wrestling family, whose apparently glamorous success concealed a succession of devastating personal tragedies.
Zac Efron gives an impressively restrained performance as Kevin Von Erich, one of several brothers raised under the relentless expectations of their father. Professional wrestling provides the spectacle, but the real drama concerns masculinity, family obligation and the pressure to achieve.
What makes the film so affecting is its depiction of people who genuinely love one another yet remain trapped within destructive expectations. It’s a heartbreaking story, made more disturbing by its basis in real events.
Arena: Bergman and Faro Island 12.20 am – BBC Four
Following Fanny and Alexander, this documentary offers an intimate encounter with Ingmar Bergman on the Swedish island of Fårö, which became both his home and a central part of his creative world.
Bergman reflects upon his childhood, his artistic influences and the personal anxieties that repeatedly surfaced in his films. His work can seem forbiddingly intellectual, but his recurring concerns are recognisably human: loneliness, faith, love, mortality and the difficulty of understanding other people.
It’s a particularly satisfying companion to the earlier film.
Sunday 1 November 2026
Kevin McCloud’s Classic Car Road Trips – Episode 3 of 6 8.00 pm – Channel 4
Kevin McCloud travels around Northern Ireland in the DeLorean DMC-12, one of the most instantly recognisable cars in motoring history, thanks largely to its starring role in Back to the Future.
But the DeLorean’s real history is arguably as remarkable as its fictional adventures. Built near Belfast, it represented ambitious industrial hopes during a period of extraordinary political and economic difficulty. Its spectacular collapse left behind broken promises, lost jobs and a car that became a cultural icon.
For me, that industrial story is just as interesting as the motoring nostalgia. It’s a reminder of how much can be invested in ambitious manufacturing projects, and how devastating their failure can be for the workers and communities involved.
The Creator (2023) 9.00 pm – Film4
Gareth Edwards directs this visually ambitious science-fiction drama set during a future conflict between humanity and artificial intelligence. John David Washington plays a former soldier drawn into a mission involving a mysterious robotic child whose existence may alter the course of the war.
What impressed me most about The Creator was not its plot, which sometimes struggles under the weight of its own ideas, but its extraordinary visual imagination. Edwards creates a future that feels inhabited rather than manufactured, a world where advanced technology sits alongside ordinary communities and familiar human concerns. Too much modern science fiction mistakes spectacle for imagination. This film largely avoids that trap.
Its politics are perhaps more interesting than its storytelling. The film invites us to consider how easily societies define entire groups as threats and then justify almost unlimited violence against them. Whether every aspect of that argument stands up to scrutiny is debatable, but the questions remain worthwhile. Flawed, certainly, but far more ambitious than most contemporary blockbuster science fiction.
Walk the Line (2005) 10.45 pm – BBC Two
Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon give excellent performances in this account of Johnny Cash’s rise to fame, personal struggles and relationship with June Carter.
Like most musical biographies, Walk the Line simplifies a complicated life. Nevertheless, it captures something essential about Cash himself. He was one of those rare performers who seemed able to speak simultaneously to devout Christians, social outsiders, working-class audiences and cultural rebels. His music carried a mixture of faith, guilt, compassion and defiance that was uniquely his own.
The film understands that Cash’s appeal was never simply musical. He represented a particular vision of America: flawed, restless, deeply religious, suspicious of authority and permanently searching for redemption. Phoenix may not look exactly like Cash, but he captures that spirit remarkably well.
Ex Machina (2014) 11.40 pm – Film4
Alex Garland’s intelligent, unsettling science-fiction drama follows a young programmer invited to assess whether an advanced humanoid robot possesses genuine consciousness.
Alicia Vikander is extraordinary as Ava, a machine whose apparent vulnerability and intelligence may conceal motives neither the programmer nor his employer fully understands.
The film asks difficult questions about artificial intelligence, manipulation, sexual objectification and power. Its central insight is that the ability to appear human may be quite different from being human. With AI increasingly entering our everyday lives, those questions have become even more relevant.
Plan B (2021) 12.15 am – E4
Natalie Morales directs this American comedy about two teenage friends who embark on a desperate road trip to obtain emergency contraception after an unfortunate sexual encounter.
Its humour can be outrageous, but the subject is serious. Beneath the comic mishaps lies a story about young women’s access to reproductive healthcare and the obstacles placed in their way.
The film benefits from treating its teenage protagonists as recognisable young people rather than simply using them as vehicles for embarrassing jokes. It’s funny, politically aware and unexpectedly warm-hearted.
I’m Your Man (2021) 1.50 am – Film4
Maria Schrader’s thoughtful German romantic comedy stars Maren Eggert as a scientist persuaded to spend several weeks with a humanoid robot, played by Dan Stevens, programmed to become her ideal romantic partner.
What initially seems like an amusing science-fiction premise gradually develops into something more philosophical. Can a relationship be meaningful if one participant has been designed entirely around the other’s desires?
It’s a subtle and often touching film about loneliness, emotional expectations and the uncomfortable possibility that perfect compatibility might not be what human beings actually need.
Monday 2 November 2026
Concorde: The Untold Story – Part 1 of 2 8.40 pm – PBS America
The extraordinary story of Concorde, the Anglo-French supersonic airliner that became a symbol of technological ambition and national prestige.
Concorde represented an era when Britain and France were prepared to invest in engineering projects on a genuinely extraordinary scale. It was expensive, commercially difficult and ultimately available only to a privileged few, but its technical achievements remain impressive.
For anyone interested in British industry and the history of aviation, this should be fascinating.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) 9.00 pm – Film4
Rupert Wyatt’s intelligent reboot of the famous science-fiction series explores the origins of a world in which genetically enhanced apes challenge human domination.
Andy Serkis’s performance as Caesar is one of the great achievements of motion-capture acting. The character’s growing intelligence and awareness are conveyed with remarkable emotional subtlety.
Beneath the action lies a story about animal experimentation, exploitation and the consequences of treating other intelligent beings as property. Like the best science fiction, it holds up an uncomfortable mirror to human society.
Escaping Idi Amin – Part 2 of 2 9.00 pm – BBC Two. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.
In 1972, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin ordered the expulsion of tens of thousands of people of Asian descent, destroying established communities and forcing families to abandon homes and livelihoods.
This documentary uses the memories of a man who experienced those events as a boy. The child’s perspective makes the history particularly affecting, bringing the fear, uncertainty and bewilderment of forced displacement into sharp focus.
It’s also a reminder of how rapidly political demagoguery can turn neighbours into supposed enemies, with devastating human consequences.
Trauma: My Broken Brain 10.00 pm – Channel 4. Catch up via Channel 4 streaming.
A documentary exploring the consequences of serious brain trauma and the difficult process of rebuilding a life afterwards.
Brain injuries can alter memory, personality, relationships and independence in ways that outsiders struggle to appreciate. Recovery is seldom straightforward, and families may find themselves adapting to circumstances that neither they nor the injured person could have anticipated.
Programmes like this are valuable precisely because they illuminate experiences that often remain invisible.
Dispatches: The Taliban’s War on Women 11.00 pm – Channel 4. Catch up via Channel 4 streaming.
The Taliban’s treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan represents one of the most systematic assaults on women’s freedom in the modern world.
Restrictions on education, employment, movement and public participation have stripped women of rights that should be regarded as fundamental. This documentary examines the human consequences of those policies.
It’s essential viewing, not least because international attention has too often moved elsewhere while Afghan women continue to face extraordinary repression.
Fallen Leaves (2023) Midnight – BBC Two
Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki offers a wonderfully understated story about two lonely working-class people whose paths cross in contemporary Helsinki.
Kaurismäki’s films are immediately recognisable: sparse dialogue, carefully composed images, dry humour and characters who rarely express more than absolutely necessary.
Yet beneath the deadpan surface lies considerable tenderness. This is a film about economic insecurity, loneliness and the possibility of finding happiness in unpromising circumstances. Quiet, humane and rather beautiful.
Tuesday 3 November 2026
Suffragette (2015) 6.40 pm – Film4
Sarah Gavron’s historical drama explores the campaign for women’s voting rights in Britain, concentrating on working-class women whose contributions are sometimes overshadowed by those of more prominent campaigners.
Carey Mulligan plays a laundry worker whose involvement in the suffragette movement places her job, family and personal security at risk. The film is particularly effective in depicting the economic vulnerability of women who dared to challenge established authority.
The struggle for democratic rights was not a polite exercise in persuasion. Campaigners faced imprisonment, violence, forced feeding and the loss of their livelihoods. It’s an important reminder that rights now taken for granted were won through organisation, sacrifice and direct confrontation with entrenched power.
D. H. Lawrence: Sex, Exile and Greatness 8.00 pm – Sky Arts
D. H. Lawrence remains one of Britain’s most fascinating and controversial writers. Born into a working-class Nottinghamshire family, he challenged prevailing attitudes towards class, sexuality, religion and industrial society.
His novels, including Sons and Lovers, Women in Love and Lady Chatterley’s Lover, explored the conflict between emotional freedom and the social conventions that constrain it.
Lawrence was frequently contradictory, sometimes infuriating, but never dull. His insistence that sexual and emotional life deserved serious literary treatment helped transform modern fiction.
Concorde: The Untold Story – Part 2 of 2 8.40 pm – PBS America
The concluding instalment examines the later years of Concorde and the challenges that ultimately brought the project to an end.
Concorde remains one of the most extraordinary achievements in British and French engineering history. Even now, decades after its retirement, there is something almost futuristic about the aircraft. It represented a level of technical ambition that seems increasingly rare in modern public life.
What makes its story so compelling is the tension between achievement and practicality. Concorde was not a commercial triumph, yet it remains one of the most recognisable aircraft ever built. There is perhaps a lesson in that. Some projects matter not because they are profitable, but because they demonstrate what human ingenuity can achieve when ambition is allowed to outrun caution.
Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild 9.00 pm – Channel 5. Catch up via 5 streaming.
Ben Fogle meets another individual or family who have exchanged conventional life for something radically different. This week Ben meets Mark, a former international tech salesman who left his corporate career after a health scare and moved to rural western France. There, he has spent six years transforming a derelict pig farm into what he calls“Fantasy Farm”, a sustainable home and sanctuary focused on nature, creativity and simple living
The enduring popularity of this series tells us something interesting about modern society. Many viewers are not simply curious about remote locations or unusual lifestyles. They are also fascinated by people who have rejected assumptions about career, consumption and success that much of society takes for granted.
What makes the programme work is Fogle’s genuine curiosity. He rarely treats his subjects as eccentrics or visionaries. Instead he allows them to explain both the freedoms and the compromises involved in their choices. The dream of escaping modern life is often more complicated than it first appears, and the series is usually at its best when it acknowledges that reality.
Storyville: Allies in Exile 10.00 pm – BBC Four. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.
A documentary examining the difficult choices and human relationships created by political exile.
The experience of displacement is rarely confined to the practical problems of leaving one country and settling in another. Exiles carry with them memories, loyalties and political conflicts that do not necessarily disappear when they cross a border.
Part of the enduring strength of the Storyville strand is its willingness to examine international affairs through individual lives rather than simply presenting distant events as abstract political arguments.
The Playboy Bunny Murder – Parts 1 and 2 10.45 pm and 11.45 pm – ITV1
Marcel Theroux investigates a series of murders of young women during the 1970s, cases that remained unsolved for decades.
The first programme reconstructs the circumstances surrounding the killings and the original investigations. The second explores how modern forensic techniques and renewed enquiries identify a possible additional victim.
True-crime television is at its best when it restores the individuality of victims rather than treating their deaths as puzzles designed for entertainment. The social attitudes surrounding the original investigations are also worth examining, particularly the ways in which women’s occupations and lifestyles could affect how seriously they were treated.
Queer (2024) BBC Two – Transmission time to be confirmed.
Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of William S. Burroughs’s novel stars Daniel Craig as an American expatriate living in Mexico City during the 1950s, whose obsession with a younger man becomes increasingly consuming.
Craig is a revelation, leaving the controlled masculinity of James Bond far behind. His performance is vulnerable, awkward, needy and sometimes deeply uncomfortable. It’s the portrait of a man whose desires expose emotional needs he cannot adequately express.
Guadagnino brings considerable visual invention to a story about queer longing, isolation and alienation. The film is occasionally deliberately elusive, but its willingness to explore difficult and contradictory emotions makes it worth watching.
Wednesday 4 November 2026
Odd Man Out (1947) 3.20 pm – Talking Pictures TV
There are certain films I can return to repeatedly and always discover something new. Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out is one of them. James Mason gives one of the finest performances of his career as Johnny McQueen, the leader of an underground republican organisation who is wounded during a robbery and left struggling through the streets of an unnamed Northern Irish city.
Reed transforms the city into a landscape of shadows, suspicion, fear and moral uncertainty. The cinematography is extraordinary, drawing upon the visual techniques of film noir while creating something altogether more poetic. As Johnny moves between temporary refuges, he encounters people motivated by compassion, fear, self-interest, religious conviction and political loyalty. None can entirely escape the moral consequences of the violence surrounding them.
What makes the film so powerful is that it avoids easy political answers. Johnny is neither simply a hero nor a villain. His suffering becomes a means of examining human relationships under extreme pressure. Mason’s performance is remarkably expressive, even as his character becomes increasingly exhausted and delirious. With its extraordinary atmosphere and tragic conclusion, Odd Man Out remains, for me, one of the great masterpieces of British cinema.
The Future with Hannah Fry 7.30 pm – BBC Two
Hannah Fry explores whether artificial intelligence might eventually allow us to communicate with animals. It’s the sort of proposition that once belonged entirely to the imaginary world of Doctor Dolittle, but advances in computing and animal behaviour research are opening some intriguing possibilities.
Researchers are using technology to identify patterns in animal sounds and behaviour, raising the prospect of understanding forms of communication previously inaccessible to humans.
Of course, recognising a pattern isn’t necessarily the same as understanding a language. Fry is particularly good at explaining the difference between genuine scientific progress and exaggerated technological promises.
Television’s Opening Night: How the Box Was Born 9.00 pm – BBC Four. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.
The centrepiece of BBC Four’s celebration of 90 years of British television is this fascinating 2016 documentary presented by Dallas Campbell, with Professor Danielle George and Dr Hugh Hunt.
On 2 November 1936, the BBC launched regular high-definition television broadcasting from Alexandra Palace in London. Unfortunately, no recording of that historic first transmission survives. The programme attempts to recreate the occasion using the technology available at the time.
There was a genuine technological contest underway. John Logie Baird’s mechanical system competed with the electronic system developed by Marconi-EMI. The outcome helped determine the future of television. Watching modern engineers struggle with the extraordinary machinery of the period provides a wonderful reminder of how difficult and uncertain the technological revolution actually was.
Murder in Belfast: Sisters Seeking Justice 9.00 pm – BBC Two
The concluding programme examines the continuing search for justice following the 2005 murder of Robert McCartney in Belfast.
The case attracted enormous attention because of allegations that witnesses were intimidated and evidence concealed. It exposed the continuing power of paramilitary loyalties in communities supposedly emerging from decades of conflict.
The documentary raises an uncomfortable question about the relationship between political movements and the rule of law. No organisation claiming to speak for a community should be permitted to place itself beyond accountability.
The Fools on the Hill (1986) 10.30 pm – BBC Four
Jack Rosenthal’s television drama takes a more humorous approach to the BBC’s pioneering broadcasts from Alexandra Palace.
Rosenthal had a remarkable gift for finding comedy in institutions, human weakness and the gap between grand ambitions and everyday reality. The prospect of a group of broadcasters attempting to invent television almost as they went along provides splendid material.
Placed immediately after the documentary reconstruction, this should be an enjoyable change of pace.
The Hunger Games (2012) 11.00 pm – BBC Three
The first film introduces us to Panem, a future society in which wealthy citizens of the Capitol enjoy extraordinary luxury while impoverished districts are compelled to send children to compete in a televised fight to the death.
Jennifer Lawrence is superb as Katniss Everdeen, a young woman forced into a spectacle designed to demonstrate the state’s absolute power. The premise is horrifying, but its treatment of class inequality, political propaganda and entertainment as an instrument of social control is remarkably sophisticated.
I think The Hunger Games is one of the best teenage-oriented dystopian science-fiction series yet produced. It respects its audience’s intelligence and recognises that rebellion begins when people refuse to accept injustice as the natural order of things. The sequel follows on Thursday.
Television Comes to London (1936) 11.45 pm – BBC Four
An extraordinary surviving record of the preparations for the launch of British television.
It’s effectively television’s first documentary, although it was filmed as a newsreel rather than recorded through the new broadcasting technology itself. We see equipment being installed and the preparations taking shape at Alexandra Palace.
The images possess an almost archaeological fascination. We are witnessing the birth of an industry that would eventually become central to modern culture, politics and domestic life.
JLB: The Man Who Saw the Future 12.05 am – BBC Four
A profile of television pioneer John Logie Baird, whose mechanical television experiments were central to the development of the new medium.
Baird’s story is a reminder that technological innovation rarely proceeds in a straight line. Even brilliant inventors can find their particular methods overtaken by competing developments, while their wider contributions remain historically significant.
The Birth of Television 1.20 am – BBC Four
Leslie Mitchell, the BBC’s first television announcer, looks back from 1976 on the early history of broadcasting.
Mitchell occupied a unique position, helping to introduce an entirely new form of communication to an audience that scarcely knew what to expect.
What a splendid way to conclude the evening. BBC Four has assembled these programmes largely from existing archive material, yet the result is more imaginative and informative than many expensive new commissions. Sometimes the greatest treasure a broadcaster possesses is its own history.
Thursday 5 November 2026
Whistle Down the Wind (1961) 2.35 pm – Talking Pictures TV
Bryan Forbes’s beautiful and moving film stars Hayley Mills as a Lancashire girl who discovers an escaped criminal hiding in a barn and mistakenly believes him to be Jesus Christ.
The misunderstanding provides the basis for a remarkably perceptive story about childhood innocence and adult disillusionment. The children accept the stranger’s apparent identity with a sincerity that contrasts sharply with the suspicions of the grown-ups.
Alan Bates gives a splendid performance as the bewildered fugitive. The film’s humour and tenderness never conceal its sadness, and the black-and-white photography captures the northern landscape with considerable beauty. An enduring British classic.
The Longest Day (1962) 5.25 pm – Film4
This enormous Second World War epic reconstructs the Allied landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944, drawing upon an international cast that includes John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton and Sean Connery.
Its great strength is the attempt to tell the story from several perspectives, including those of American, British, French and German participants. The scale of the production remains impressive, particularly in an age before computer-generated spectacle.
Inevitably, some characters are sketched rather than developed, and the film occasionally romanticises military heroism. Nevertheless, it provides a valuable sense of the confusion, courage and enormous human cost of a decisive moment in European history.
Dear Henry: Our Fight for Justice 9.00 pm – ITV1
The death of 18-year-old student Henry Nowak in Southampton in December 2025 raises deeply troubling questions about police responses to people requiring urgent help.
His family speak about their fight for answers following the emergence of body-camera footage showing officers apparently dismissing the seriousness of his condition as he lay dying.
The programme promises to be difficult viewing. But scrutiny of official conduct is essential, particularly when a young life has been lost and those responsible for protecting the public are accused of failing in their duty.
The Undertaker (2023) 9.20 pm – Talking Pictures TV
Paul McGann stars in this British crime thriller about an undertaker who becomes entangled with organised criminals after agreeing to dispose of their victims.
It’s an effectively grim premise. A profession normally associated with dignity and respect for the dead becomes a means of concealing violence and corruption.
The film draws upon familiar British gangster territory, but the unusual central character gives it an interesting twist. The moral compromises involved in performing one apparently manageable favour can have consequences far beyond anything originally anticipated.
Carrie (1976) 10.10 pm – BBC Four
Brian De Palma’s adaptation of Stephen King’s first published novel remains one of the defining horror films of the 1970s. Sissy Spacek plays Carrie White, a painfully isolated teenager subjected to bullying at school and fanatical religious control at home.
What makes the film so effective is the way supernatural horror grows out of recognisable human cruelty. Carrie’s telekinetic abilities are frightening, but so are the ordinary humiliations inflicted upon her by classmates and the psychological damage caused by her mother.
De Palma’s direction is flamboyant, sometimes almost operatic, but the emotional foundations are convincing. The notorious prom sequence remains an extraordinary achievement in tension and cinematic technique. Horror at its best often reveals the monsters already living among us.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) 11.15 pm – BBC Three
The second film in the Hunger Games series considerably expands the political dimensions of Suzanne Collins’s dystopian world. Jennifer Lawrence returns as Katniss Everdeen, whose defiance has transformed her into an increasingly dangerous symbol of resistance.
The Capitol attempts to control public opinion through spectacle, propaganda and carefully choreographed displays of power. Meanwhile, growing unrest in the districts threatens the authoritarian order.
I regard The Hunger Games as one of the finest dystopian science-fiction film series aimed at teenage audiences. It treats young viewers as intelligent people capable of understanding difficult questions about class inequality, exploitation, media manipulation and state violence. Catching Fire develops those themes particularly well.
Mark Lawson Talks to Stephen King 11.45 pm – BBC Four
Following Carrie, Mark Lawson interviews Stephen King about his writing and extraordinary career.
King’s popularity has sometimes encouraged literary critics to underestimate him. Yet few modern writers have been as effective at exploring ordinary people’s fears and the darkness concealed beneath apparently respectable communities.
His work has inspired an enormous range of films, from Carrie and The Shining to Misery, Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption. The best of these reveal just how much more there is to King than supernatural horror.
Friday 6 November 2026
Dan Snow explores the remarkable continuing influence of Homer’s Odyssey, nearly three thousand years after its creation.
The survival of the Odyssey is one of civilisation’s minor miracles. Countless empires, kingdoms and political systems have disappeared since the story first emerged, yet audiences remain fascinated by Odysseus and his long journey home. Few works of literature have exercised a greater influence over Western storytelling.
What interests me most is that beneath the monsters, gods and adventures lies a very human story about exile, endurance and belonging. Almost everyone understands the desire to return home, whether literally or emotionally. The fact that Homer can still speak to modern audiences says as much about human nature as it does about literature.
Zero Dark Thirty (2012) 9.00 pm – Legend
Kathryn Bigelow’s tense political thriller follows the intelligence operation that eventually led to the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.
Jessica Chastain plays a determined CIA analyst whose obsessive pursuit of the terrorist leader dominates her personal and professional life. The film is technically accomplished, with a remarkable sense of procedural detail and mounting tension.
Yet it also raises serious moral questions, particularly through its controversial depiction of torture and intelligence gathering. A film can be brilliantly made while remaining open to criticism for the political implications of its storytelling. Zero Dark Thirty is certainly one of those films.
Have I Got News for You 9.25 pm – BBC One
Steph McGovern takes the guest presenter’s chair, with journalist Helen Lewis joining Ian Hislop and Paul Merton to dissect the week’s news.
I’ve always found Steph McGovern both very funny and a fascinating personality. Her mixture of northern directness, journalistic experience and an obvious enthusiasm for people gives her a distinctive broadcasting presence.
Have I Got News for You has survived for so long because, at its best, it combines genuine political knowledge with an ability to expose absurdity. Given the state of modern politics, there’s rarely any shortage of material.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) 10.00 pm – BBC Two
John Hughes’s comedy stars Steve Martin as a tightly wound advertising executive and John Candy as a relentlessly cheerful travelling salesman thrown together during a disastrous journey across America.
The film is frequently hilarious, largely because the two central performances complement one another so perfectly. Martin’s increasingly desperate frustration clashes with Candy’s apparently indestructible optimism.
But what elevates the film above an ordinary travel comedy is its emotional generosity. Candy’s character gradually emerges as something far more complicated than a comic nuisance, and the ending is genuinely touching. A reminder that kindness sometimes arrives in the most inconvenient form imaginable.
Leonard Cohen: Songs from a Life 10.45 pm – BBC Four. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.
Leonard Cohen was one of those rare artists whose voice seemed to acquire greater depth and authority with age.
Singer, poet, novelist and extraordinary observer of human frailty, Cohen explored love, faith, betrayal, politics and mortality with a mixture of seriousness and dry humour. His songs could be bleak, sensual, spiritual and unexpectedly funny, sometimes all at once.
This documentary offers an opportunity to appreciate a body of work that has influenced generations of musicians. Few songwriters have written so perceptively about the contradictions of human desire.
Body Double (1984) 10.50 pm – Talking Pictures TV
Brian De Palma’s provocative thriller follows a struggling actor who witnesses what appears to be a murder while spying on a woman through a telescope.
De Palma combines Hitchcockian suspense with an examination of voyeurism, sexual obsession and the artificiality of cinema itself. The result is deliberately lurid, sometimes unpleasant and frequently outrageous.
Its treatment of women and sexual violence remains controversial, but the film is also a fascinating example of De Palma’s ability to manipulate audiences through elaborate visual storytelling. It’s not subtle cinema, but it’s certainly distinctive.
Sexy Beast (2000) 12.10 am – Channel 4
Jonathan Glazer’s extraordinary British crime drama stars Ray Winstone as a retired gangster enjoying a peaceful life in Spain until the arrival of a terrifying former associate threatens everything.
Ben Kingsley’s performance as Don Logan is among the most memorable depictions of intimidation in British cinema. His character’s relentless aggression turns ordinary conversation into something resembling psychological warfare.
What makes Sexy Beast exceptional is its atmosphere. The bright Spanish sunshine offers no protection from the dark criminal world the central character thought he had escaped. Strange, brutal, blackly comic and brilliantly acted, it’s far more interesting than a conventional gangster thriller.
Streaming
Available now
Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters – Prime Video
This documentary examines the remarkable history of Hammer Films, the British studio that transformed Gothic horror cinema and made international stars of actors including Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.
Hammer’s productions were often dismissed by critics as sensationalist entertainment, but their influence was enormous. Their use of colour, sexuality, blood and Gothic atmosphere helped redefine screen horror.
Christopher Lee’s extraordinary success as Dracula was both a blessing and a burden. He became one of cinema’s most recognisable performers, yet sometimes struggled to escape the role’s shadow. An excellent companion to Saturday’s Sky Arts documentary.
A Pale View of Hills – Prime Video
Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1982 debut novel receives an appropriately elusive adaptation from writer-director Kei Ishikawa.
The story explores memory, displacement and the experiences of a Japanese woman whose recollections of postwar Nagasaki contain troubling ambiguities. Ishiguro has always been fascinated by the stories people tell themselves to make the past bearable.
This is reflective cinema, more concerned with emotional truth and unreliable memory than straightforward storytelling. Viewers willing to accept its uncertainty should find much to appreciate.
Monday 2 November
Treasure Island – Episode 4, Paramount+
Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic adventure continues, carrying viewers deeper into its world of treasure, greed and shifting loyalties.
What has allowed Treasure Island to survive for nearly a century and a half is not the treasure hunt itself but the character of Long John Silver. Stevenson created a figure who remains endlessly fascinating because he refuses to fit comfortably into the categories of hero or villain.
At its best, the series understands that ambiguity. The adventure is enjoyable enough, but the real attraction lies in watching characters navigate questions of loyalty, friendship and self-interest in a world where trust is constantly being tested.
Tuesday 3 November
Mike Tyson: Return of the Mike – Netflix
Following closely on the heels of the generally impressive four-part documentary Tyson, this special features the former heavyweight champion appearing before a live theatre audience to recount anecdotes from his extraordinary life.
It’s not quite stand-up comedy, though Tyson’s turbulent career certainly contains moments that would seem implausible if invented by a dramatist. His charisma and unpredictable personality make him a compelling storyteller.
Nevertheless, I remain troubled by the earlier documentary’s treatment of his rape conviction, which many viewers considered disturbingly benign. Tyson’s achievements as a boxer are undeniable, but celebrity should not become an excuse for minimising serious wrongdoing. Whether this stage appearance confronts those contradictions or simply adds to the mythology will be worth considering.
Wednesday 4 November
The Greatest – All eight episodes, Prime Video
Muhammad Ali was much more than an extraordinary boxer. He was a humanitarian, political activist, Black nationalist and global cultural icon whose refusal to conform to the expectations imposed upon him made him one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century.
This authorised drama explores his life both inside and outside the ring. Jaalen Best plays Ali, and the series promises to consider his relationships, personal struggles and political convictions alongside his sporting achievements.
Ali’s refusal to fight in Vietnam, his association with the Nation of Islam and his willingness to sacrifice his career for his principles make him a compelling dramatic subject. A worthwhile biography must recognise those contradictions rather than simply celebrating the champion.
Thursday 5 November
Black Doves – Series 2, Netflix
Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw return in this stylish British espionage thriller about a secret organisation operating in the shadows of political power.
The first series successfully blended violent intrigue with black humour and an unexpectedly affecting relationship between its two central characters. Knightley was particularly effective as a woman whose apparently respectable family life concealed dangerous loyalties.
The second series raises the stakes as political ambitions and personal secrets become increasingly entangled. With its sharp dialogue and unconventional mixture of spy drama and comedy, this is a welcome return.
Friday 6 November
Dexter: Resurrection – Series 2, Episode 2, Paramount+
Michael C. Hall returns as Dexter Morgan, television’s most disquieting vigilante killer.
The durability of the Dexter franchise remains slightly surprising. On paper, a series built around a sympathetic serial killer should have exhausted itself long ago. Yet the character continues to fascinate because he embodies a question audiences never quite resolve: can we forgive monstrous actions when committed against even worse people?
That moral uncertainty remains the programme’s greatest strength. Like all long-running franchises, Dexter sometimes risks repeating itself, but Hall’s performance continues to anchor the series. Few television actors have inhabited a character so completely for so long.
Leaving soon
The Wicker Man (1973) – BBC iPlayer, available until Sunday 1 November
Robin Hardy’s extraordinary folk horror follows a devout Christian police officer investigating a disappearance on a remote Scottish island.
Christopher Lee gives one of his finest performances as Lord Summerisle, the charismatic leader of a community whose apparently idyllic customs conceal something deeply sinister.
It’s a masterpiece of atmosphere, religious conflict and creeping dread. Far more than a conventional horror film, it examines the clash between competing systems of belief and the dangers of absolute certainty. Essential viewing before it disappears.
The Man Who Would Be King (1975) – BBC iPlayer, available until Tuesday 3 November
John Huston’s magnificent adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s adventure stars Sean Connery and Michael Caine as two former British soldiers who set out to make their fortunes in a remote region of Afghanistan.
What begins as an exuberant adventure gradually develops into a darker exploration of imperial ambition, greed and the corrupting influence of power.
Connery and Caine are wonderful together, combining humour, charm and an increasing sense of tragic inevitability. It’s one of the great adventure films, but also a cautionary tale about the arrogance of men who believe they can rule other people’s lives.
Radio
Saturday 31 October 2026
Unlikely: A Love Across the Political Divide
12.05 pm – BBC World Service
Love can flourish in the most unlikely political circumstances. This remarkable story concerns Colombian couple Jorge and Catalina Suárez, whose backgrounds could hardly be more different.
Jorge is a former member of the FARC guerrilla organisation and the son of Mono Jojoy, one of its most notorious commanders, killed during a Colombian military operation in 2010. Catalina is a centre-right journalist with close connections to former president Álvaro Uribe and a longstanding opponent of FARC.
Their relationship offers a fascinating insight into Colombia’s painful history of political violence and the possibility of reconciliation between individuals divided by seemingly irreconcilable loyalties. Sometimes personal relationships achieve what political negotiation struggles to accomplish.
Peter O’Toole Is Unwell
3.00 pm – BBC Radio 4
Playwright Terry Johnson explores the life and personality of the legendary Peter O’Toole, an actor whose extraordinary talent was accompanied by a reputation for spectacular excess.
The title is a knowing reference to Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell, Keith Waterhouse’s celebrated stage play about the hard-drinking Spectator columnist, in which O’Toole gave one of his most acclaimed performances.
O’Toole was capable of extraordinary brilliance, from Lawrence of Arabia onwards, but his career also contained serious artistic misjudgements and personal difficulties. Johnson’s drama promises a portrait that captures the contradictions of a remarkable theatrical personality.
Soundtracking: Horror with Ayanna Witter-Johnson
8.00 pm – Magic Classical
Composer and musician Ayanna Witter-Johnson explores the music that has helped make horror cinema so terrifying.
Consider how much of the fear generated by Psycho, Halloween or The Exorcist depends upon sound. Remove the music and many of cinema’s most frightening sequences lose much of their power.
This Halloween special examines the techniques used by composers to generate suspense, anticipation and shock. An excellent accompaniment to the week’s horror films, and a reminder that sometimes what we hear is more frightening than what we see.
Tuesday 3 November 2026
Start Making Sense: Visionary Sight
4.00 pm – BBC Radio 4
Professor Tom Shakespeare, the sociologist and disability researcher, begins a three-part exploration of the senses through the creative experiences of disabled artists.
The series considers how physical differences can influence artistic expression and challenge conventional assumptions about perception.
It’s a welcome opportunity to move beyond the familiar portrayal of disability solely in terms of disadvantage. Different sensory experiences can offer distinctive ways of understanding and interpreting the world, enriching artistic culture rather than diminishing it.
Thursday 5 November 2026
Threads of Healing
2.15 pm – BBC Radio 4
Pavinder Shergill’s drama tells the story of an emotional reunion between a mother and daughter.
Family relationships can carry extraordinary emotional weight, particularly when separation has created years of unresolved memories and unanswered questions. Reconciliation is seldom as straightforward as either party might hope.
This promises to be an intimate and affecting exploration of family, identity and the possibility of repairing relationships damaged by circumstances and time.
And that’s Culture Vulture for 31 October to 6 November 2026.
It’s been a particularly rich week, from the extraordinary beginnings of British television at Alexandra Palace to the enduring achievements of Christopher Lee and Ingmar Bergman. There are powerful reminders of the struggle for justice, some excellent science fiction, and plenty of opportunities to enjoy the darker side of cinema as Halloween arrives.
Do make time for Odd Man Out if you’ve never seen it. Some films deserve their reputation, and Carol Reed’s masterpiece is certainly one of them.
By Patrick Harrington | Counter Culture
Picture credits
Odd Man Out: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039677/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19887521
Concorde: Eduard Marmet, CC BY-SA 3.0 GFDL 1.2, via Wikimedia Commons
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