Best films to watch on TV today, tonight and this week
Whatever your taste, there's a movie on for everyone.
While there are more than enough streamers and streaming options for movie lovers out there, nothing quite beats the feeling of finding a hidden gem while flicking through the TV.
There are plenty of options – old and new – to pick from this week, from Powell and Pressburger classics like The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death to comedy gems like Planes Trains and Automobiles, so there really is something for everyone.
If you're wondering where to find some of the best films on the terrestrial channels this week, we've got you sorted with our picks for the next seven days.
With so many amazing films airing, we've compiled a list of the best flicks for you to choose from below.
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Friday 22nd November
The Green Man - 2:20pm, Film4
Comedy starring Alastair Sim and George Cole. A professional hitman finds his attempts to complete his latest assignment frustrated by an incompetent vacuum cleaner salesman. Read our full review
23 Paces to Baker Street - 3:55pm, Film4
Thriller starring Van Johnson and Vera Miles. Blind playwright Phillip Hannon overhears a kidnap and murder being planned, but when he approaches the police they politely dismiss his evidence. Assisted by his fiancée and his secretary, he attempts to solve the crime himself. Read our full review
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum - 9pm, E4
Action thriller starring Keanu Reeves, Halle Berry and Laurence Fishburne. With a bounty on his head making him the target of the world's top assassins, famed hitman John Wick goes on the run. Heading for Casablanca, he meets an old friend who may be able to help him with his predicament. Read our full review
48 Hrs - 1:05am, Channel 4
Action thriller starring Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. With vicious escaped convict Albert Ganz loose in San Francisco, bullish cop Jack Cates needs all the help he can get to track him down. Unfortunately, that "help" comes in the form of smart-mouthed young prisoner Reggie Hammond, who has his own reasons for stopping Ganz's rampage, and only a 48-hour release from jail in which to do it if he and Cates don't kill each other first! Read our full review
Saturday 23rd November
A Matter of Life and Death - 12:35pm, BBC Two
Classic romantic fantasy starring David Niven and Kim Hunter. With his plane ablaze, Squadron Leader Peter Carter holds a last radio conversation with an American servicewoman before baling out. Amazingly, he survives, and later meets her and falls in love. But in heaven, a mistake is discovered. Read our full review
Close Encounters of the Third Kind - 1:15pm, Film4
Science-fiction drama starring Richard Dreyfuss. While investigating an extensive power failure in Indiana, Roy Neary encounters a UFO - a phenomenon also witnessed by Jillian Guiler and her young son. When he is unable to convince anyone of his sighting, Neary's strange behaviour starts to worry his family. Read our full review
The Red Shoes - 2:20pm, BBC Two
Classic ballet drama starring Anton Walbrook, Moira Shearer and Marius Goring. Ballet impresario Boris Lermontov enlists promising dancer Victoria Page and young composer Julian Craster in his company. But when the couple fall in love, Lermontov decides that romance will not interfere with their careers. Read our full review
Knives Out - 10:25pm, Channel 4
Murder mystery comedy starring Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas and Chris Evans. "Gentleman detective" Benoit Blanc is summoned to the home of a wealthy author who has been found with his throat slit. As he learns more about the deceased's eccentric family and their likely motives for murder, he forms a bond with the dead man's nurse, Marta, who also has something to hide. Meanwhile, one key question continues to gnaw at Blanc: who actually hired him? Read our full review
Under Siege - 12:55am, Channel 4
Action thriller starring Steven Seagal and Tommy Lee Jones. The Missouri, the US Navy's biggest battleship, is hijacked by ruthless criminals intent on stealing its lucrative nuclear arsenal. Only one man stands in their way - Casey Ryback, ship's cook and former Navy SEAL. Read our full review
Sunday 24th November
Whisky Galore! - 11:30am, BBC Two
Classic Ealing comedy starring Basil Radford. A Hebridean island community senses a chance to replenish its whisky stocks when a cargo ship full of the prized drink is stranded offshore. Read our full review
Cars 3 - 2:15pm, BBC One
Animated comedy adventure featuring the voice of Owen Wilson. Celebrated race car Lightning McQueen finds himself rendered obsolete in the face of a new generation of super-speedy racers. Determined to avoid an early retirement, he turns to an ambitious young race technician to help him regain his motoring mojo. Read our full review
Deep Impact - 3pm, Channel 4
Science-fiction drama starring Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni and Morgan Freeman. A reporter believes that she has discovered a sex scandal in the US government. As it turns out, "Ele" isn't a mistress, but something used to describe an event so cataclysmic that it could destroy the planet. Read our full review
Raging Bull - 10pm, BBC Two
Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning drama, based on the life of middleweight boxer Jake La Motta, starring Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty and Joe Pesci. 1941: under the managership of his brother Joey, Jake La Motta establishes a reputation as a world championship contender with a string of brutal victories. He begins an affair with Vickie, a teenager who becomes his second wife, but his obsessive jealousy sends both his personal life and career into a downward spiral. Read our full review
War for the Planet of the Apes - 11pm, Channel 4
Sci-fi adventure sequel starring Woody Harrelson and Andy Serkis. In the third instalment of the rebooted franchise, ape leader Caesar embarks on a quest for revenge after the crazed Colonel McCullough kills Caesar's family in a bid to assassinate him. Read our full review
Monday 25th November
The War Lord - 2:45pm, Legend
Period epic starring Charlton Heston. An 11th-century Norman warrior is assigned to oversee an isolated Druid village. But jealousies are aroused when he falls for a young local girl. Read our full review
Creed - 10pm, ITV4
Boxing drama starring Michael B Jordan and Sylvester Stallone. Life comes full circle for former heavyweight champion Rocky Balboa when he's called upon to mentor and train a hungry new fighter - the son of his old adversary Apollo Creed. Read our full review
Red Sparrow - 11:25pm, Film4
Spy thriller starring Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton and Matthias Schoenaerts. After her ballet career ends in injury, a young Russian woman begins work as a spy and is sent to entrap a CIA operative. But when the assignment becomes more complicated than anticipated, the spy considers becoming a double agent. Read our full review
Tuesday 26th November
The Man in the White Suit - 11am, Film4
Classic satirical comedy from Ealing, starring Alec Guinness and Joan Greenwood. The seemingly haphazard experiments of eccentric scientist Sidney Stratton have a far-reaching effect on the textile industry when he invents an indestructible cloth that never gets dirty. Read our full review
Roman Holiday - 12:45pm, Film4
Romantic comedy starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. Joe Bradley, a journalist at an American news bureau in Rome, discovers a pretty girl apparently in a drunken stupor and reluctantly takes her home. Next morning, he is amazed to discover that his guest is a princess on a state visit. Read our full review
The Day the Earth Stood Still - 4:25pm, Talking Pictures TV
Classic science-fiction drama starring Michael Rennie and Patricia Neal. A mysterious spaceship from an unknown planet approaches Earth carrying an intelligent humanoid called Klaatu and a giant robot. They have come to warn the world that it will have no future if it persists with nuclear testing. After landing in Washington, the robot is left to guard the ship while Klaatu mingles with the population to learn about human nature. Read our full review
Wednesday 27th November
The Fallen Idol - 2:55pm, Film4
Thriller, based on a short story by Graham Greene, starring Ralph Richardson. The close friendship between a kind-hearted butler and an ambassador's young son is jeopardised when the butler is suspected of murdering his wife. Read our full review
Barbarian - 9pm, 5Action
Horror thriller starring Georgina Campbell and Bill Skarsgård. Researcher Tess Marshall is in Detroit for a job interview but with hotels all booked up, she is forced to stay at an Airbnb in a run-down neighbourhood. She finds the room has been double-booked by Keith, but he kindly offers to take the couch. It's not long before Tess suspects there is more to her accommodation than meets the eye. Read our full review
Manhunter - 12am, BBC One
Psychological thriller starring William Petersen and Brian Cox. Ex-FBI investigator Will Graham is called in to solve a series of brutal murders by a killer dubbed the "Tooth Fairy". To help him in his search, Graham uses the extraordinary talents of Dr Hannibal Lecktor, a brilliant psychotherapist with a taste for human flesh. Read our full review
Thursday 28th November
Comanche Station - 12:55pm, Film4
Western starring Randolph Scott and Nancy Gates. After rescuing a settler's wife from the Comanches, Jefferson Cody encounters three outlaws who plan to kill him and collect a reward for the woman's return. Read our full review
The Professionals - 1pm, Great Movies Action
Western starring Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin and Robert Ryan. Four soldiers of fortune are hired to rescue the wife of a cattle baron, who is being held by a ruthless Mexican revolutionary. But, after a gruelling ride across frontier country to the bandit's stronghold, the mercenaries discover their mission is not all that it seems. Read our full review
Planes, Trains and Automobiles - 10:50pm, Film4
A stressed businessman just wants to make it home to spend Thanksgiving with his family. However, when his flight is forced to land miles from its destination, he finds himself sharing a disaster-strewn journey across America with an amiable but slobbish salesman. Comedy road movie, starring Steve Martin, John Candy, Laila Robins, Kevin Bacon and Michael McKean. Read our full review
Friday 29th November
The Mask of Zorro - 6:20pm, Film4
Swashbuckling action adventure starring Antonio Banderas and Anthony Hopkins. Twenty years after his last appearance, legendary hero Zorro returns to battle Don Rafael Montero, now the self-styled ruler of mid-19th-century California. But is this the original "Robin Hood of Mexico" or a younger incarnation who now defends the rights of peasants? Read our full review
Shirley Valentine - 9pm, 5Star
Comedy written by Willy Russell from his own play, starring Pauline Collins and Tom Conti. Liverpool housewife Shirley leads a domestic existence of routine dullness. Her monosyllabic husband's only concern is to find his supper on the table on time - things are so bad, she confides in the kitchen wall. What she needs is a holiday; a place with sun, sand and sea, a place where she can fall in love with life. Read our full review
Django Unchained - 9pm, Film4
Western directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Samuel L Jackson and Christoph Waltz. After being freed from slavery and trained in the ways of a bounty hunter by Dr King Schultz, Django sets out to free his wife from a vicious plantation owner. Read our full review
Bones and All - 12:05am, BBC Two
Romantic horror drama starring Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet and Mark Rylance. Abandoned by her father, teenager Maren, who has cannibalistic tendencies, sets out to locate her birth mother. She is soon joined by fellow "Eater" Lee, with whom she forms a deep bond. But the pair are also being pursued by another fellow cannibal and may be in grave danger. Read our full review
If you have Netflix, we have rounded up the best movies on Netflix and the best series on Netflix to watch now – and Disney Plus viewers can check out our best movies on Disney Plus guide. Got Prime Video? We also have the best movies on Amazon Prime.
Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Authors
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.