Television

Sarah Paulson takes on the role of the heartless tyrant Mildred Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in this glossy, bloodthirsty, Ryan Murphy-produced origin story. Set in 1947, it follows Ratched as she infiltrates the mental health care system, building up trust as the darkness creeps in. Sharon Stone and Cynthia Nixon co-star.
Friday 18 September, Netflix

BBC Proms 2020: The Last Night of the Proms

BBC Symphony Orchestra guest conductor Dalia Stasevska fronts this most prestigious night on the classical music calendar, featuring Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending and music from Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music.
Saturday 12 September, 8pm, BBC One

David Tennant channels serial killer Dennis Nilsen in this chilling three-part true-crime series examining how a seemingly normal man killed at least 12 men across London in the 1980s and went almost undetected. Jason Watkins co-stars as his biographer Brian Masters.
Monday 14 September, 9pm, ITV

The searingly tense crime drama set in the confines of an interrogation room returns for a second season, replete with a new cast including Kit Harington, Kunal Nayyar, Katherine Kelly, Sharon Horgan and Sophie Okonedo. With four new cases to solve and four new suspects to question, who will we believe and who is hiding something dark?
Wednesday 16 September, Netflix

This uplifting documentary series, co-produced by the basketball great LeBron James, charts the inspiring journeys of a handful of athletes and creatives, including singer Colbie Caillat, actor Julianne Hough and James’s LA Lakers teammate Anthony Davis, as they revisit where it all began.
Friday 18 September, Disney+

Awkwafina, star of last year’s gentle comedy-drama The Farewell, brings her 10-part sitcom to the UK. Based on the sometime rapper’s real-life beginnings in Queens, New York, it follows the titular Nora as she navigates young adulthood.
Sunday 13 September, BBC Three

David Attenborough brings this special examining the UN’s stark analysis of the potential extinction of one million plant and animal species if the climate crisis continues at its current rate. Along with the facts and figures, there is a message of hope in possible change.
Sunday 13 September, 8pm, BBC One

Ewan McGregor and his mate Charley Boorman team up for the third instalment of their motorcycle-based travel documentary, after 2004’s Long Way Round and 2007’s Long Way Down. This time they’re on prototype electric Harley Davidsons and travelling from Patagonia to California.
Friday 18 September, Apple TV+

The Singapore Grip

Ready yourselves for more colonial japes, courtesy of this adaptation of JG Farrell’s satirical second world war novel following the fortunes of a British trading family in Singapore as the Japanese invasion begins. Charles Dance leads the cast.
Sunday 13 September, 9pm, ITV

The stars are out in full force in this unsettling six-parter, starring Jude Law, Emily Watson and Naomie Harris and set on a windswept, eerie island off the British coast. Visitors are confronted by the landscape’s violent history and must reckon with their own secrets in the process. The opening half of the series will be followed by a livestreamed event in October.
Tuesday 15 September, 9pm, Sky Atlantic

Podcast

Tracy Clayton and Josh Gwynn host this gossip-laden podcast series unpicking the formative pop culture scandals of our recent history, such as the feud between R&B singers Brandy and Monica, the critical panning of Mariah Carey’s Glitter and Beyoncé’s rocky history with former Destiny’s Child member Farrah. We open on the shade of Tyra Banks’s America’s Next Top Model.
Weekly, widely available

Join Max Rushden and Faye Carruthers as they pick over the finest footballing clashes and news as the 2020/21 Premier League season starts up this week. Recent episodes include discussions on Gareth Bale’s hair, José Mourinho’s starring – and sweary – role in Amazon’s Spurs docuseries All Or Nothing, and the history of the white football.
Weekly, the Guardian

Matthew McConaughey scores the role of a lifetime, starring as the titular pup Hank, a ranch dog with a penchant for solving mysteries in the Texan wilds in this child-friendly podcast series. Based on the multimillion-selling books by John R Erickson, McConaughey is joined by Cynthia Erivo and Kirsten Dunst.
Weekly, widely available

Music website Country Queer, which shines a light on LGBTQ+ voices in country and Americana, has launched a podcast focusing on a rising artist each episode. First up is country outlaw Jaime Wyatt, whose new album Neon Cross touches on her intense journey of coming out both privately and publicly.
Weekly, widely available

In her first podcast series, the BBC presenter gets back in touch with people who appeared in her documentaries to see what happened next. She speaks to a Mexican priest helping migrants, “preppers” getting ready for the end of the world, and the daughter of a woman serving a life sentence without parole for murder.
Weekly, BBC Sounds

Film

(Dean Parisot) 88 mins
The last B&T film came out almost 30 years ago but time doesn’t seem to have diminished the commercial appeal of certain Gen X touchstones. Can the bodacious duo hack it in middle age, revered as they will be by future generations for their immortal guitar riffs? Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter return with overflowing enthusiasm.
Out Wednesday 16 September

(Václav Marhoul) 170 mins
The ultimate in ordeal cinema: an adaptation of Jerzy Kosiński’s book about a child adrift in a hate-racked eastern Europe during the second world war. Its unrelenting portrayal of wartime horrors has divided audiences.
In cinemas and digital platforms

(Mathieu Kassovitz) 98 mins
La Haine set off a depth charge in the largely genteel French cinema of the time, bringing the alienated banlieue youth into closeup. It remains depressingly relevant 25 years on; the main surprise is that it did not presage a stellar directing career for Kassovitz, who wandered off into forgettable big-budget territory.
In cinemas

(Natalie Johns) 100 mins
German-British musician Max Richter made his name with post-minimalist, film-friendly compositions such as The Blue Notebooks. This documentary follows a performance of his eight-hour work Sleep, designed to reflect a night’s sleep pattern.
In cinemas

(Bong Joon-ho) 131 mins
What was Bong Joon-ho doing before Parasite, you may ask? Well, this is the film that really put him on the map in 2003: a true-crime thriller about a then-unsolved serial murder case in Korea.
Curzon Home Cinema

(Derek Jarman) 95 mins
Following his HIV diagnosis, director Derek Jarman embarked on a near-wordless portrait of his garden, nurtured in the shadow of the Dungeness nuclear power station: bleak imagery illustrates a profound exploration of mortality and Christian cruelty (with Tilda Swinton as the Madonna) in the era of Aids. Strange and haunting.
Thursday 17 September, 1.05am, Film4