The Wild Robot to Deaf President Now! The seven best films to watch on TV this week

The Guardian

16-05-2025

Chris Sanders's delightful family animation attains Wall-E levels of poignancy in its tale of a shipwrecked robot that learns how to feel. Washed up on a remote island populated only by animals, service unit Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong'o) finds it has no one to serve. That is until it falls on to a goose's nest, killing all its occupants apart from runt of the litter Brightbill (Kit Connor) – who imprints on Roz as his mother. Assisted by Pedro Pascal's cynical fox Fink, the ever helpful machine reprogrammes itself to rear the gosling well enough so he can migrate with the other geese. The Disney-style anthropomorphising is a bit overdone, but it's a film full of warmth and wit.
Friday 23 May, 9.10am, 6.10pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
Set during one week in 1988, Davis Guggenheim and Nyle DiMarco's revelatory documentary follows an era-defining protest at Gallaudet University in Washington DC – at the time the only deaf higher education institution in the world. When the students discovered a hearing person had been chosen as their new president over deaf candidates, they locked down the campus until the decision was changed. The activists interviewed impress with their zeal for self-determination in a film cleverly designed so that hearing audiences are immersed in a deaf world.
Out now, Apple TV+
Andrea Arnold brings earthy conviction to her 2011 adaptation of Emily Brontë's smouldering classic. This is the first version that makes overt the latent suggestion that Heathcliff is African Caribbean, emphasising the transgressive (for the times) nature of his love for Catherine. It's a heavy, passionate, at times brutal rendering of the wild moorland romance – almost an anti-costume drama. Shannon Beer and Kaya Scodelario are convincing as the young and grownup Cathy, while Solomon Glave and James Howson share the crucial role of the tempestuous Heathcliff.
Sunday 18 May, 12.55am, Film4
As ever when that wrecking ball of creative energy, Spike Lee, goes historical, the present-day resonances are clear and central. His biopic of political activist Malcolm X (a charismatic Denzel Washington) starts with footage of the beating of Rodney King and ends with a cameo from Nelson Mandela, but there's plenty in the personal experience of the robber turned Black nationalist leader to excite interest and anger. A story of idealism nurtured then thwarted, whether you agree with Malcolm's views or not it's a fitting tribute to a major figure in US history.
Monday 19 May, 11pm, BBC Two
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Interspersed with words taken from her own unpublished memoir and a trove of home movie footage, Alexis Bloom and Svetlana Zill's candid documentary gets as close to the 'bohemian rock chick' Anita Pallenberg as we're probably going to get. She blazed a trail from impoverished Italian aristocracy to feted New York model to lover of three Rolling Stones, retaining her independent spirit through fame, hard drugs and motherhood, mesmerising everyone she met.
Tuesday 20 May, 10pm, Sky Arts
The Who's bombastic rock opera album gets the bombastic celluloid treatment it deserves courtesy of – who else? – British cinema's wild man Ken Russell. Singer Roger Daltrey plays Tommy, a boy who loses his sight, hearing and speech after witnessing his mother's adultery. But the traumatised kid shows a talent for pinball that inspires a messianic movement. The film has dated badly in places, but for sheer chutzpah and verve there's little that compares to it – from Tina Turner's devilish Acid Queen to Elton John and his sky-high boots as the Pinball Wizard.
Wednesday 21 May, 7.55am, Sky Cinema Greats
After getting sacked from his supermarket job, young LA punk Otto (Emilio Estevez) finds himself working with Harry Dean Stanton's repo man – a low-rent operator who repossesses cars from those in debt. However, one car on their list, a Chevy Malibu, has something glowing and deadly in the boot … Writer-director Alex Cox pays homage to Kiss Me Deadly's MacGuffin in his TexMex road movie cum sci-fi thriller, but adds a scuzzy edge all his own as the protagonists tour a run-down city rife with drugs and crime.
Thursday 22 May, 12.35am, Sky Cinema Greats