5 movies and TV shows to watch this weekend before the chaos of festival season

Festival season is so nearly upon us, with Slam Dunk, Download, Outbreak, 2000trees and more coming in the next few weeks. It probably means there won’t be a whole lot of time for binge watching all the stuff that’s hitting screens – so you’ve got a lot to be cracking on with this weekend…

Shot in a pre-COVID world and finally released, the sequel to 1986’s most bombastic movie is finally here. Tom Cruise is back in the role that made him a superstar, a little worn around the edges but still feeling the need… the need for speed. While a decade ago very few people would have expected a Top Gun sequel to ever happen, even fewer of them would have expected a Top Gun sequel to make them cry. A movie about show-offs driving planes quickly that can reduce an audience to tears? Damn straight.

In cinemas now.

The fourth season of Netflix’s biggest show is finally upon us. Most of it, anyway – the seven-episode Vol. 1 will be followed in July by Vol. 2, just two episodes long. The cast, one tiny wee whippersnappers, are now in their mid-20s and probably pretty unhappy about the amount of them forced to wear bowl cuts for the show. It’s the biggest, longest season of the show yet, moving far beyond Hawkins for what the cast has described as “equal parts stoner action-comedy and Russian prison movie”.

Available now on Netflix.

Derry Girls’ Dylan Llewellyn takes centre stage for what might be the first ever sitcom about a gay-straight male friendship. Creator Jack Rooke felt that the dynamic he and his non-queer pals shared as teenagers had never been reflected on screen, where male friendships seem to revolve around a “Hey guys, let’s all get laid!” theme. This is the kind of show Channel 4 do better than anyone, a reminder that if the government succeeds in its plans to sell it off, the whole world will be culturally poorer.

Available now on All4.

If you like shouting things like “Whoa!” and “Holy shit!” a lot, Christmas has some early. RRR is a three-hour epic, the most expensive Indian movie ever made, and it’s end-to-end “Holy shit!” material. A what-if tale placing two real historical figures who never met at the centre of a bromance, it’s a genre-spanning tale of full-on massiveness, the kind of movie where one dude takes on a crowd of 200 baddies with nothing but a club, then sings a song about the volcano that is friendship. If something can explode, it explodes. If something can look cool flying through the air in slow-mo, it does. Just enormous all round. Amazing.

Available now on Netflix.

“How dare you recommend a child’s cartoon?” you cry. “I am a big adult person.” It’s great fun, though – a Who Framed Roger Rabbit?-style spin on Disney’s chipmunk heroes, recasting them as washed-up former actors accidentally drawn into a world of crime. Full of both very clever and very silly jokes, and sporting an incredibly enjoyable mix of animation styles, this also boasts a truly terrific voice cast, centred around John Mulaney and Andy Samberg as the main ’munks. A great way to spend 90 minutes before doing something really grown-up, you enormous adult.

Available now on Disney+.