5 TV series and movies to watch while cursing pollen and whoever is responsible for it

Pollen is tiny, yet can bring the biggest, bulkiest, most muscular of figures to a snotty, dribbly standstill. It’s extraordinarily powerful stuff, and would probably be inspiring if it wasn’t so goddamned annoying. Waking up in the night with a super-dry mouth because you’re sleeping with it wide open due to your nose being all bunged up? It’s a ridiculous way to live. Might as well sniff in front of the telly for a bit, eh?

Written by Game Of Thrones co-creator D.B. Weiss, this coming-of-very-loud-age movie is a love letter to growing up as a metal fan, executive produced by Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello and featuring some killer cameos. Sweet, sweary and moving, it’ll have the most sensible people in the world trawling Amazon for spiked collars and aggressively silly shoes. There’s also original music by Tom, meaning watching it is basically obligatory.

Available now on Netflix.

A stylishly made thriller in which a tailor to the mob – played by Mark 'The BFG' Rylance – finds himself in over his head. All he wants to do is make clothes, and there he is, in the middle of a gang war. (The title is a pun, it's good, well done everybody.) Old-fashioned cinema in a good way, with great performances all round, and all in all a classy endeavour.

In cinemas now.

The 1980s were an absurd decade. Phones could only do one thing and the only ones you could leave home with cost a million pounds, but everyone lost their minds when they saw one. Crazy times. This Dutch Netflix show is set in that bonkers era, during the advent of phone-sex lines and a rapidly changing world. It's like a low-tech European Boogie Nights with slightly worse clothes.

Available now on Netflix.

A 10-episode dark comedy about alcoholism, having a few drinks here and there, and how the latter can sometimes become the former without anyone realising. Based on the real life of creator Simone Finch, and featuring a terrific central performance from Sofia Black-D'Elia, it’s a surprisingly nuanced look at addiction and the daily battles it involves, but still has time for plenty of great gags.

Available now on Disney+.

Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton star in this tense thriller as CIA agents having one of those slow-burning, polite, ‘one of us is going to die’ kind of dinners laden in sexual chemistry and multi-layered flashbacks that only really happen in films. Secrets upon secrets, layers upon layers, incredibly good-looking food and the promise it’s all going to end in bloodshed and heartbreak – basically everything anyone could want in a film that doesn’t have a Terminator in it.

On Prime Video now.