What to Watch on TV and at the Movies This Week

Your Netflix Watch of the Week is here!

Nouvelle Vague, R

Director Richard Linklater (Hit Man), 65, pays tribute to the pivotal French New Wave film movement of the late 1950s and ’60s in this black-and-white love letter to cinema about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s game-changing import Breathless. Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch, and Aubry Dullin head up the ensemble of this jazzy, stylish time capsule that should be catnip for any serious movie lover. 

Watch it: Nouvelle Vague, Oct. 10 on Netflix

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Your Prime Video Watch of the Week is here!

The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025, PG-13)

British comedian Tim Key plays an eccentric loner named Charles who hatches a quirky plan to spend the winnings from two major lottery wins: reunite his favorite folk duo (played by Carey Mulligan and Tom Basden), who have not played together in 15 years due to an acrimonious romantic breakup. The thing is, Charles hasn’t bothered to tell either musician that the other will be playing the same gig on remote Wallis Island off the coast of Wales. This offbeat comedy, which debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, has humor and heart to burn. 

Watch it: The Ballad of Wallis Island, Oct. 10 on Prime Video

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New at the movies this week

⭐⭐⭐☆ ☆ Kiss of the Spider Woman, R

Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel is a heady mixture of high and low culture, politics and pulp. The 1985 movie (with the late William Hurt and Raul Julia) followed. Then the musical. And now, that musical’s movie version. What the song-filled saga gets right is the charismatic central pair: sexy Diego Luna and standout Tonatiuh as cellmates in an Argentine prison, one a tortured political prisoner, the other a gay man. The latter, like a jailbird Scheherazade, passes the time and lubricates the relationship by telling the story of an old Hollywood movie. In the fantasy sequences, Jennifer Lopez, 56, plays three roles: Ingrid Luna, a film star; Aurora, a character Luna plays in the movies; and finally, the mythical, venomous Spider Woman. Like someone balancing plates, Lopez performs all the dance steps and hits every note but can’t marry them to any deep emotion. While her singing isn’t flat, her performance is. The result is a showy, uneven musical that fails to hit the novel’s high notes or convey its bite.  — Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: Kiss of the Spider Woman, Oct. 10 in theaters

⭐⭐⭐⭐ ☆ Roofman , R

A tender love story emerges at the heart of this American true-crime caper. Veteran Jeffrey Manchester (a winning turn from charmer Channing Tatum), in a last-ditch effort to generate cash to lure back his wife and kids, starts robbing McDonald’s franchises. Ever polite, his moneymaking scheme lands him in prison, costing him his family. With the same agility and ingenuity that makes him an expert “roofman,” an agile thief who enters buildings from the top, the con breaks out of confinement. While hiding in a nearby Toys “R” Us during the ensuing manhunt, the congenial thief meets and woos forthright church lady and salesclerk Leigh (a delightful, down-to-earth Kirsten Dunst). Peter Dinklage, 56, adds dark humor as the bitter store manager, while Ben Mendelsohn, 56, stands out as a singing reverend in a movie crafted to entertain audiences while stealing their hearts. — Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: Roofman, Oct. 10 in theaters

⭐⭐⭐☆ ☆ A House of Dynamite , R

Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow, 73, returns with an intense ticking-clock nuclear drama. As our military tracks an unidentified nuclear warhead seemingly destined for Chicago, those charged with preserving the nation’s (and the globe’s) safety step through the procedures. It’s a stellar crew: Rebecca Ferguson as a captain on the front lines, plus Tracy Letts, 60, Jared Harris, 64, and Jason Clarke, 56. The characters pull the audience into a state of dread: These professionals have the whole world in their hands — as well as their individual families’ survival. Meanwhile, for two-thirds of the movie, the president is largely AWOL. Then, in a narrative trick that resets the clock at the two-thirds mark, the commander in chief played by the wonderful Idris Elba, 53, ambles in to take center stage. This dramatic third-act choice oddly dampens rather than heightens the suspense. From that moment, A House of Dynamite fizzles, choosing to end on a “huh?” note more suitable for The Twilight Zone than the prestige Oscar bait it’s intended to be. — Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: A House of Dynamite, Oct. 10 in theaters 

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⭐⭐⭐⭐ ⭐ Anemone , R

I’m calling it now: Daniel Day Lewis, 68, will win the Best Actor Oscar for Anemone. In this vivid, emotional tale of fathers and sons, PTSD and the Irish Troubles, Day-Lewis plays a war veteran. The rangy loner Ray has holed himself up off the grid in Northern England following his ignominious return from Ireland. Now, two decades later, when his son Brian (Samuel Bottomley) goes AWOL, his ex-partner Nessa (Samantha Morton) dispatches Ray’s brother Jem (Sean Bean, 66) to return the estranged patriarch from the wilderness to the family. That journey, through nights of drinking, wrestling and diving into the frigid sea, gives Lewis room to roam, by turns athletic, abrasive, graceful and broken. The drama, cowritten with and directed by the star’s son, Ronan Day-Lewis, also finds in Bean the perfect foil: strong, largely silent and watchful. Their fraternal duet is a thing of cinematic beauty in a movie that leans into the rough edges and embraces emotional intensity, while earning its final sliver of hope. –Thelma Adams 

Watch it: Anemone, in theaters

⭐⭐⭐☆ ☆ The Smashing Machine , R

Dwayne Johnson, 53, is almost unrecognizable beneath facial prosthetics as Mark Kerr, a former college wrestling champ who became one of the early stars of mixed martial arts and the Ultimate Fighting Championship in the 1990s. Director Benny Safdie, who pried an award-winning performance out of Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems, pulls a similar feat here as Johnson flashes real emotion overcoming painkiller addiction and sparring with his not-always-supportive girlfriend (Emily Blunt, equally strong). But the overlong film, with its brutal fight scenes and hagiographic portrait of its hero, doesn’t go far enough to push the bounds of the sports biopic genre.—Thom Geier

Watch it: The Smashing Machine, in theaters