What to Watch on TV and at the Movies This Week

Your Netflix Watch of the Week is here!

A Different World, Season 1

The latest ’90s sitcom to get a reboot is the Cosby Show spin-off set at a fictional HBCU, Hillman College. Maleah Joi Moon (Broadway’s Hell’s Kitchen) stars as Deborah, a freshman trying to live up to the legacy of her Hillman (and original TV show) alum parents, Whitley Gilbert-Wayne (Jasmine Guy, 64) and Dwayne Wayne (Kadeem Hardison, 61). Expect other stars from the OG to pop up as well, including Jada Pinkett Smith, 54, and Jenifer Lewis, 69.

Watch it: A Different World, Sept. 24 on Netflix

Don't miss this: The Best Things Coming to Netflix This Month

Your Prime Video Watch of the Week is here!

The Fire Inside (2024, PG-13)

Who doesn’t love an underdog story? Ryan Destiny stars as Claressa “T-Rex” Shields, a native of down-and-out Flint, Michigan, who overcame many obstacles to become the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in boxing. Atlanta’s Brian Tyree Henry shines as her tough-as-nails trainer and coach.

Watch it: The Fire Inside, Sept. 24 on Prime Video

Don’t miss this: The Best Things Coming to Prime Video this Month

New at the movies this week

⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Heart of the Beast, PG-13

It’s a tale as old as time, or at least as old as Robert Redford’s 1972 adventure classic Jeremiah Johnson. In this survival thriller, Brad Pitt, 62, stars as James Belmont, a former Special Forces officer who’s retired with Odin, his faithful three-legged combat dog, to Alaska to roam the wilderness together (both have PTSD from events shown in flashback). But the plot thickens: A chatty wandering fisherman (a nearly unrecognizable J. K. Simmons, 71) stops by their campfire to reveal some key expository details, and we’re shown Belmont reading Cormac McCarthy’s apocalyptic novel, The Road. We’re keyed up for disaster, and then it arrives: Belmont’s bush plane crashes, a bear threatens, wolves circle, a swamp sucks him down and a waterfall sweeps him away. Pitt, carrying his deep wounds like a heavy government-issue backpack, is compelling as he performs he-man things to stay alive, but more than that, he demonstrates love and the will to survive for his best, most trusted companion. We’re reminded of the outsize bond between dog and man and what it can inspire. —Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: Heart of the Beast, Sept. 25 in theaters

⭐⭐☆☆☆ Primetime, R

Sex sells. No debate there. So does scandal and shame. In this gelatinous psychological thriller, Robert Pattinson plays against type as Chris Hansen, the sweaty, panicked and ambitious real-life host of To Catch a Predator, NBC’s creepy yet popular mid-2000s reality series. Set in the year that the network catapulted Hansen’s show into prime time (2006), the film is poised to explore the polarities of that moment. On one side: the horror of witnessing grown men stalking children. On the other: the sleaziness of catching this taboo on tape for ratings and revenue. But Primetime refuses to take a clear stance, which leaves you wondering if this film, too, is sensationalism for its own sake, with pretty Pattinson as box office bait. Nurse Jackie’s Emmy winner Merritt Wever comes out best as Andie Bender, Hansen’s Dateline NBC producer. But this film — sensational without being insightful — is not ready for prime time. —Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: Primetime, Sept. 25 in theaters

Don’t miss this: Fall Movie Preview 2026: 20 Films We Can’t Wait to See

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⭐⭐⭐☆☆ The Musical, NR

Drama teacher Doug (Stereophonic’s Tony winner Will Brill) is dying the death of a thousand paper cuts. The balding schlemiel believes he’s New York playwright material, but for now, he’s trapped in a hell of his own making, surrounded by his chirpy students. To add insult to injury, fellow teacher Abigail (Community’s Gillian Jacobs) has dumped him for the smarmy principal, Brady (Rob Lowe, 62, as a delicious comic villain). Doug’s revenge? Staging a jaw-droppingly inappropriate original musical in order to embarrass his romantic rival. The dark comedy earns extra points for those theater nerds, me included, who love a movie with a quirky school play as a climactic set piece (Jersey Girls’ wildly inappropriate Sweeney Todd or Rushmore’s ridiculous original musical Serpico). While The Musical’s comic reach may a bit limited — like a theater set model — it still has charm aplenty. Keep an eye on its young cast; there’s a lot of talent in those wings. —Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: The Musical, in theaters

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ The Weight, R

This Depression-era prison caper is as old-timey and lovingly worn as a used flannel shirt. It pairs two terrific actors — Ethan Hawke, 55, as Samuel Murphy, an incarcerated war veteran and single father, and Russell Crowe, 62, as the wily Oregon hard-labor camp warden Clancy, who’s been known to bend a rule or two. Clancy promises Murphy an early release and the return of his daughter before she’s put up for adoption if the prisoner will just do one tiny, absolutely crazy, theft. So Murphy leads a group of prisoners into the Pacific Northwest to steal a massive number of government gold bricks and carry them through more than 100 miles of  wilderness over six days. The film casts the challenge as a Jack London sort of adventure, as Hawke (in a gripping performance) and his inmate helpers struggle through the forest, each revealing their true colors. Stir in Julia Jones as an indigenous woman who brings a cool head and much-needed skills to the quest, plus Crowe offering strong supporting-actor chops without upstaging Hawke, and the result is pleasing action-adventure night at the movies. The Weight may not break any boundaries, but it’s sure-footed and satisfying.  —Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: The Weight, in theaters

⭐⭐☆☆☆ Without Blood, NR

The legacy of war looms large in the films of Angelina Jolie, 51. Her latest, adapted from a novella by Alessandro Baricco, 68, depicts a reunion of two individuals years after the violent conflict that ripped apart their unnamed country. Salma Hayek, 60, is an enigmatic woman who seeks out a newsstand operator (Demián Bichir, 63) she has been seeking for years. Does she want revenge on the man who as a 17-year-old soldier was part of the armed gang that brutally killed her physician father and young brother? Or to reconnect with the young man who spared her life after he discovered her under the floorboards, blood dripping onto her ankle? Despite moments of visual flair, Jolie’s film gets bogged down by a series of lethargic, his-and-hers flashbacks. —Thom Geier

Watch it: Without Blood, in theaters