From Make That Movie to Backrooms: The Week's Top Entertainment Picks
The Lead: This Week's Entertainment Highlights
This week's entertainment landscape offers a diverse array of critically acclaimed shows and films, from hilarious comedies to chilling horror. Channel 4's "Make That Movie" stands out as one of the funniest shows of the year, while Netflix's "The Four Seasons" returns with a brilliant second season. Horror fans can explore the disturbing world of "Backrooms," while Marvel offers a stylish take with "Spider-Noir."
TV Comedy Gold: Make That Movie
Channel 4
Summed up in a sentence Last One Laughing finalist delivers one of the funniest shows of the year, with this mockumentary about a director who makes awful films.
What our reviewer said "So ostentatiously silly that it deserves to be paraded around the streets." Stuart Heritage
Further reading "People are like: you're a crackpot": how Sam Campbell became comedy's oddball superstar
Netflix Triumph: The Four Seasons Returns
Netflix
Summed up in a sentence Tina Fey triumphs again with the return of this comedy about a group of middle-aged friends who reunite during holidays throughout the year.
What our reviewer said "Even more perspicacious, poignant and hilarious than the first." Chitra Ramaswamy
Marvel's Stylish Take: Spider-Noir
Prime Video
Summed up in a sentence In Marvel's witty homage to the hard-boiled films and fictions of the 40s – which can be watched in colour or black-and-white – Nicolas Cage plays Ben Reilly, who gave up being superhero "the Spider" five years ago.
What our reviewer said "Everything is shot with style and confidence." Lucy Mangan
Further reading The life of PIs: the strange case of 2026's resurgence of hard-boiled detectives
Hidden Gem: Ponies
Now/Sky Atlantic
Summed up in a sentence Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson have heaps of fun as two widows who become cold war spies in this espionage comedy-drama.
What our reviewer said "It's a mashup of genres and tropes, but it is its own thing too – and an unexpected treat at that." Lucy Mangan
Horror Innovation: Backrooms
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence A debut from 20-year-old director Kane Parsons that examines memory, reality and fear in an icily disturbing horror, in which Chiwetel Ejiofor accesses an infinite series of hidden rooms that all feel creepily askew.
What our reviewer said "Backrooms progressively raises its game towards the big finish with jump scares, squirm scares and tiny shiver scares. There is real fascination in exploring this vast, invisible city state of fear." Peter Bradshaw
Further reading Are you sitting uncomfortably? How Backrooms upended the horror movie
Music and Bromance: Power Ballad
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Nick Jonas and Paul Rudd star in a comedy of bromance and betrayal from Irish writer-director John Carney that brilliantly brings together Rudd's washed-up wedding singer and Jonas's insecure ex-boyband superstar.
What our reviewer said "Power Ballad is about making it and dreaming big, about every busker never giving up on hopes of one day being mega. But as so often with Carney, it's about something else, usually left unacknowledged in movies about music or any sort of show business: the terrible binary of success and failure." Peter Bradshaw
Unexpected Pairing: Tuner
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Playing a piano tuner with super-sensitive hearing, Leo Woodall's relationship with Dustin Hoffman is a tender highlight in this safe-cracking thriller.
What our reviewer said "What a pair they are; they are a real pleasure to watch in an easy, unforced drama that mixes romcom moments with a relaxed crime thriller. It's like the Safdie brothers in chill-out mode." Cath Clarke