Top films to watch on TV this week

The Blues Brothers (1980) ITV4, 9p.m.

Everybody needs somebody in John Landis’s classic 1980 action comedy, based on characters created by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd on the TV series Saturday Night Live.

When Jake Blues (Belushi) is released from prison, he and brother Elwood (Aykroyd) pay a visit to the orphanage where they grew up, and learn the building is under threat of closure due to non-payment of taxes. So, the siblings concoct a hare-brained scheme to raise the money by reuniting their old band and staging a concert.

En route, they cross paths with a deranged bandleader (Charles Napier), the cops, and a host of famous faces in cameo roles including James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin. The plot unfolds at breakneck speed, reaching a crescendo with one of cinema’s greatest car chases.

THURSDAY, MARCH 21

The Nice Guys (2016) GREAT! movies, 11.05p.m.

Hired heavy Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) is paid by a young woman called Amelia Kuttner (Margaret Qualley) to scare off the low-rent private detective Holland March (Ryan Gosling) who has been asking about her around town.

The first meeting of these two men ends in bloodshed and broken bones, but Jackson and Holland reluctantly agree to work together when Amelia subsequently vanishes without trace. Unfortunately, a hitman called John Boy (Matt Bomer) is also on her trail.

The Nice Guys is an enjoyable missing person’s caper set in sexually liberated 1977 Los Angeles. Crowe and Gosling relish the to and fro of writer-director Shane Black’s snappy dialogue as they gleefully contend with fashions of the era.

FRIDAY, MARCH 22

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) Channel 4, 11.05p.m.

Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) is the five-time Emmy Award-winning anchorman on the top-rated KVWN Channel 4 news in San Diego in the 70s. Every night, the city dutifully tunes in to see Ron distil the headlines of the day in his usual easy-going manner.

Tempers flare and egos are severely bruised when station manager Ed Harken (Fred Willard) hires ambitious journalist Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) as Ron’s co-presenter. Ron’s adoring news team – sports reporter Champ Kind (David Koechner), dim-witted weatherman Brick Tamland (Steve Carell) and field reporter Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) – resent Veronica’s challenge to the macho status quo and they plot to halt her meteoric rise.

It’s funny on the first viewing, but like This Is Spinal Tap, this highly quotable comedy somehow gets better the more you watch it.

SATURDAY, MARCH 23

Top Gun: Maverick (2022) Channel 4, 9.10p.m.

The belated sequel turns out to have been more than worth the wait, combining stunning flying sequences with genuine emotional depth.

More than 30 years after the death of his best friend Goose, pilot Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is summoned to a mission briefing by Admiral Kazansky (Val Kilmer). A subterranean uranium enrichment plant on enemy soil, guarded by surface-to-air missiles, poses a grave threat to US national security. Maverick must train the navy’s brightest young pilots, including Goose’s son “Rooster” (Miles Teller) to fly beneath the radar and deliver an explosive payload.

As Maverick pushes the trainees to their limits, he rekindles a romance with bar owner Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly) and confronts his deep-rooted guilt over Goose’s death.

SUNDAY, MARCH 24

Ghostbusters (1984) BBC1, 4.50p.m.

Three eccentric parapsychology professors (Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis) set themselves up in business as ghost-catchers and attempt to rid New York of unwanted spooks.

Their expertise proves more useful than they originally thought when the city becomes the centre of some bizarre, other-worldly activity. This smash-hit comedy has stood the test of time, treading a fine line between farce and horror.

If you’ve seen it before, why not give it another look and see Sigourney Weaver vamping it up as a possessed cellist and, perhaps best of all, Murray’s deliciously deadpan performance as Peter Venkman, the sleaziest hero ever to grace a blockbuster.

MONDAY, MARCH 25

When Harry Met Sally (1989) BBC3, 9p.m.

Director Rob Reiner, writer Nora Ephron and stars Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan are all at the top of their games in this wonderful romantic comedy. Harry and Sally first meet as recent college graduates who share the drive from Chicago to New York – and fail to hit it off.

After a couple more chance encounters, they become friends in their thirties when they are both recently out of relationships, but will they take a chance on being more than just mates?

The “I’ll have what she’s having” scene became an instant classic, but this film has plenty more memorable, quotable moments, some of them supplied by Carrie Fisher, who is on fine form as Sally’s best friend.

TUESDAY, MARCH 26

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) ITV2, 6.15p.m.

The penultimate film in the franchise finds Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) facing renewed threat from the nefarious Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) and his followers, who continue to grow in power.

Separated from their friends, Harry, Ron and Hermione embark on a perilous quest to track down the mysterious Horcruxes and stop the forces of darkness forever. David Yates, who directed The Half-Blood Prince, strikes an even gloomier tone here, leavened with occasional flashes of humour.

The young wizards’ extended camping trip may try non-fans’ patience, but even they should be impressed by a stylish animated sequence that recounts The Tale of the Three Brothers, which explains the meaning of the Deathly Hallows.