5 things to watch this weekend – 6 to 8 December

Where’s it on? Cinemas nationwide

Rungano Nyoni is the Zambian-Welsh director who made her mark with I Am Not a Witch (2017), her remarkable directorial debut about a 9-year-old girl accused of witchcraft. That blend of the comic, the satirical, the human and the bizarre makes for another potent cocktail in this second feature, with its intriguing Booker Prize-ready title. From its surreal opening, in which a young woman in space-age headgear comes across the body of her uncle lying dead in the road, it develops into a kind of anti-Festen, in which a dark family secret doesn’t exactly create waves of posthumous scandal but is rather shrugged away and made excuses for by the various rank-closing elder members of a middle-class Zambian family. 

Where’s it on? Cinemas nationwide

For long-term fans of Guy Maddin, the polish of this latest feature – his first in cinemas since The Forbidden Room in 2015 – will come as a shock. Unlike many of his films, Rumours doesn’t feel like lost footage from a scratchy silent movie or early talkie, or someone’s libidinal dream of the same. Instead, it opens with the current Universal logo and unfolds in pinsharp digital images in the present day. It’s all set in the lead-up to a G7 summit and brings together world leaders including Cate Blanchett’s German chancellor, Nikki Amuka-Bird’s UK PM and Charles Dance’s US president to work together on a joint statement in the lush grounds of a country estate. Does it stay so placid? Not exactly – there’s something lurking in the woods nearby. But to say any more would spoil the deliciously wayward surprises that Maddin and his co-directors Evan and Galen Johnson have in store.

Where’s it on? 4K UHD and Blu-ray

By the time of 1991’s The Fisher King, Terry Gilliam had long since flown the Monty Python coup to establish himself as the great knight-errant of modern cinema, making films full of vast dreams and quixotic ambition. After the Orwellian dystopia of Brazil (1985) and the eye-popping tall tales of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), The Fisher King mapped a contemporary parable about a New York shock jockey in need of redemption (Jeff Bridges, who turned 75 this week) onto an Arthurian fairytale and grail quest narrative. Robin Williams plays the homeless man convinced he’ll find the Holy Grail somewhere on the Upper East Side, while Mercedes Ruehl won the Oscar for best supporting actress playing the DJ’s girlfriend Anne.

Where’s it on? Prime Video

Here’s a gem from the dusty corners of Prime Video that your algorithm probably won’t touch. Razia Sultan is the fourth and final film from Kamal Amrohi, better known for his 1949 ghost story Mahal and his toweringly sad and beautiful romantic tragedy Pakeezah (1972). It’s based on the life of the only female Sultan of Delhi, the eponymous Razia, who ruled from 1236 to 1240 and in that time, the story goes, began an affair with an Abyssinian slave. Like Pakeezah, it unfolds on sets that take the breath away, with turrets and courtyards conjuring a perfumed Arabian Nights world. They came at a cost though, with Razia Sultan listed as the most expensive Indian movie up to that time. It was also a major flop, despite the presence of ‘Dream Girl’ Hema Malini in the title role and Dharmendra (in blackface) playing her paramour. Playback legend Lata Mangeshkar provides several soaring moments, including the gorgeous ‘Khwab Bankar Koi Aayega’.

Where’s it on? BBC2, Sunday, 20:00

Fired up by the freshness of the French New Wave, Arthur Penn sounded the starting gun on New Hollywood with this couple-on-the-run classic. It appalled the old-guard critics with its shocking violence and sexuality (The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther was vocally appalled) but proved a box-office sensation with young audiences. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway play the gangster lovers – notably more glamorous than the real-life couple. Their much-copied 30s fashions and anti-establishment pose provided the ingredients for a bona fide pop-cultural moment, leading to a veritable traffic jam of lovers-on-the-lam movies, from Badlands (1973) to Thieves like Us (1974) to The Sugarland Express (1974)