Cape Fear ― Apple TV +
Robert De Niro’s gleefully demonic performance as villain Max Cady in Martin Scorsese’s Hitchcock-influenced 1991 screen adaptation of John D MacDonald’s novel, The Executioners, was terrifying. That version provides the inspiration for creator Nick Antosca’s limited series adaptation, executive produced by Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Amy Adams and Patrick Owen are Anna and Tom Bowden, successful lawyers and advocates for the rights of wrongfully convicted prisoners, while Javier Bardem is a chillingly slippery Max Cady.
Michael Jackson: The Verdict ― Netflix
Following Antoine Fuqua’s celebratory, Jackson-estate-approved biopic, Nick Green’s exhaustive three-part docuseries arrives to remind audiences what happened after the events depicted in Fuqua’s film. Drawing on interviews with jurors, lawyers, journalists and eyewitnesses, the series takes a deep dive into Jackson’s much-publicised and globally followed 2005 criminal trial when he faced allegations of molesting then 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo at the pop icon’s Neverland ranch in 2003.
Peter Hujar’s Day ― Mubi.com
Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall sparkle in director Ira Sachs’ talk-heavy two-hander recreating a real-life interview between Hall’s writer Linda Rosenkrantz and Whishaw’s posthumously celebrated, pioneering gay photographer Peter Hujar. Set in New York City in December 1974, it’s a vivid, intelligent portrait of what Sachs has characterised as “about what it is to be an artist among artists in a city where no-one was making any money”.
A Band Called Death — Prime Video
Now an “oldie” but still a pivotal documentary in the annals of punk rock — directors Mark Christopher Corvino and Jeff Howlett’s 2012 documentary firmly placed the three African American Hackney brothers from Detroit and their trailblazing proto-punk outfit Death back in the pantheon of punk legends where they had always belonged. Featuring interviews with the brothers and a host of suitably geekish record collectors who helped to push for the band’s rediscovery and re-evaluation it’s a bittersweet story that both inspires and breaks your heart.
On the Waterfront — Netflix
Despite the inconvenient fact that writer Budd Schulberg and director Elia Kazan used their 1954 Oscar win to give their twisted justification for outing Hollywood colleagues as communists to the 1951 House Un-American Activities Committee, Marlon Brando’s turn as fallen prizefighter Terry Malloy is still legendary. Terry isn’t super smart, but he trusts his older brother Charley (Rod Steiger), the local mob bosses’ right-hand man, to keep him out of trouble. When Terry is tasked with assisting in a murder, his allegiances and conscience are put to the test.
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