HOLLYWOOD, CA — This week’s watchlist leans into chaos, confession and the strange ways people keep their sanity when life keeps changing the rules mid-stride.
“Michael” revisits the making of a pop icon, all spectacle and shadow, while “Fuze” locks London into a heart-stopping scenario where every choice feels like cutting the wrong wire.
“I Swear,” meanwhile, softens the mood, following a Scottish teenager whose Tourette syndrome turns everyday life into an unpredictable dance of frustration, humor and hard-won grace.
Then there's “Over Your Dead Body,” a dark-comedy thriller that swings things back toward the unhinged, turning a marital reset into a blood-spattered comedy of errors.
On the series side, “Running Point: Season 2” returns to the Waves' front office, where ambition, ego and family ties collide with the force of a fast break.
And “Half Man” stretches across decades, tracing a stepbrother bond so tangled and bruised it slowly takes over their lives in ways they never quite outrun.
Together, these titles offer a lively mix — a little tension, a little tenderness, a little delightful chaos — each one opening a different door into the week ahead.
Ready to dive in? Scroll down for the full lineup, with deeper explorations below that unpack performances, themes and craft in greater detail.
Related:
- ‘Michael’ Review: Jaafar Jackson Captures The King Of Pop In A Reverent, Cautious Biopic
- ‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’ Review: Reimagining The Franchise As An Intimate Grief‑Driven Horror Tale
- Other New Releases To Watch: 'Lee Cronin's The Mummy,' 'Exit 8,' 'Mother Mary,' 'Normal' And 'Beef Season 2'
What To Watch This Weekend
“Michael”
Jaafar Jackson, Colman Domingo; directed by Antoine Fuqua
Antoine Fuqua’s “Michael” traces the rise of a prodigy whose brilliance reshaped global pop culture, charting Michael Jackson’s evolution from a gifted child fronting the Jackson 5 to the most successful recording artist on the planet. The film moves with scale and reverence, delivering spectacle with precision — the Motown 25 moonwalk, the “Thriller” choreography, the early Jackson 5 numbers — each staged with a kinetic charge that captures the electricity of Jackson’s creative force.
At the center is Michael Jackson (Jaafar Jackson), whose embodiment of his uncle is so fluid and unforced that the performance often transcends the script around it. He captures the physicality, shyness, and flickers of vulnerability that defined Jackson’s public and private selves. Joe Jackson (Colman Domingo) and Katherine Jackson (Nia Long) provide the film’s emotional counterweights, though the script gives them limited room to deepen the family’s internal dynamics.
Spanning roughly 1966 to 1988, the film threads through familiar milestones — Motown, “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” — while acknowledging the physical and emotional toll of Joe Jackson’s punishing discipline. But it stops short of the turbulence that followed, avoiding the most contested and consequential chapter of Jackson’s life. The omission leaves the portrait conspicuously incomplete, a biopic unwilling to confront the material that continues to shape his legacy.
For all its limitations, “Michael” remains far from inert. The performances, the musical recreations, and Fuqua’s assured staging give the film undeniable charge. But the reverence becomes a limitation, resulting in a portrait that dazzles on the surface without fully illuminating the man behind the myth.
(Read our full review of “Michael.”)
“Fuze”
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw; directed by David Mackenzie
A bomb threat jolts Central London into paralysis in David Mackenzie’s “Fuze,” a high-concept thriller where the illusion of control clouds perception, where visibility obscures, and where the past collides with the present. Mackenzie leans into the grit of 1970s heist cinema, favoring restraint over spectacle and tension over noise, building a film that moves with clipped urgency — every glance, gesture, and breath calibrated to the ticking clock beneath the city.
At the center is Major Will Tranter (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a bomb-disposal specialist whose flinty intensity anchors the film’s procedural spine. In a nearby command center, Chief Superintendent Zuzana (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) manages the widening crisis with cool, unflappable authority. Meanwhile, Karalis (Theo James) and his crew exploit the chaos, tunneling toward a bank vault through an evacuated flat — a heist unfolding beneath the bomb operation above.
Mackenzie threads these parallel fronts with the same procedural rigor he brought to “Relay”: terse exchanges, functional compositions, and a Soderbergh-leaning edit rhythm that keeps the film in constant motion. The performances steady the narrative whenever its pulpier impulses wobble, grounding the film in human presence rather than spectacle.
But the precision only holds for so long. As the threads tighten, the film strains to knot every piece into place, leaning on familiar devices that blunt the meticulous control Mackenzie establishes early on. Ultimately, “Fuze” settles into a gripping heist thriller built on precision and propulsion, even as the strain in its clockwork construction makes the limits of its pulpier ambitions impossible to ignore.
“I Swear”
Robert Aramayo, Maxine Peake; directed by Kirk Jones
A quietly affecting portrait of a life shaped by involuntary motion, “I Swear” follows John Davidson (Robert Aramayo), the Scottish teenager whose severe Tourette syndrome made him an unlikely public figure in the late ’80s. Kirk Jones approaches the story with a steady, unfussy touch, letting the rhythms of John’s daily struggle — the tics, the outbursts, the exhaustion that trails behind them — speak for themselves.
Aramayo anchors the film with a performance that’s lived‑in rather than imitative, capturing the humor, frustration, and flickers of grace that define John’s world. Jones surrounds him with a textured sense of place: cramped classrooms, quiet Scottish streets, and the small domestic spaces where the family absorbs each new challenge.
The film doesn’t chase melodrama or uplift. Instead, it settles into something gentler — a character study about endurance, misunderstanding, and the fragile moments of connection that keep John moving forward. “I Swear” is modest in scale but resonant in feeling, a grounded look at a young man navigating a body that won’t stay still and a world that rarely knows how to meet him.
“Over Your Dead Body”
Jason Segel, Samara Weaving; directed by Jorma Taccone
A toxic marriage curdles into mayhem in Jorma Taccone’s “Over Your Dead Body,” a dark action‑comedy that follows Dan (Jason Segel) and Lisa (Samara Weaving) as they retreat to a remote cabin for what looks like a relationship reset. Each arrives with a secret plan to kill the other — a setup pulled directly from the Norwegian film “The Trip,” for which it's a remake.
Taccone leans into the film’s splatstick potential, letting the couple’s dueling murder plots unravel the moment three intruders crash the weekend, forcing Dan and Lisa into an uneasy alliance. The cast around them — including Timothy Olyphant, Juliette Lewis, and Paul Guilfoyle — adds bite and chaos as the story pivots from marital farce to full‑tilt survival comedy.
“Over Your Dead Body” plays like a marital meltdown pushed to operatic extremes — bloody, frantic, and unexpectedly playful, a cabin‑in‑the‑woods brawl where survival and reconciliation become the same fight.
“Running Point” — Season 2
Kate Hudson, Brenda Song; created by Mindy Kaling, Elaine Ko, David Stassen, Ike Barinholtz
“Running Point” picks up with the Los Angeles Waves still reeling from their Game 7 heartbreak and the chaos that closed out Season 1. Isla Gordon (Kate Hudson) steps back into her role as team president just as the franchise faces renewed scrutiny, a vacant head‑coach position, and the sudden reappearance of her eldest brother, Cam (Justin Theroux), who bribed his way out of rehab in the final seconds of last season .
Season 2 continues the show’s blend of workplace comedy, family dysfunction, and sports‑world absurdity, with Isla navigating power grabs, player drama, and the fallout of her complicated dynamic with coach Jay Brown. The Waves’ roster — including Marcus Winfield and Travis Bugg — adds its own on‑ and off‑court mayhem, while new arrivals like Ken Marino, Tommy Dewey, and Richa Moorjani expand the ensemble’s comedic range .
With 10 episodes dropping globally on Netflix, Season 2 promises another fast, funny, and chaotic chapter inside the Waves’ front office.
“Half Man”
Jamie Bell, Richard Gadd; created by Richard Gadd
Set across nearly four decades, HBO's drama series “Half Man” follows Ruben Pallister (Richard Gadd) and Niall Kennedy (Jamie Bell), two boys who grow up as stepbrothers in a small Scottish town and remain bound by a volatile, often destructive connection that shapes their entire lives. The six‑episode limited series opens with Ruben’s unexpected arrival at Niall’s wedding, a moment that triggers a plunge back through their shared history — from adolescence marked by bullying, violence, and uneasy loyalty to adulthood defined by unresolved trauma and shifting power.
The series traces how the boys’ intertwined identities harden over time, exploring family fractures, survival instincts, and the long shadow of childhood wounds. Directed by Alexandra Brodski and Eshref Reybrouck, the drama moves between past and present as it pieces together the emotional and psychological forces that shaped the men they became.