Five things to watch this weekend

Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me — Netflix

In the 1990s blonde bombshell Anna Nicole Smith was a globally recognised sex symbol, the next Marilyn Monroe, but by the early 2000s she had become a figure of ridicule and the star of a trashy reality car-crash TV series, before she died in 2007 at the age of 39. Using never before seen archive footage and behind the scenes personal interviews with Smith and those who knew her, director Ursula Macfarlane’s documentary offers new insight into the Playboy model and actress’ private life and pressures to paint an intimate and sympathetic portrait of a woman who was far smarter than she was given credit for and more troubled than many around her knew.

Air — Prime Video

In the 1980s Nike was the ugly stepsister of shoe companies fighting the basketball wars for sponsorship deals with new talent arriving in theUS's National Basketball Association. These days things are different but as this solidly executed business drama reminds us, they weren’t always so easy for Phil Knight and the company he founded in Beaverton, Oregon.

Directed by Ben Affleck and reteaming him with childhood friend Matt Damon, who plays Nike’s basketball division head Sonny Vaccaro, it’s the story of a crazy idea that would change the world of sports sponsorships and the athletic shoe industry. That’s because Vaccaro became convinced that the way for his division and the company to survive was to bet everything on securing an endorsement with a young rookie named Michael Jordan who he believed would become an American sports legend.

The rest is history but as the film ably demonstrates, it could so easily have been different if it weren’t for Vaccaro’s stubborn determination and the wise foresight of Jordan’s mother, Deloris (Viola Davis), who helped to twist her son’s arm in the right direction.

High Desert — Apple TV+

Patricia Arquette blazes her way through this dark comedy series and demonstrates serious talent for physical comedy in the role of Peggy, a middle-aged, recovering drug addict who, after the death of her beloved mother, decides to embark on a surprising new career path as a small-town private investigator in the desert village of Yucca Valley, California. It’s an enjoyable “shaggy detective” tale that benefits from Arquette’s strong performance and an able supporting cast that includes the always chuckle inducing hangdog antics of Brad Garrett.

Gaslit — Showmax

Julia Roberts and Sean Penn star in this energetic, darkly comic and often disturbing retelling of the dark tale of one of the Watergate scandal’s lesser-known casualties — Martha Mitchell, wife of Nixon’s attorney-general John Mitchell. Though Martha was one of the first people to publicly claim that the former US president had indeed known what was being done by his henchman, she was laughed at and dismissed as insane by everyone from the media to her own gaslighting husband.

It offers a strong corrective to the injustices suffered by Mitchell and places her story within the broader context of the wide-ranging social and political consequences that the Watergate scandal would have for America in subsequent decades — leading to paranoid antigovernment conspiracies and mistrust the ultimate results of which can be seen in the chaos enveloping the country. Episodes stream weekly from Monday May 22.

Breaking — Apple TV+

John Boyega delivers an emotionally charged and compelling performance in this modern take on Dog Day Afternoon, inspired by a true story. Boyega plays US Marine veteran Brian Brown-Easley who finds himself in desperate financial straits and without the support promised by his local Veteran Affairs branch. With his back against the wall and no other options available, Brown-Easley takes a bank and several of its employees hostage and in his interactions with the police, reveals the deeper structural inequalities of a system that’s designed to ensure that people like him receive little or no support in spite of the sacrifices they’ve made for their country.