Watch: “A Man on the Inside,” on Netflix. Now in its second season, this frothy and clever comedy stars Ted Danson as a grandpa pulled out of retirement to work as a private detective. The series is based on a Chilean documentary about an octogenarian sleuth at an elder care facility, but takes a surprising twist as Danson’s character infiltrates a college campus to solve a crime. Danson’s real-life wife Mary Steenburgen plays his on-screen love interest, and legendary actor David Strathairn serves up a stern – and suspicious – literature professor. With episode lengths of 30 minutes, it’s easily bingeable on a winter weekend. – Tony
Watch: “Sentimental Value.” Danish-Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier’s follow-up to “Worst Person in the World” is also a triumph. Less of a character examination and more of a family drama, the film follows a charming, older filmmaker who wishes to cast his theatre-acting adult daughter in his new film. There’s just one problem: The father hasn’t been a part of his daughter’s life for decades. It’s a beautiful movie, examining father-daughter relationships, and the extent to which our parents understand us – even if they haven’t been around. – Zac
Watch: “The Apartment” (1960), starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine (still sipping cocktails in Malibu at 91), is the perfect holiday movie for people who don’t actually like holiday movies. A lonely office worker lends his apartment to philandering executives — until he falls for the elevator operator caught in the mix. Plus there’s the iconic scene of Lemmon using a tennis racket as a strainer. – Alex G
Experience: the invasion. In 1938, the great American actor and director Orson Welles adapted the H.G. Wells story “The War of the Worlds” for his weekly radio broadcast. Framed as a series of news bulletins and updates about an invasion of machine-mounted aliens slaughtering thousands with heat rays and poison gas, the broadcast famously caused hysteria among listeners who didn’t know it was staged. Or did it? Part of that hysteria was evidently exaggerated the next day by newspapers, which were keen to paint the new, competing medium of “radio” as unreliable and dangerous. Either way, come for the brilliance of Welles, stay for the end of the world. – Alex K
