What to watch in UAE cinemas and on OTT this weekend: Toxic, Harry Potter and more

This weekend is doing entirely too much. It's the kind of weekend that makes your watchlist look like a hostage note, five different genres, three different continents' worth of trauma, and a cartoon with a legal grudge twenty-five years in the making. Grab the popcorn, block out the weekend, here's what actually deserves your remote and your ticket money.

1) Dark Matter Season 2 - Apple TV

Two years after Jason Dessen escaped his own multiverse of doppelgängers and dragged his family into a parallel world, Apple's sci-fi crown jewel is back, and this time author Blake Crouch has thrown away the book. Literally. Season 1 was a faithful adaptation of his bestselling novel; Season 2 is an original sequel he's written just for the show, following the Dessens as their fragile "quiet life" collapses under the weight of Jason's obsession with the Box and Daniela's fraying nerves, while Amanda and Ryan fight to get home and Leighton chases his vision of a perfect world with Blair on his tail. Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly anchor an ensemble that's clearly not interested in coasting on Season 1's goodwill.

2) The Whisper Man- Netflix

A nursery rhyme about a serial killer is never a good sign for anyone's sleep schedule. Adam Scott plays a widowed crime writer who relocates to a small town for a fresh start, only to have his eight-year-old son abducted in a case that eerily echoes an old string of child murders. He turns to his estranged father, a retired detective played by Robert De Niro, for help, and Michael Keaton shows up as the original Whisper Man himself. Directed by James Ashcroft, whose last film (The Rule of Jenny Pen) proved he has zero interest in letting audiences feel safe, and produced by the Russo brothers. This is dread with a pedigree.

Movies to watch

1) The Dog Stars

Ridley Scott adapting a post-apocalyptic novel sounds almost too on-brand at this point, but The Dog Stars trades armies and empires for something smaller and stranger: one pilot, one dog, one deeply paranoid ex-Marine roommate, and a homestead they've built to survive a flu that wiped out most of the planet. Jacob Elordi's Hig spends his days flying reconnaissance loops and mourning everything he's lost, until a mysterious radio signal cracks open the possibility that there's still something worth finding out there. Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley and Guy Pearce round out a cast built for exactly this kind of bleak-but-beautiful survival story.

2) Toxic

Kannada superstar Yash pulling double duty as star and co-writer, director Geetu Mohandas building an entire post-independence Goa out of sun, salt and organised crime, and a reported budget that makes it one of the most expensive Indian films ever produced. Toxic follows a gangster wrestling with loyalty, morality and the very expensive cost of redemption, backed by Kiara Advani, Nayanthara, Huma Qureshi and Tara Sutaria.

3) Coyote vs Acme

The film Warner Bros. tried to erase for a tax write-off, rescued by public outrage and an indie distributor with either extremely good instincts or a very expensive sense of justice, either way, it's finally in cinemas. After a lifetime of exploding, flattening and generally being betrayed by faulty products, Wile E. Coyote does the only sensible thing left: He sues ACME. Will Forte plays the lawyer who takes the case, John Cena plays the opposition, and the whole thing unfolds in a live-action/animation hybrid that's clearly borrowing Who Framed Roger Rabbit's homework. A cartoon character suing a corporation is either the most unhinged pitch of the year or the most accurate depiction of consumer rights we're going to get. Possibly both.

4) Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone

25 years of Harry Potter is reason enough to celebrate. Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone is currently out in UAE cinemas. Relive the magic with Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson, before the new HBO series releases in December.