Macbeth, Monday Film 4, 11.10pm

It may not be the most shocking or visceral of Shakespeare’s tragedies but Macbeth is probably the most martial, and while Roman Polanski’s celebrated 1971 version favours the psychological aspects over the bloodthirstiness this 2015 adaptation by Australian director Justin Kurzel glories in the possibilities for gore and warfare that the play offers. From the super slow-motion opening scenes of a battle – think Game Of Thrones-meets-Gladiator – to its extended aftermath as Macbeth (Michael Fassbender) and Banquo (Paddy Considine) bury their dead and encounter the double-dealing witches on a wintry hillside, this is a film that unspools with its sword drawn and its teeth bared. Or, as Shakespeare would have it, with harness on its back. It’s also defiantly outdoorsy and elemental, with significant events taking place in wind-whipped tents and glorified barns rather than indoors within battlemented castle walls. Duncan’s murder, for instance, occurs not in a chamber but in a canvas pavilion set up in a muddy yard.

The casting is precise and all the more interesting for it. Fassbender, as handsome and borderline psychotic as always, plays Macbeth as a schemer who doesn’t spend too long anguishing over a course of action which will see him murder his way to the throne. David Thewlis gives King Duncan an imposing physical presence and a snarky twist: this is a man who rules by fear and violence, you sense, and through carefully judged displays of favour. He's a Mafia don in a rough wool robe, and far from the saintly figure presented in some productions of ‘the Scottish play’.

In a more curious piece of casting the role of Lady Macbeth is handed to Marion Cotillard. She has clearly decided that spouting Shakespeare and tackling a Scottish accent at the same time are too much for a native French speaker so has abandoned the second in favour of the first. As a consequence her lines are some of the clearest, though both Fassbender and Thewlis make a decent fist of the brogue. No such problem for David Hayman and Maurice Roëves, who play Lennox and Menteith respectively, and there’s also room in the cast for the always menacing Sean Harris (he plays Macduff, Macbeth’s nemesis) and Australian actress Elizabeth Debicki, seen more recently in The Night Manager. She plays the doomed Lady Macduff.

If all that violence, mud and masculinity-in-extremis shtick appeals to you, check out Kurzel’s latest film, True History Of The Kelly Gang, adapted from Peter Carey’s novel of the same name and starring Sunshine On Leith’s George MacKay as the titular bushranger.

Emma, Rakuten TV

Now streaming

Better known as a photographer of rock stars – make that entirely known as a photographer of rock stars: Emma is her debut feature – American director Autumn de Wilde brings that same sense of swagger, glamour and pizzazz to this pastel-hued adaptation of everyone’s third favourite Jane Austen novel. Barring the frocks, the carriages and the choreographed footmen it could almost be a remake of Clueless, Amy Heckerling’s cult 1995 film which updated the action to a Beverley Hills of pagers, keg parties, high school cliques and Calvin Klein dresses. Only in terms of setting, then, does de Wilde play it straight. Elsewhere she undercuts the mores and manners of the early 19th century with a knowingness that makes her film feel refreshingly modern.

Bill Nighy plays Bill Nighy playing Emma’s doting father Henry Woodhouse (you’ll know what I mean when you watch his typically laconic performance). Elsewhere Rupert Graves is Mr Weston, the always-excellent Gemma Whelan is Mrs Weston, and comedian Miranda Hart plays the comical Miss Bates.

Other than that it’s all about the youngsters. Anya Taylor-Joy is Emma, the girl whose haughty behaviour and match-making activities lead her into all sorts of trouble (and, naturally, a love affair). She’s joined by musician Johnny Flynn as her taciturn foil George Knightley, uber-cool Anglo-Brazilian model-turned actress Mia Goth as her friend Harriet Smith, and Gordonstoun-educated musician and actress Amber Anderson as social rival Jane Fairfax. The cast is rounded out by Sex Education pair Tanya Reynolds and Connor Swindells playing Augusta Elton and Robert Martin and, as Frank Churchill, Callum Turner from Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald. A more handsome cast it would be difficult to assemble, making this one of the best Austen adaptation to have hit the big screen in many a year.