TV tonight: the truth about one of Hollywood’s most puzzling scandals

The Man Who Definitely Didn’t Steal Hollywood

9pm, BBC Two
“One of the most enigmatic deals in Hollywood.” Insiders tell film-maker John Dower the scandalous story of Giancarlo Parretti, one that has all the makings of a juicy movie script. Parretti was a former waiter with a “murky past” who bought the MGM studios for $1.3bn in 1990 – but he couldn’t account for the mysterious money he handed over. He helps tell the full tale himself in a lively documentary. Hollie Richardson

Our Lives: The Lakes – Our Life on the Edge

7.30pm, BBC One
Passionate free solo climbers Anna and Mat take their relationship to new heights on a 100-mile climbing adventure in the Lakes with no safety gear. Apparently, this is the ultimate stress test for couples starting out. Sure, but have they ever navigated an Ikea car park on a bank holiday weekend? Ellen E Jones

Dispatches: Vinted’s Dirty Laundry

7.30pm, Channel 4
It seems that most of us have earned a few quid by reselling our unwanted clothes on the Vinted app – while purchasing a few bargains along the way. But is the eco-idea too good to be true? Journalist Ellie Flynn investigates a potential murky side. HR

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol

9pm, Sky Max
This Walking Dead offshoot set in France has proved it has legs: a third season has already been confirmed. As this one continues, grubby biker Daryl and capable nun Isabelle are on a rescue mission, while Daryl’s longstanding BFF Carol – now on the right continent at least – continues her search. Graeme Virtue

The Cleaner

9.30pm, BBC One
This breezy sitcom continues with Greg Davies’s crime-scene cleaner Wicky once again finding himself up to his elbows in blood and awkwardness. He’s sent to a community centre running events for elderly people, and finds a hotbed of rivalry, rancour and excruciating communal singing. Phil Harrison

The Graham Norton Show

10.40pm, BBC One
Coming soon: Amy Adams playing a woman who turns into a dog in Nightbitch; Bruce Springsteen in a documentary about his life; and Vanessa Williams on stage as fashion editor Miranda Priestly in a Devil Wears Prada musical. They tell more about their exciting projects on Graham’s sofa. HR

Film choice

Woman of the Hour (Anna Kendrick, 2024), Netflix
Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut is not, as you might expect from her past roles, a bubbly musical or romantic comedy. It’s a deadly serious fact-based tale about a serial killer in the US in the 1970s, which is careful to give his female victims equal billing. Kendrick plays Cheryl, an aspiring actor who is hired for TV show The Dating Game – the same episode on which, bizarrely, multiple murderer Rodney Alcala (an alternately charming and creepy Daniel Zovatto) has been picked as one of the eligible bachelors. Skilfully woven into that are the stories of other women who crossed Alcala’s path between 1971 and 1979, in a tense, chilling tale of personal tragedy and damning police failure. Simon Wardell

The Radleys (Euros Lyn, 2024) 12.30pm/8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
A Whitby family’s dull life is thrown out of joint when the daughter fatally bites a would-be rapist. It turns out they are all vampires, albeit abstaining ones. Damian Lewis plays the father, whose pleasure-seeking twin brother (Lewis again) turns up to sort out the mess only to inspire the others, including his sister-in-law, played by Kelly Macdonald, to succumb to their addictive natures. Euros Lyn’s kitchen-sink horror juggles coming-outs and coming-of-ages amid all the blood-letting. SW

Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999), 11.05pm, Film4
Adapted from Chuck Palahniuk’s zeitgeisty 1996 novel, David Fincher’s film is a wrecking ball of misdirected masculinity. Edward Norton plays an insomniac office worker who finds a release from his frustrating existence when he meets soap salesman Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). He and the devil-may-care Durden set up an underground club where other dissatisfied white-collar men can punch one another – a display of raw physicality that gets warped into rage against consumer culture. Exhilarating stuff, packed with provocation and – if you’ve managed to avoid them thus far – a couple of cracking twists. SW

Beat Girl (Edmond T Gréville, 1960), Friday, 3.10am, Talking Pictures TV
This quaint 1960 British attempt to hang on to James Dean and Marlon Brando’s teen rebel coat-tails is most notable for being John Barry’s first movie soundtrack. His rock’n’roll tunes (including a song entitled It’s Legal) percolate through a film in which 16-year-old Jennifer (Gillian Hills) antagonises her “square” architect father (David Farrar) and his new French wife (Noëlle Adam) by hanging out in coffee bars with kids who say “cat” and “daddio” a lot. Proper peril comes in the form of Christopher Lee’s slimy strip club owner. SW

Live sport

Premiership rugby union: Northampton Saints v Sale Sharks 7pm, TNT Sports 1. At Franklin’s Gardens.