Essential lockdown viewing, Part 1: DEEPWATER HORIZON. An incredibly visceral true story of heroism in adversity, and ordinary people paying the price for the ignorance, incompetence and wilful, profit-driven arrogance of corporate lackeys in positions of power.

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 2: OUR FRIENDS IN THE NORTH. One of the most moving, ambitious and powerful TV series ever made, a devastating indictment by Peter Flannery of lies, greed and corruption in British public life - and still sadly relevant 24 years after broadcast.

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 3: PRESS. Smart, witty, compulsive - and a necessary reminder from Mike Bartlett that good journalism matters. Like Aaron Sorkin's 'The Newsroom', the kind of politically-engaged primetime TV we really need right now - @BBCOneDrama please note.

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 4: V FOR VENDETTA. Classic graphic novel. Iconic Guy Fawkes mask. Ambitious, angry story of repression and resistance with an urgent, relevant point: people should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people.

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 5: JAWS. Unseen menace - first death. Unheeded warning - second death. Beaches closed, economic hardship, scientist ignored, beaches reopened - third and fourth deaths. Bigger boat needed. You'd never know it was 45 years old.

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 6: BREXIT - THE UNCIVIL WAR. "This story still continues" says the final caption in
@mrJamesGraham's astute and sobering EU referendum drama. I didn't know much about Dominic Cummings before watching it. Now I do. Now we all do. God help us.

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 7: ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN. Watergate: two tenacious journalists pursue a simple story about some guys being caught in the wrong place and uncover a web of wrongdoing which brings down the government. We can only hope. @PippaCrerar @matthew_weaver

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 8: ERIN BROCKOVICH. Two decades old and hasn't dated a day. The perfect mix of humanity, humour, Hollywood craft and real-life grit, about one woman taking a stand and making a difference against profit-driven lies and negligence. @ErinBrockovich

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 9: GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK. Free speech is precious, and this film reminds us why. Its subject, CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow, said of Senator McCarthy 66 years ago: “No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.”

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 10: #TheSalisburyPoisonings. A public health emergency. A Russian attack in the heart of Britain. @DecLawn & Adam Patterson's superb script couldn't be more timely. Tautly directed and brilliantly acted it's right up there with 'Edge of Darkness'.

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 11: #Chernobyl. The awards and reviews say it all: an absolute must-see. There's only one other thing to say, and say again, and keep saying: "Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid." @JaredHarris @clmazin

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 12: A VERY BRITISH COUP. Ray McAnally on towering form as @chrismullinexmp's fictional Labour PM. "Perkins Saved By Kremlin Gold" may carry an irony now, but as the Tories plunder and divide the UK, boy do we need Harry's pugnacity and integrity.

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 13: SECRET STATE. A Very British Coup remade with the star of Defence of the Realm - a treat for political thriller fans. Cameron-era gloss replaces Thatcher-era grit, but the core of @chrismullinexmp's novel remains: can a man of integrity be PM?

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 14: PADDINGTON. A hymn to kindness and tolerance wrapped up in a family movie, Paddington is sheer perfection. But if he arrived in the UK of Priti Patel, fleeing natural disaster and personal tragedy, he would probably be deported back to Peru.

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 15: THE POLITICIAN'S WIFE. Line after line resonates in Paula Milne's punchy 3-parter, made when Tory MPs could still be brought down by sleaze - Juliet Stevenson as compellingly calculating as Claire Underwood in @BeauWillimon's House of Cards.

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 16: @trialofchicago7. A dramatic scene hinging on dangling modifiers? It must be an Aaron Sorkin film. But words matter - to accuse or defend, to incite or inspire, to reveal truth or conceal it - and few use them better than #TheWestWing creator.

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 17: THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT. Free speech, climate change, gun control, GOP populism: Aaron Sorkin's pre-West Wing rom-com, smartly directed by @robreiner, looks bang up-to-date - though its Rumsfeld-like antagonist is less scary than later Donalds.

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 18: MISBEHAVIOUR. Ejected from cinemas by Covid, this deserves a big small screen audience. Set at a time when women's lib was still a "minority" view, it's an entertaining but enlightening reminder that today's "woke" is tomorrow's basic decency.

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 19: MotherFatherSon. There's a moment in Tom Rob Smith's dissection of the uses and abuses of power where the British PM signs an Emergency Powers bill - one of many scenes which hit even harder now than when this first landed like a fist in 2019.

Essential lockdown viewing, Part 20: DARK WATERS. There’s a lot of lonely quests for truth in this thread. Here’s another one, from @NathanielRich's article on @RobertBilott, "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare". Spotlight meets A Civil Action: a gut-punch of a movie.