* A Streetcar Named Desire: Channel 4, Saturday, May 20, 11.35pm. This celebrated 1951 film version of Tennessee Williams’s play, exploring the sexual and social tensions of a family in the heat of New Orleans, stars Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh. Williams himself adapted the screenplay and the film’s director, Elia Kazan, had directed the original 1947 stage production, which also starred Marlon Brando.

* Plunder: Channel 4, Sunday, May 21, 8pm. The museums of Europe are crammed with the archaeological heritage of classical civilisations. How these cultural trophies were obtained, often by force or deception, is the subject of this three-part documentary series. The first episode looks at how a German classicist in 1912 tricked his way into taking one of Egypt’s most precious historical possessions, a bust of Nefertiti, out of the country, to be put on show in Berlin, where it has remained ever since. The programme also considers how the fashion in Europe in the 1920s for ancient Egyptian style helped to fuel the cultural looting.

* The Century of Cinema: Channel 4, Sunday, May 21, 8.30pm. Channel 4 enters the celebrations for cinema’s 100th birthday with a three-part documentary in which director Martin Scorsese talks through the films that he believes most significant to the development of cinema. As well as clips within the documentary, Channel 4 will also be screening some of Scorsese’s favourite films, plus a selection of his own.

* Timewatch The Mother of All Battles: BBC2, Wednesday, May 24, 7pm. The longest armoured battle in history is recounted in this history documentary series. Over a third of a million soldiers died at the Battle of Kursk, in which Stalin’s Red Army beat back a huge Nazi tank offensive. The battle is recalled by veterans from both armies.