Film choice

RUN LOLA RUN (1998)

Channel 4, 2.15am

Set in modern Berlin, Tom Twyker’s witty, intelligent, adrenalin-pumped thriller stars Franka Potente as a flame-haired punkette racing through the city to save her clueless boyfriend from tragedy. The action divides into three chapters, each starting from this same point before branching off towards wildly different dates with destiny. (81min)

MultiChannel

STAR WARS: EPISODE V — THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980)

Sky Movies 1, 8pm

The second chapter in the ever-expanding Star Wars saga is still widely considered the best. From the opening battle on the ice planet Hoth to the betrayal and capture of Han Solo (Harrison Ford), the director Irvin Kirshner’s all-action space adventure is full of dark twists and shock revelations. (124min)

SAHARA (2005)

Sky Movies 2, 8pm (HD2, 10pm)

Matthew McConaughey and Penélope Cruz star in this sub-Indiana Jones adventure about a team of explorers searching for an antique ship lost in the Sahara desert. Directed by Breck Eisner, the son of the Disney boss Michael Eisner, the result is clunky but undemanding popcorn for the eyes. (124min)

THE IPCRESS FILE (1965)

BBC Four, 8.45pm

One of the producers behind the 007 franchise brought the author Len Deighton’s dishevelled spy Harry Palmer to the screen as a kind of gritty, realist antidote to James Bond’s glamorous exploits. In one of his most iconic early roles, Michael Caine’s Palmer is a deadpan 1960s anti-hero tracking down traitors inside British intelligence. (109min)

Sunday 3

84 CHARING CROSS ROAD (1987)

Five, 3.30pm

This likeable and vaguely whimsical literary romance stars Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins as a real-life transatlantic duo who corresponded for 30 years without ever meeting. The rights to Helen Hanff’s rose-tinted memoir were bought for Bancroft as a birthday present by her husband, Mel Brooks. (100min)

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER (1994)

Channel 4, 9pm

Harrison Ford reprises his Patriot Games role as CIA agent Jack Ryan in Phillip Noyce’s efficient adaptation of the Tom Clancy bestseller about America’s dirty war against Latin American drug barons. Flanked by an excellent support cast, including James Earl Jones and Willem Dafoe, Ford fills the screen time between explosive set-pieces with dry humour and craggy charm. (136min)

KISS OF LIFE (2003)

BBC Two, 10pm

The British writer-director Emily Young’s atmospheric feature debut stars Peter Mullan as a UN relief worker rushing home from Bosnia when his wife is killed in a car accident — he is then watched over by her ghost. The production was over- shadowed by several real- life deaths, including Young’s father and the actor Katrin Cartlidge who was replaced by Ingeborga Dapkunaite at late notice. (100min)

ROB ROY (1995)

BBC One, 10.15pm

A starry cast including

Liam Neeson, John Hurt, Tim Roth, Jessica Lange and Brian Cox ham their way through this frilly- shirted tartan swashbuckler from the director Michael Caton-Jones, adapted from Sir Walter Scott’s novel about an 18th- century Scottish clan leader. Pure pantomime, but still miles better than Braveheart. (139min)

MultiChannel

DANCING AT LUGHNASA (1998)

More4, 10.10pm

Brian Friel’s award-winning transatlantic stage hit stumbles clumsily on to the big screen. Meryl Streep, Michael Gambon and Kathy Burke lead a large ensemble cast as members of the same eccentric family in 1930s Donegal. Alas, despite some obligatory picturesque landscape shots, the action feels flat and static. (96min)

FIGHT CLUB (1999)

FX, 11.10pm

In the hands of the director of Seven, David Fincher, Chuck Palahniuk’s novel about consumer rage and masculinity in crisis becomes an unusually thought-provoking thriller. Ed Norton stars as an insomniac insurance clerk who falls in with a charismatic anarchist (Brad Pitt) in this brutal but stylish joyride through millennial America. (139min)

Monday 4

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998)

Five, 9pm

A stirring salute to American heroism in the Second World War, Steven Spielberg’s heavy-handed but brilliant military epic manages to balance cynicism about battlefield glory with unqualified respect for the soldiers who earn it. In occupied France, a hard-bitten captain (Tom Hanks) and a unit of grudging dog soldiers set off to locate a missing paratrooper (Matt Damon) behind enemy lines. Opening with an intense and harrowing re-creation of the D-Day landings in Normandy, Spielberg’s sentimental blockbuster won five Oscars, including one for Janusz Kaminski’s grainy, colour-drained cinematography. (170min)

A NIGHT ON THE TOWN (1987)

BBC One, 11.05pm

Elisabeth Shue plays a Chicago babysitter who becomes entangled in a series of nocturnal scrapes in this feelgood debut feature by the future Harry Potter director Chris Columbus. Responding to a friend’s distress call, Shue’s hapless heroine sets off into the city with a young girl and her pimpled teenage brothers in tow. The thin story is full of strained Brat Pack humour, although the club scene starring the blues veteran Albert Collins is worth the wait. (102min)

MultiChannel

SMALL TIME CROOKS (2000)

Film4, 7.10pm

The first fruit of a short- lived deal between Woody Allen and the Hollywood studio DreamWorks, Small Time Crooks stars Allen and Tracey Ullman as blue-collar criminals whose botched bank-robbing scheme brings untold wealth through an unexpected, accidental sideline. But all their new money — surprise surprise — does not bring happiness. Co-starring Hugh Grant as a snobby English caricature, Allen’s featherlight feelgood farce lacks the bite and substance of his best work, but still contains smart one-liners and hilariously awful clothes. (94min)

Tuesday 5

THE BOURNE IDENTITY (2002)

ITV1, 9pm

An old-fashioned spy yarn given a 21st-century makeover, Doug Liman’s punchy European thriller stars Matt Damon as a fugitive CIA assassin suffering from amnesia after a botched mission. Based on the novel by the espionage writer Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity makes good use of its wintry locations and a strong international cast, including Franka Potente, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles and Clive Owen. Following on from The Bourne Supremacy in 2004, a final chapter in the trilogy is scheduled to start shooting early next year. (119min)

REMEMBER THE TITANS (2000)

BBC One, 11.05pm

Based on real events in early 1970s Virginia, Boaz Yoakin’s syrupy drama stars Denzel Washington as a black football coach who replaces his white counterpart (Will Patton) when their schools are integrated. This politically correct appointment causes friction not just between the coaches but also among their new team of racially mixed players. The producer Jerry Bruckheimer sanitised Gregory Allen Howard’s original screenplay, removing sex and drug references to secure a more family- friendly rating for Yoakin’s sledgehammer parable of racial tolerance. (113min)

TRUE BLUE (1996)

Channel 4, 2.30am

Based on real events, but with most of the names changed to avoid legal complications, Daniel Topolski’s book about the 1987 boat race between Oxford and Cambridge inspired this moderately gripping sports drama.

Played here by Johan Leysen, Topolski is the former Oxford coach who battled an American-led team mutiny before masterminding the dramatic showdown with Cambridge. Much like the book, the film is a shamelessly partisan affair, but with enough explosive egos and picturesque landscapes to interest even non-sports fans. (118min)

Wednesday 6

THE GOOD DIE YOUNG (1954, b/w)

Channel 4, 1.40pm

Lewis Gilbert’s superior crime thriller stars Laurence Harvey as a louche London gambler whose luck is about to run out. Recruiting a motley gang of down-at-heel prizefighters and former GIs, including Richard Basehart and Stanley Baker, Harvey’s desperate playboy plans an armed robbery to fund his lavish lifestyle. But there is no honour among thieves in Gilbert’s compelling heist drama. (88min)

MY SON THE FANATIC (1997)

BBC One, 11.45pm

Written by Hanif Kureishi, the director Udayan Prasad’s culture-clash drama becomes ever more topical as the years pass.

A Pakistani-born Bradford taxi driver, the easygoing Parvez (Om Puri), forges a touching relationship with a local prostitute, Bettina (Rachel Griffiths), while his alienated son Farid (Akbar Kurtha) becomes increasingly rigid in his hardline Islamic views. Kureishi and Prasad make some subtle and often very funny points about the need for mutual tolerance in an increasingly polarised world. (87min)

MultiChannel

THE GODFATHER: PART III (1990)

Film4, 9pm

The belated, bloated final chapter in Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy falls far short of its two predecessors. But there is still plenty to enjoy here, especially Al Pacino’s lyrical performance as a guilt-ridden Michael Corleone eking out his autumn years in Italian exile, and a dramatic set-piece in a grand opera house. Pacino’s co-stars include Diane Keaton, Andy Garcia and Coppola’s own daughter Sofia, now a successful director herself, who stepped into a role vacated by Winona Ryder. Before Coppola relented, Paramount tried for years to make a third instalment without his involvement, negotiating with everyone from Martin Scorsese to Sylvester Stallone. (162min)

Thursday 7

WRONG TURN (2003)

Channel 4, 10pm

Yet another teen slasher flick about a massacre of attractive young townies by backwoods rednecks, Wrong Turn is at least gracious enough to acknowledge John Boorman’s classic Deliverance at one point in the dialogue. Desmond Harrington and Eliza Dushku lead the cast as photogenic prey lost in the West Virginia badlands. The director Rob Schmidt presses all the right buttons, but brings little new to a tired genre. (84min)

DANGEROUS LIAISONS (1988)

BBC One, 11.20pm

Christopher Hampton’s stage smash, elegantly transformed into a triple Oscar winner by Stephen Frears (see interview, page 8), relishes the sadistic intrigue and sexual politics of the 18th-century French aristocracy. John Malkovich is magnificently sleazy as the serial seducer Vicomte de Valmont, while Glenn Close, Uma Thurman and Michelle Pfeiffer play the women in his destructive orbit. (119min)

MultiChannel

THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN’S APOCALYPSE (2005)

Film4, 9pm



The inhabitants of Royston Vasey escape into the real world to prevent their show being killed off in the convoluted feature-film spin-off from the much-loved television series. Much of the humour is more clever than funny, but overall this is a commendably ambitious and frequently inspired effort. (91min)

THE WILD BUNCH (1969)

BBC Four, 9.20pm

The legendary director Sam Peckinpah initially caused fierce controversy with this violent memorial to the brutal machismo of the Old West, although it is now regarded as a revisionist masterpiece and arguably his finest film. With revolution in Mexico looming, William Holden’s grizzled outlaw anti-hero leads his gang of middle- aged, weather-beaten bandits into one last fateful spree of bloody cross- border heists. (134min)

Friday 8

TWO RODE TOGETHER (1961)

BBC Two, 1.30pm

A lesser-known sister film to The Searchers, John Ford’s downbeat western is low on action but full of strong performances. James Stewart plays an unusually sour role as a mercenary marshal recruited by Richard Widmark’s hard-nosed army colonel to rescue white children abducted by Comanche tribes. A minor Ford work, Two Rode Together offers little room for redemption in a racially divided Old West. (109min)

ROAD HOUSE (1989)

BBC One, 11.35pm

Partly inspired by the real-life killing of a widely hated Missouri godfather, this guilty pleasure of a modern-day western stars Patrick Swayze as a philosophical nightclub bouncer with a Zen-like gift for defusing trouble. Hired to protect a good-natured backwater saloon from local mobsters, Swayze combines mullet and muscle while Ben Gazzara and Kelly Lynch smirk from the sidelines. (114min)

MultiChannel

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)

Film4, 11.10pm

Stanley Kubrick’s death in 1999 finally released his most notorious film from a quarter-century ban imposed by the director in his adopted homeland of Britain. Based on the cult novel by Anthony Burgess, it stars Malcolm McDowell as a diabolically charming juvenile gang leader running amok in near-future Britain. Kubrick’s prophetic sci-fi symphony is still chilling and powerful today. (137min)

A DECADE UNDER THE INFLUENCE (2003)

Film4, 1.45am

A love letter to 1970s Hollywood, Ted Demme’s final film is a shamelessly one-sided documentary celebrating the huge egos and creative freedoms that produced this short-lived golden age in intelligent, provocative auteur cinema. A selection of clips plus interviews with Martin Scorsese, Sidney Lumet, Robert Altman and others helps to hammer the point home. (138min)