HELL DRIVERS (1957, b/w)
BBC Two, 12.35pm
A largely unknown cast of future superstars features in Cy Endfield’s gripping road movie about masculinity and male bonding. Stanley Baker plays Yately, a troubled ex-con involved with a corrupt haulage firm that demands dangerously fast runs from its drivers. Yately eventually brings his bosses to book in a thrilling, high-speed chase through Italy. Look out for Sid James, Sean Connery, Patrick McGoohan and Herbert Lom among the support players. Baker and Endfield would later reunite to make Zulu. (108 min)
ENEMY OF THE STATE (1998)
BBC One, 9pm
Will Smith gives a knockout performance in Tony Scott’s shallow but visually impressive conspiracy thriller about the perils of high-tech snooping. Smith plays Robert Clayton Dean, a Washington lawyer who arouses unwelcome government interest after an incriminating tape comes into his possession. Only Gene Hackman’s rogue intelligence agent can save Dean from the forces of darkness. Hackman’s character is a direct homage to his surveillance expert in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 film The Conversation. (131 min)
SECRETS & LIES (1996)
Film4, 9pm
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Mike Leigh scored one of the biggest critical and commercial successes of his career with Secrets & Lies, which earned five Oscar nominations. Set in suburban London, Leigh’s bittersweet comedy centres on a fraught reunion between Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn) and the black daughter she gave away at birth (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a revelation that sends shock waves through family and friends. Blethyn’s absurdly mannered performance grates on the nerves. But Timothy Spall, Claire Rushbrook, Phyllis Logan and the remaining cast members bring Leigh’s bleakly comic worldview to life with dignity and compassion. (142 min)