BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID
(1969)
Five, 3.25pm
Warren Beatty, Steve McQueen and Jack Lemmon declined the roles, while Marlon Brando and Dustin Hoffman were seriously considered. But Robert Redford and Paul Newman finally signed up to play the real-life bank robbers in George Roy Hill’s romanticised western adventure. It earned four Oscars in total, including one for William Goldman’s screenplay and another for the Hal David and Burt Bacharach song Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head, which provides a memorable interlude. (110 min)
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BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S
(1961)
Channel 4, 3.30pm
Audrey Hepburn’s urban sophisticate Holly Golightly is now seen as her signature role, and indeed, no film better utilises her winsome beauty and dizzy charm. Directed by Blake Edwards, Breakfast at Tiffany’s is actually a far more coy affair than Truman Capote’s gossipy book about a Manhattan princess who maintains her lavish lifestyle by doing vaguely defined favours for male clients. But it remains a much-loved rom-com classic. (115 min)
MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
(1974)
Channel 4, 5.35pm
A glossy Agatha Christie adaptation directed by Sidney Lumet, Murder on the Orient Express combines sumptuous production values with a cast of international superstars. Albert Finney plays the detective Hercule Poirot with a hefty dash of deadpan humour, while the likes of Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Lauren Bacall and an Oscar-winning Ingrid Bergman do their party pieces in luxurious train carriages borrowed from the real Orient Express. (128 min)
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HOPE SPRINGS
(2003)
Sky Movies 1, 8pm
Based on a novel by Charles Webb, the author of The Graduate, Mark Herman’s light romantic comedy tangles Colin Firth, Heather Graham and Minnie Driver in a lively love triangle. Firth plays Colin Ware, a heartbroken artist who flees London for picture-postcard Vermont after being dumped by his fiancée (Driver). Graham’s seductress offers ample compensation, but Colin is torn when his former lover changes her mind. Sweet but slight, Hope Springs is pure escapist fun. (92 min)
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THE ICE STORM
(1997)
BBC Two, 10.30pm
Based on Rick Moody’s 1994 novel, Ang Lee’s tale of wife-swapping and parental neglect in swinging suburbia is a classy and engrosiing ensemble drama set in Nixon-era America. Kevin Kline’s unfaithful husband is trapped in a chilly affair with his neighbour (Sigourney Weaver), driving his embittered wife (Joan Allen) to breakdown. Elijah Wood, Tobey Maguire and Christina Ricci play the children caught in the repressed emotional crossfire. (112 min)
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NEXT STOP WONDERLAND
(1998)
Channel 4, 2.50am
A familiar but absorbing tale of frustrated lovers set in Boston, Next Stop Wonderland made a big splash at the Sundance Film Festival for its novice writer and director Brad Anderson. Hope Davis plays the ever-hopeful heroine, a lonely nurse trapped on a treadmill of depressing dates with unsuitable suitors. Romance finally blossoms with a humble plumber and would-be marine biologist (Alan Gelfant). But the path of true love, of course, is never smooth. (104 min)