HOMBRE (1967)
Channel 4, 7.10pm
Featuring one of the earliest screen credits for Elmore Leonard, who wrote the original novel, Hombre is a revisionist western that uses the oppression of Native Americans as a veiled commentary on a 1960s America torn apart by civil rights and Vietnam War protests. Paul Newman stars as a white man raised by Apaches who comes up against ruthless bandits and racial intolerance after moving from the mountains to the city. Newman gives a muted performance and Martin Ritt ‘s direction is listless, but Leonard’s terse one-liners still shine. (111min)
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING (2003)
Sky Movies 1, 8pm
The mighty climax to Peter Jackson’s Tolkien trilogy surpasses its two predecessors in scale and spectacle. The Return of the King crams as much authentic plot detail as possible into more than three hours of grand battles and myth-making as Frodo (Elijah Wood), Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and thousands more battle to rid Middle-earth of evil. An epic banquet for the senses, if not the brain. (201min)
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CLIFFHANGER (1993)
ITV1, 10.25pm
See Behind the Screen.
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THE DEEP END (2001)
Five, 11.10pm
Tilda Swinton stars as a cool-headed Nevada mother coping stoically with an apparent murder, a very real blackmail threat, an absent husband and her teenage son’s newly revealed homosexuality in this excellent modern- day film noir. The directors, Scott McGehee and David Siegel, based their crisply shot thriller on Elisabeth Sanxay Holding’s novel The Blank Wall, which was first filmed by Max Ophüls as The Reckless Moment in 1949. But Siegel and McGehee have added all kinds of twists and gender reversals, giving Swinton one of her finest roles to date. (100min)
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ALSO SHOWING
101 REYKJAVIK (2000)
BBC Four, 9.05pm
A sharply observed rites-of-passage comedy from Iceland. (100min)
THE EAGLE HAS LANDED (1976)
ITV1, 12.50am
Nazis invade small-town England in this all-star wartime yarn. (135min)