SPARTACUS (1960)
ITV1, 3.10pm
Stanley Kubrick took over from Anthony Mann to direct Kirk Douglas as the rebellious slave leader who challenges the tyranny of Ancient Rome in Spartacus. The action is gripping, the script intelligent and the cast packed with stars, including Laurence Olivier and an Oscar-winning Peter Ustinov. But Kubrick hated the film’s moralising, and never worked as a hired hand again. (177min)
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THE GREEN MILE (1999)
Channel 4, 10pm
After his huge success with The Shawshank Redemption five years earlier, Frank Darabont directed another Stephen King-written period jail drama. Ponderous but moderately engrossing, The Green Mile stars Tom Hanks as a sick prison warder in 1930s Louisiana who is healed by a mystically gifted death row inmate, played by Michael Clarke Duncan. (188min)
MultiChannel
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LADIES IN LAVENDER (2004)
Sky Movies 2, 8pm
Dames Maggie Smith and Judi Dench play spinster sisters entangled in a romantic mystery in this slight, elegant debut feature from the actor-turned-director Charles Dance. (103min)