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)
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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)
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MultiChannel
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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)
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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)