TV films guide

CLIFFHANGER (1993)

ITV1, 10.25pm

See Behind the Screen.

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)

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)

SUNDAY

THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST (1988)

ITV1, 1.45pm

William Hurt stars as Macon Leary, an emotionally withdrawn travel writer struggling to deal with family tragedy and imminent divorce. After buying a dog for companionship, Leary is coaxed out of his shell by an eccentric animal trainer (Geena Davis, who won a best supporting actress Oscar for her role). Co-starring Bill Pullman and Kathleen Turner, Lawrence Kasdan’s heartwarming snapshot of small-town America is a likeably quirky shaggy-dog story. (121min)

BIG FISH (2003)

Sky Movies 2, 8pm

In between his disastrous Planet of the Apes update and the imminent Charlie and the Chocolate Factory remake, Tim Burton redeemed his reputation with this colourful fairytale. Albert Finney stars as Ed Bloom, an ailing Deep South patriarch squaring up for a reconciliation with his estranged son (Billy Crudup). Burton’s fantastical style is far more suited to the flashback scenes from Ed’s youth, with Ewan McGregor doing an uncanny impression of the young Finney. (125min)

OUT OF AFRICA (1985)

ITV Three, 9.20pm

Set in Kenya after the First World War, Sydney Pollack’s multiple Oscar-winning biography of the Danish author Karen Blixen is lavish, picturesque and far too long. The listless Baroness Blixen (Meryl Streep) is unhappily married to the boorish Bror (Klaus Maria Brandauer) but yearning for illicit love in the arms of a British adventurer (Robert Redford). Streep hones the accent to perfection, Redford does not even bother, and Pollack piles on the tourist-brochure scenery. (150min)

FROM HELL (2001)

Channel 4, 10pm

The story of Jack the Ripper has inspired many lurid films, but From Hell adds deluxe gloss and modern-day conspiracy theories to the usual Gothic shock tactics. Working from the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, the American directing duo of Albert and Allen Hughes conjure up a compellingly creepy vision of a mist- shrouded Victorian London. Johnny Depp stars as the opium-addicted detective tracking the Ripper, ably supported by Robbie Coltrane and Heather Graham. (122min)

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HART’S WAR (2002)

Five, 9pm

Bruce Willis and Colin Farrell play battling prisoners of war. (125min)

BEVERLY HILLS COP 2 (1987)

BBC One, 11.05pm; N. I., 11.25pm

Glossy, brash and enjoyable no-brainer sequel. (100min)

MONDAY

THREE KINGS (1999)

Five, 9pm

Set during the first Gulf War, this cynical black comedy from David O. Russell has become topical again in the light of recent events in Iraq. George Clooney plays a rogue Sergeant Major leading a motley trio of soldiers (Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube and Spike Jonze) into the Iraqi desert in search of looted Kuwaiti gold. Firing its satirical ammunition at multiple targets, Three Kings is a powerful and stylish work, even though Russell and Clooney reportedly fought on set. (114min)

ALSO SHOWING

ED WOOD (1994, b/w)

Sky Movies 2, 8pm

Tim Burton’s handsome love letter to low-budget 1950s cinema. (127min)

TUESDAY

INFERNAL AFFAIRS (2002)

FilmFour, 10.15pm

The opening chapter in a hugely successful Hong Kong gangster trilogy, Infernal Affairs is a complex and visually ravishing thriller. Tony Leung stars as a police officer who goes under cover to infiltrate a Triad gang, while Andy Lau plays his opposite number, an underworld sleeper agent inside the police ranks. Andrew Lau and Alan Mak shoot Hong Kong in Gothic shadows and saturated colours, aided by Wong Kar Wei’s cinematographer, Chris Doyle. The sequel can be seen on Wednesday at 10pm. (101min)

WINTER KILLS (1979)

BBC Two, 12.20am

William Richert’s cult comic thriller is based on a thinly veiled version of JFK’s assassination and its aftermath. Adapted from a novel by Richard Condon, who also wrote The Manchurian Candidate, Richert’s dark farce stars Jeff Bridges as the dysfunctional youngest son of a Kennedy-style political dynasty and John Huston as his lecherous, Machiavellian father. Containing more spoof conspiracy theories than a dozen Oliver Stone films, Winter Kills co-stars Anthony Perkins and, in a brief cameo, Elizabeth Taylor. (96min)

ALSO SHOWING

SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES (1980)

Five, 3.40pm

Hit-and-miss marital comedy scripted by Neil Simon. (100min)

WEDNESDAY

DOG SOLDIERS (2002)

Five, 10pm

A flawed gem of a British film, Neil Marshall’s darkly comic thriller has all the makings of a cultish pulp-horror classic. While on manoeuvres in the Scottish Highlands, a British Army platoon stumbles across several mutilated bodies. The soldiers (led by Sean Pertwee) must then brace themselves for a fight to the death with an unexpected enemy — a deadly gang of werewolves. Despite his obvious budget limitations, Marshall directs with energy and ingenuity. (105min).

THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT (1951, b/w)

Channel 4, 1.40pm

A droll cocktail of science fiction and social satire from the golden age of Ealing Studios, Alexander Mackendrick’s comic fantasy stars Alec Guinness as a research chemist in a Midlands textile factory. When Sidney Stratton (Guinness) creates an indestructible new fabric that never wears out and never gets dirty, bosses and workers alike sense a threat to their power and gang up against him. Co-starring Joan Greenwood and Cecil Parker, The Man in the White Suit combines classic Ealing whimsy with acidic comment on Britain’s postwar status quo. (85min)

ALSO SHOWING

ANNIE HALL (1977)

TCM, 9pm

Woody Allen in his playful, Oscar- winning prime. (93min)

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BED

Sky Cinema 1, 8pm

Colourful Spanish comedy about love, sex and infidelity in Madrid. (114min)

THURSDAY

THE MAGGIE (1954, b/w)

Channel 4, 1.30pm

Alexander Mackendrick directed some splendidly dark comedies (see above), but The Maggie is a far more soothing slice of Caledonian whimsy scripted by William Rose. Alex Mackenzie stars as the wily captain of a ramshackle Clyde steamer who cons a penny-pinching American tycoon (Paul Douglas) into entrusting his furniture delivery to his creaky old vessel. Like a slighter version of Whisky Galore, this picturesque trifle combines an affable cast with sublime scenery. (92min)

ALSO SHOWING

GILDA (1946, b/w)

Sky Cinema 1, 7.30pm

Rita Hayworth smoulders as cinema’s most notorious femme fatale. (110 min)

FRIDAY

JANE EYRE (1944, b/w)

Channel 4, 1.30pm

This early screen adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s romantic costume drama is stylishly directed by Robert Stevenson. Joan Fontaine (above) plays the heroine, an emotionally scarred orphan who becomes a governess and falls for her ill-tempered employer, Rochester (Orson Welles). Featuring Elizabeth Taylor in one of her earliest roles, Jane Eyre is a classic afternoon weepie. (97min)

ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES/ GOODFELLAS (1938, b/w/1990)

TCM, 7.10pm/10pm

Made half a century apart, this double bill of gangster classics kicks off TCM’s Crime Wave season of hard-boiled cautionary tales. Directed by Michael Curtiz, Angels With Dirty Faces features Jimmy Cagney on incendiary form as a hoodlum who finds unlikely redemption on death row. Meanwhile, Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas is a magnificent, operatic tale about life inside the New York Mafia. (97min/142min)

MAGNUM FORCE (1973)

Five, 10pm

The second and best Dirty Harry adventure is an enjoyably overcooked right-wing fantasy from the fevered imagination of the screenwriter John Milius. Clint Eastwood’s cannon-toting San Francisco cop Harry Callahan continues to pursue vigilantes, hippies, hijackers, corrupt officials and liberals on both sides of the law. Milius seems to harbour a sneaking admiration for the illegal police assassination squad who are wiping out the city’s crime barons. But ultimately, of course, Harry must teach these upstarts a few harsh lessons in discipline. (124min)

BATMAN RETURNS (1992)

Channel 4, 11.35pm

Long before Batman Begins steeped the dysfunctional crime-fighter in pain and neurosis, Tim Burton performed a similar psychological makeover in Batman Returns. In Burton’s second Batman film, the caped crusader (Michael Keaton) becomes entangled in a love-hate triangle with Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) and the Penguin (Danny DeVito). As ever, Burton sprinkles a dash of dark Expressionism into the comic-book mix. (126min)

ALSO SHOWING

CURTAIN CALL (1999)

Five, 3.35pm

Michael Caine and Maggie Smith play bickering Broadway ghosts. (95min)