Film Planner Big movies on the small screen

The Secret Life of Pets (2016) 6.35pm RTÉ One

The animation team behind the Despicable Me franchise hit another home-run with this high concept yarn. The story follows the fortunes of a quiet terrier (voiced by Louis CK) whose position of top dog in the household is threatened by the arrival of a stray.

Glassland (2014) 9.45pm TG4

Gerard Barrett’s fine drama stars Jack Reynor as a Dublin taxi driver coming to terms with his own solitude and lack of opportunity, while coping with the problems of caring for an alcoholic mother ( Toni Collette), and the imminent emigration of his best pal ( Will Poulter).

Begin Again (2013) 12.15am RTÉ One

In John Carney’s paean to the New York music scene, Mark Ruffalo plays a record exec who has grown disillusioned with the business until a chance visit to an East Village pub puts him in contact with reluctant singer Keira Knightley. Think Once, but with a Manhattan flavour.

Goosebumps (2017) 1.00pm Comedy Central

Fans of the Goosebumps series of novels will lap up this story of a teenager (Dylan Minette) who moves into a house beside reclusive author RL Stine (Jack Black). Unfortunately, the youngster unwittingly releases the demons contained in Stines’ novels (don’t ask!).

Hannibal Brooks (1969) 4.00pm RTÉ 2

Porridge creators Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais penned this curious WWII comedy drama about a British zookeeper (Oliver Reed) in Berlin who attempts to escape to Switzerland with his beloved elephant in tow. Michael J. Pollard co-stars.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) 6.55pm E4

You wouldn’t think a reboot of the Planet of the Apes franchise starring James Franco would be up to much, but this is a cracking origins yarn. A cautionary tale about genetic engineering, Andy Serkis provides the motion capture jiggerypokery with great aplomb.

Heaven Knows Mr Allison (1957) 5.05pm Film4

After her acclaimed performance in Black Narcissus, Deborah Kerr dons the wimple again for John Huston, as a nun stranded on a Japanese-held Pacific island with laconic Marine corporal, Robert Mitchum.

Leave No Trace (2018) 6.00pm Sky Cinema Premiere

Debra Granik delivers a stripped-down and compelling narrative about people on the margins of society. Based on real events, this is the story of a father (Ben Foster) and daughter (the excellent Thomasin McKenzie) who have turned their backs on the modern world.

Angela’s Ashes (1999) 9.30pm TG4

Alan Parker manages to bring Frank McCourt’s oft-humorous, oft-depressing tale to life. Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle score well as the struggling Limerick parents; the former struggling to make ends meet, the latter struggling to resist the temptations of the bottle.

Sink The Bismarck! (1960) 2.35pm Film 4

Lewis Gilbert’s WWII drama chronicles the British attack on Germany’s largest battleship. Kenneth More is the captain in charge of events, but there is strong support from Dana Wynter and Carl Mohner.

Mrs Miniver (1942) 4.25pm TCM

Yes, it’s an unashamed flag-waver but Oscar-winning Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon are terrific as the stiff-upper-lip English couple who keep their heads while their middle-class lives are being Blitzed around them. This moving drama also won the gong for Best Picture.

Kissing Candice (2018) 6.00pm Sky Cinema Premiere

Aoife McArdle’s debut feature is a visually striking drama in which the excellent Ann Skelly takes the lead role of a troubled teen in an isolated Irish community who finds herself involved with a gang of local ne’er-do-wells. John Lynch and Ryan Lincoln co-star.

Trainwreck (2015) 9.00pm ITV2

Amy Schumer’s hit comedy follows the fortunes of magazine writer, ‘Amy’, who measures out her days in trashy celebrity articles, and her evenings in boozy, one-night stands. Brie Larson and Tilda Swinton co-star.

The Paperboy (2012) 1.10am Film 4

This slice of Southern Fried melodrama is lled with white trash, gators, swamp people and more over-the-top lines than you can shake a Confederate ag at. The top-notch cast includes Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, John Cusack and Matthew McConaughey in scenery-chewing mode.

To the Wonder (2012) 1.45am Channel 4

Terrence Malick’s visually stunning drama opens in Paris, where Ben A eck invites his gal pal, Olga Kurylenko, and her young daughter to relocate to his Oklahoma home. When she returns to France, A eck hooks up with former school chum, Rachel McAdams.

The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974) 9.00pm TCM

Not the recent remake with John Travolta and Denzel Washington, but the original classic thriller co-starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw. Shaw is the smooth-talking baddie playing cat and mouse over the New York transit system with dispatcher Matthau.

Heat (1995) Midnight Virgin Media Two

That famous co ee shop scene between Al Pacino and Robert De Niro is worth the price of admission, but Michael Mann’s terri c crime thriller also features strong supporting performances from the likes of Val Kilmer, Jon Voight and Ashley Judd.

The Killing (1956) 1.05am Film 4

Sterling Hayden stars in Stanley Kubrick’s early noir drama as an ex-con who gathers together a team to carry out a $2 million heist at a local race track. The brilliant supporting cast includes Timothy Carey, Coleen Gray and Elisha Cook Jr.

Birdman (2014) 9.30pm RTÉ Two

In Alejandro Iñárritu’s Rabelasian drama, Michael Keaton delivers one of his nest ever performances as the washed-up movie actor attempting to rekindle his career by adapting and starring in a Raymond Carver short story for the Broadway stage.

Wonder Woman (2017) 10.00pm Sky Cinema Action

This superhero yarn captures the imagination because it knows its audience, doesn’t take itself too seriously and o ers a star-is-born lead in the shape of Gal Gadot. This is a special screening of the lm to mark International Women’s Day.

Private Benjamin (1980) 11.55pm RTÉ One

In this entertaining, sh-out-of-water hit comedy, pampered society queen Goldie Hawn joins the army to forget her troubles but nds trouble of a di erent variety when she enters the barracks. Both Goldie and supporting actress Eileen Brennan received Oscar nods.

Bobby Sands: 66 Days (2016) 10.15pm, Thursday, RTÉ One

“This was drama at the rawest edge” The 1981 hunger strikes are among the most seminal moments in the history of the Troubles. Those who remember that period, when Republican prisoners twice went on hunger strike in an attempt to obtain political prisoner status, will vividly recall the black ags, the blanket protestors, the marches and the waiting game as, one after the other, 10 H Block prisoners starved themselves to death. It was a campaign that made headlines around the world but the attention primarily focused on one man: Bobby Sands.

Not only was the 27-year-old Belfast man the rst of the prisoners to go on hunger strike and the rst to die – 66 days after his hunger strike started – his death, on May 5, 1981, occurred just weeks after he had been elected MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone. Brendan J. Byrne’s powerful documentary chronicles this tumultuous 66-day period in Irish history. His primary source is Sands’ own diary, extracts of which are read by award-winning actor Martin McCann. While little or no footage exists of Sands during this period, the director employs the evocative animations of Peter Strain and Ryan Kane to great e ect. ( The scenes where he uses an actor in this role are surprisingly less e ective). Editor Paul Devlin is also to be commended for piecing all the various strands – newsreel footage, contemporary interviews, animations, re-enactments – together in such a compelling fashion. The eye-witness testimony is taken from people who view the Hunger Strikes through di erent prisms. These include Gerry Adams, Danny Morrison, Fintan O’Toole, Norman Tebbit and former prison o cer, Dessie Waterworth. Overall, the documentary paints a portrait of a determined young man acutely aware of both the potency of a hunger strike and his own place in a Republican lineage that includes Terence MacSwiney and Thomas Ashe.