5 MOVIE highlights

THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES ROMANTIC DRAMA

Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance reunited with Ryan Gosling for this drama. He plays a motorcycle stunt rider who turns to crime to support his girlfriend and their son. This brings him to the attention of a troubled cop (Bradley Cooper), setting in motion a series of events that will also affect the next generation. Tuesday, 11.15pm, BBC2

ALIEN

TERROR IN SPACE

Bursting onto movie screens — all too literally, in one memorable scene — Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi horror film became embedded in our nightmares. The alien was all glistening teeth and terror, but in Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley (below) we also got an inspirational female heroine who would keep the franchise going for many more films to come. Wednesday, 11.40pm, BBC1

EARLY MAN

STONE AGE SPORTING CAPER

In a Stone Age village ‘near Manchester’, a tribe are overrun by Bronze Age invaders, and Dug (voiced by Eddie Redmayne) and his fellow cavepeople (left) are relegated to the volcanic badlands. But Dug has a plan, involving a game that his tribe invented but have forgotten how to play. Yes, it’s about football, but this animation is packed with colourful characters and witty details. Sunday, 3.30pm, BBC1

THE EXORCIST CLASSIC HORROR

William Friedkin’s controversial horror classic stars Linda Blair as a girl (left) possessed by a demon. So her mother (Ellen Burstyn) calls in two priests, Jason Miller and Max von Sydow, for an exorcism. Monday, 11.10pm, BBC1

THE CHILDREN ACT LEGAL DRAMA

Emma Thompson (above, with Fionn Whitehead) stars in director Richard Eyre’s drama as a high court judge dealing with the case of a religious teenager who is refusing a life-saving blood transfusion.

Friday, 12.15am, RTÉ One