FILMS OF THE WEEK

THE BIG MOVIE

A Most Violent Year (2014) 15 Sunday, 10pm, BBC2 Set in 1981, a year in which violent crime in New York City hit record levels, J.C. Chandor’s drama is a compelling study of a murky world. Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain (above) star as married Abel and Anna Morales, who have expanded their heating oil delivery operation, but whose aspirations are being attacked from all directions. Having inherited the business from Anna’s gangster father, Abel is keen to go legit, but their drivers – and then the Morales family themselves – are targeted in a turf war of escalating violence. Plus, David Oyelowo’s District Attorney has his eye on them. Some of the best scenes play out between Anna and Abel as they try to reconcile differing approaches to their ills. Abel wants to turn his back on violence, but struggles to teach the fearsome Anna a new way of life.

CLASSIC FILM CHOICE

The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976) 18 Saturday, 10.30pm, BBC2 Showing as part of a tribute to the late singer, this is David Bowie’s defining acting role, a strange, haunting film in which Bowie’s character – a pale, flame-haired alien visitor – is a logical companion to the singer’s sci-fi stage personae. Arriving on Earth to bring water to his drought-stricken home planet, he adopts the name Thomas Newton, and uses his superior intelligence to found a technology company. Newton gets very rich, but is slowly consumed by technology and isolation – he is alienated from the world around him, a world that is not his. Like its star, the film’s execution is unconventional. Directed by Nicolas Roeg, its structure is unsettling, jumping ahead years at a time, and the effect is to create in the audience the same estrangement felt by Bowie’s lost and fragile starman.