LIFE AFTER SOAP

John Partridge – Jane Beale’s brother Christian in EastEnders – is competing in the Celebrity MasterChef semi-final (Thursday, 8.30pm, BBC1)

SATURDAY

This Beautiful Fantastic (2016) PG ⚫

7PM, BBC2 ★★★

PREMIERE See The Big Movie (right).

Daddy’s Home (2015) 12 ♦

9PM, CH4

PREMIERE Crowd-pleasing comedy that trades on the chemistry between its male leads – Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. They play a stepdad and a biological dad (below), learning about fatherhood the hard way.

The sequel is Friday at 8pm on Sky Premiere.

Die Hard (1988) 15 ♦

9PM, E4 ★★★★

The first, ferociously good outing for Bruce Willis’s John McClane and his white vest. It’s 30 years old, but can still give many a modernday action movie a lesson in how to thrill and entertain. Alan Rickman is the villain holding hostages in a Los Angeles office tower block.

Three Summers (2017) 15 ♦

10PM, BBC2 ★★★

PREMIERE Ben Elton writes and directs this romantic comedy, set at an annual music festival in Australia over three years. Robert Sheehan and Rebecca Breeds star as the couple whose personalities and musical styles clash, but who find a way to get in tune.

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) 12 ♦

10.50PM, CH4 ★★★

Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey struggles to control her immense power in this third film in the superhero series. After she survives the heroic events that closed X2, a dark phoenix is set to rise. Ian McKellen’s Magneto (below) is quick to exploit Jean’s switch to the dark side.

Mean Streets (1973) 18 ▲

11.40PM, ★★★

BBC2 See Classic Film Choice (right).

The Master (2012) 15 ♦

12.45AM, CH4 ★★★★

Another satisfyingly complex drama from Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood). Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman are both excellent as pupil and teacher of a new way of thinking in a bleak 1950s America.

SUNDAY The Wonderful Country (1959) U ⚫

10AM, MORE4 ★★★

Robert Mitchum (above, with Julie London) is well-cast as a fugitive hired gun who left America as a boy to make Mexico his home. Back on US soil after crossing the border to purchase weapons for his Mexican paymasters, he finds his mission getting complicated.

The Kid (2000) PG ⚫

4.55PM, CH5 ★★★

Disney redemption drama and family fantasy all rolled into one. Bruce Willis stars as grumpy Russ Duritz, an image consultant who has a strained relationship with his father. Russ is followed around by a mysterious boy (Spencer Breslin), who helps him to see the light.

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2008) 12 ♦

6.05PM,

BBC2 ★★★

Harrison Ford is back for this fourth film, which moves the whipslinging action to the 1950s, with the Russians replacing the Nazis as the foreign threat. Cate Blanchett (above) goes full dominatrix as the villain on the trail of a skull with magic powers.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes

(2014) ♦

12 10PM, CH4 ★★★

Andy Serkis, as the chimps’ leader, Caesar, takes centre stage in this sequel, which finds his apes building their own community and coming under threat from unthinking humans, panicked by the threat of extinction.

The Devil’s Double (2011) 18 ▲

11.30PM, BBC1 ★★★

The title is no exaggeration in this fictionalised account of the experiences of Latif Yahia, the man who acted as a double for Uday Hussein, son of Saddam. Uday was a lunatic so sadistic, he made his father look soft. Dominic Cooper delivers both roles (devil and saint) with vigour.

Adore

(2013) 15 ♦

12.35AM, CH4 ★★★

A beautifully shot drama, starring Robin Wright and Naomi Watts (right) as mothers whose friendship is tested when each has an affair with the other woman’s son. The style adds to a dreamy quality that isn’t aiming for authenticity so much as psychological scrutiny.

MONDAY The Bedford Incident (1965) PG ⚫

1.10PM, FILM4 ★★★

Sidney Poitier is a journalist joining the crew of a US destroyer to document life on board. His curiosity turns to alarm as overzealous pursuit of a Soviet sub by Richard Widmark’s captain risks turning up the heat on the Cold War.

Curtain Up (1952) U ⚫

2.50PM, TALKING PICTURES TV ★★★

Enjoyable ensemble comedy set around the company of a second-rate repertory theatre. Robert Morley and Margaret Rutherford go head to head, disagreeing spectacularly on how the latest production should play.

We’re The Millers (2013) 15 ♦

9PM, 5STAR ★★★

Jason Sudeikis (above, with Jennifer Aniston and Will Poulter) is a small-time drug dealer who is coerced into smuggling tonnes of marijuana from Mexico to the US. His ruse to fool border security is to hire a bunch of misfits to pose as his butter-wouldn’t-melt family.

Crimson Peak (2015) 15 ♦

10.45PM, FILM4 ★★★

Kicking off a season of haunted house movies, Guillermo del Toro’s visually resplendent Gothic fantasy stars Mia Wasikowska as the young American marrying into a twisted English family (Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain).

Only God Forgives (2013) 18 ▲

11.05PM, SONY MOVIE CHANNEL ★★★★

Nicolas Winding Refn’s garish oedipal nightmare is set in Bangkok, and stars

Ryan Gosling as the least favourite son of a monstrous mob mother, played with antitypecasting zeal by Kristin Scott Thomas (above). (Freeview 32, Sky 321, Virgin 425)

The Chess Players (1977) PG ⚫

1.55AM, CH4 ★★★★

Directed by Satyajit Ray, this drama is set on the eve of the 1857 rebellion. Two noblemen are so engrossed in their games of chess that they fail to notice the discontent of their wives, and their people.

TUESDAY The Buccaneer (1958) U ⚫

11AM, FILM4 ★★★

Yul Brynner and Charlton Heston (above) star in this historical adventure, a Technicolor remake of Cecil B. DeMille’s 1938 film of the same name. Brynner is Jean Lafitte, a pirate persuaded by Heston’s General Andrew Jackson to defend New Orleans from the British in 1815.

Double Daddy (2015) PG ⚫

2.15PM, CH5 ★★

PREMIERE In this hideously overripe TV movie, two high-school students get pregnant by the same guy – or so it seems. As the two girls fight it out, a far darker scheme emerges as one of them might not be telling the truth.

The Dark Man (1951) PG ⚫

6.05PM, TALKING PICTURES TV ★★★

With a killer on the loose (played with relish by Maxwell Reed, left), witness Molly Lester (Natasha Parry), an aspiring actress, is in need of protection. This atmospheric British noir stars Edward Underdown as the detective trying to keep Molly safe as the killer closes in.

The Jewel Of The Nile (1985) PG ⚫

6.50PM, FILM4 ★★★

This camp but enjoyable sequel to Romancing The Stone thrives entirely on the fabulous chemistry between its stars, Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner – not forgetting Danny DeVito, of course. This time, they’re in search of a fabled jewel in a fictional African desert.

I Am Wrath (2016) 15 ♦

9PM, SONY MOVIE CHANNEL ★★★

Vigilante justice is the only kind of justice that John Travolta’s law-abiding citizen can find when his wife’s killers walk away scot-free. It’s not original by any stretch of the imagination, but events play out with conviction.

Breaking Away (1979) PG ⚫

1.15AM, TALKING PICTURES TV ★★★★

Classic American coming-ofage comedy drama starring Dennis Christopher (right) as a cycling-obsessed workingclass high-school grad in a university town. Rivalry between rich and poor spurs on an exhilarating, climactic cycle race.