Films of the day
What’s on the small screen this week
DJANGO UNCHAINED 10PM, 5STAR
Quentin Tarantino’s bloodsoaked Western stars Jamie Foxx as freed slave Django, who embarks on a mission to rescue wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). (2012) *****
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 4.30PM, CHANNEL 4
Premiere. Blue hedgehog Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz) escapes his world through a spinning portal and lands in the leafy glades of Montana, where cop Tom Wachowski (James Marsden) proudly upholds the law. He is eyeing a move to San Francisco but puts his plans on hold to help Sonic escape military consultant Dr Robotnik (Jim Carrey). (2020) ****
TOPSY-TURVY 11.25PM, FILM4
Director Mike Leigh’s movie about 19th-century playwright-composer duo Gilbert and Sullivan. Arthur Sullivan (Allan Corduner) and WS Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) are the kings of London theatre but their run of hits is brought to an end by the flop Princess Ida. Sullivan thinks they must move away from comic opera, into something more serious, but his collaborator has other ideas.(1999) *****
ALIEN: COVENANT 9PM, FILM4
Set approximately 10 years after the 2012 prequel Prometheus, Alien: Covenant stars Katherine Waterston. The Weyland-Yutani Corporation vessel Covenant is bound for a remote planet. Synthetic android Walter (a scene-stealing Michael Fassbender) keeps watch until a “destructive event” that prematurely wakes the crew. But they are not alone on this new world... (2017) ***
THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD 9PM, FILM4
Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) is one of the best protection agents in the business until a sniper takes out his client. He is relegated to shadowing low-value assets. Out of the blue, old flame Amelia (Elodie Yung), an Interpol agent, asks for his help to shepherd hitman Darius Kincaid (Samuel L Jackson) to The Hague where he is due to testify against an East European dictator (Gary Oldman). (2017) ****
UNFORGIVEN 10.30PM, CHANNEL 5
This Western sees Clint Eastwood, who directs and stars, deliver the performance of his career. He plays retired gunslinger William Munny, who reluctantly straps on his six-shooters to help a young assassin track down two cowboys who attacked a prostitute. The film won four Oscars. Also stars Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Frances Fisher and Richard Harris. (1992) *****
LOVE ACTUALLY 9PM, ITV2
Richard Curtis’s directorial debut stitches together 10 separate stories of love, longing, camaraderie and failed relationships, with Hugh Grant and Martine McCutcheon. Deliriously, gloriously romantic.(2003) ****