Empire of the Sun (1987)

TCM, 6.00PM ★★★★

Steven Spielberg directs Tom Stoppard’s excellent screenplay adaptation of JG Ballard’s autobiographical novel, which is set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai during the Second World War. A 13-year-old Christian Bale dazzles as an uppermiddle-class boy who finds himself separated from his parents and sent to a prison camp, with John Malkovich as the American ship steward who manipulates him for his own ends.