TV HIGHLIGHTS

Movie: My Journey Through French Cinema, 8 PM on TCM: On this Bastille Day, French director Bertrand Tavernier (“Coup de Torchon”) proves an amiable aesthetic travel guide as he looks back at his country’s cinematic history, with a largely subjective focus on some 1930s-50s classics. At more than three hours in duration, this documentary is a little exhausting, if not truly exhaustive, but the sheer emotional impact some of these films clearly have had on Tavernier is deeply touching. The film also offers portraits of such masters as Jean Renoir, Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut and Claude Chabrol, among others.

Frontline, 9 PM on Ch. 16 and Ch. 48; 1 AM on Ch. 16 and Ch. 48: The 2003 invasion of Iraq and the war that followed hasn’t lacked for coverage by Western filmmakers, but awardwinning director James Bluemel’s new documentary “Once Upon a Time in Iraq” promises a different perspective. The film is constructed of eyewitness accounts from Iraqis from all different backgrounds, who share their stories of what it meant to survive those violent years from the fall of Saddam Hussein to the end of the Islamic State Group.

Alice Wetterlund: My Mama Is a Human and So Am I, 9 PM on Ch. 26: Performing before a live audience in Denver, comic and actress Alice Wetterlund (“People of Earth”) delivers a set that’s a comedic tour de force, spanning topics ranging from alcoholism and her chronic problems with peeping Toms to the complexities of rearing cats and the secret alien conspiracy behind new country music.