Your Movie Planner

SATURDAY THE WEDDING PLANNER (2001) PG ● 2.45PM, BBC2

Jennifer Lopez and Matthew Mcconaughey team up for this fluffy romcom, with Lopez as the wedding planner who is attracted to the fiance of her latest client (Mcconaughey).

CROCODILE DUNDEE (1986) 15 ◆ 7.10PM, CH4

Paul Hogan is the charming Aussie bringing his bush skills to New York City when he follows Linda Kozlowski’s reporter to the Big Apple. The sequel is tomorrow at 5.50pm.

THE LITTLE STRANGER (2018) 12 ◆ 9PM, CH4

PREMIERE See The Big Movie (right).

THE DEER HUNTER (1978) 18 ▲ 10PM, BBC2

Famous for a chilling scene involving a game of Russian roulette, Michael Cimino’s Oscarwinning Vietnam War drama delivers raw emotional power. Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro (above) and Christopher Walken star.

GOLDENEYE (1995) 12 ◆ 10.55PM, ITV

Pierce Brosnan was a good choice for the Bond of the 1990s and early 2000s, showing how the character evolves over the generations. This is his first, and best, of four Bond movies, with Sean Bean as the ex-mi6 man who is now working for the Russians.

SLIDING DOORS (1998) 15 ◆ 11.20PM, BBC1

If you’d done things differently, would your life turn out the same? Gwyneth Paltrow stars as the woman getting two shots at her story, with John Hannah (below, with Paltrow) as the better of her options.

THE PROGRAM (2015) 15 ◆ 12.55AM, BBC2

Directed by Stephen Frears, this biopic of fallen cycling idol Lance Armstrong explores the infamous doping scandal that ended his spectacular career. Behind the scenes, Armstrong (Ben Foster) lets his ego run wild.

SUNDAY SNOOPY AND CHARLIE BROWN: THE PEANUTS MOVIE (2015) U n 1.50PM, CH4

Poor Charlie Brown – even a 3-D animation makeover can’t cure him of his rotten luck. Even if things don’t go as well as he’d like, Charlie still has a team of pals behind him – including his loyal pooch, Snoopy (above).

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (1946) U ● 2.15PM, BBC2

David Niven stars in this superb Second World War drama as the RAF pilot who cheats death, only for the powers that be to schedule a day in celestial court to determine if he can be allowed to stay.

MARLEY & ME (2008) PG ● 3.20PM, CH5

Romantic comedy drama about Marley, the rowdy Labrador pup whose owners (Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson) weather his bad behaviour as they face life’s highs and lows.

A ROOM WITH A VIEW (1985) PG ● 5PM, FILM4

See Classic Film Choice (right).

LOVE, SIMON (2018) 12 ◆ 9PM, FILM4

PREMIERE This coming-of-age, coming-out comedy drama stars Nick Robinson as a teenager whose wellkept secret about his sexuality is threatened by a classmate who starts blackmailing him. Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel play his supportive parents.

BRITT-MARIE WAS HERE (2019) 12 ◆ 10PM, BBC4

PREMIERE Swedish comedy drama following obsessively organised Britt-marie as she starts a chaotic but rewarding new life after leaving her adulterous husband.

EDIE (2017) 12 ◆ 10.45PM, BBC2

PREMIERE Sheila Hancock stars as 83-year-old Edie (right), who sets out to prove – to herself as much as anyone else–that-it-is-never too late. After the death of her husband, Edie heads to the Scottish Highlands to fulfil a dream from her youth.

MONDAY PADDINGTON 2 (2017) PG ● 8.25AM, CBBC

The adorable bear from darkest Peru (voiced by Ben Whishaw) returns for a second comedy movie adventure, finding friends in the most unlikely of places – in prison, to be precise, after he is stitched up by Hugh Grant’s nefarious actor.

A MOTHER’S RAGE: SNATCHED FROM THE CRADLE (2019) PG ● 2.15PM, CH5

In this TV movie thriller, babies are being abducted for an illegal adoption ring, and two women set about putting a stop to this despicable trade in heartbreak.

COBRA (1986) 18 9PM, ITV4 ▲

Sylvester Stallone stars as Marion Cobretti, nicknamed Cobra, one of LAPD’S finest and a maverick member of the elite ‘Zombie Squad’. The then Mrs Stallone (Brigitte Nielsen, above) is the model in Cobra’s protective – and romantic – custody after witnessing a killing spree by a group of supremacists.

SAN ANDREAS (2015) 12 ◆ 9PM, SKY ONE

Dwayne Johnson’s chopper pilot (below) rocks this fun disaster movie, assisted by impressive CGI effects. A series of earthquakes rumble their way through California, leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake.

CARLITO’S WAY (1993) 18 ▲ 10.50PM, ITV4

Director Brian De Palma’s crime drama has an outstanding cast. Al Pacino is the criminal trying to go straight, and Sean Penn is on odious form as his lawyer. John Leguizamo is also worthy of a mention as the pretender snapping at Carlito’s heels.

ROXANNE (1987) PG ● 11.30PM, SONY CLASSIC

A modern twist on Cyrano De Bergerac, written by Steve Martin. He also stars as small-town fire chief Charlie Bales, whose big nose and crippling insecurities get in the way of his romantic pursuit of Daryl Hannah.

TUESDAY HAILEY DEAN MYSTERIES: DATING IS MURDER (2017) PG ● 2.15PM, CH5

Hailey (Kellie Martin, above) investigates when a local fitness celebrity is found murdered. She suspects that a dating app has led the woman, and others, to their deaths. At her side in the investigation is coroner and love interest Jonas (Matthew Maccaull).

THE BREAK (1963) PG ● 6.35PM, TALKING PICTURES TV

British crime thriller directed by Lance Comfort, starring William Lucas as the dangerous criminal who leaps from a speeding train and attempts to lose himself and evade capture in the wilds of Dartmoor.

HOME AGAIN (2017) 12 ◆ 7.05PM, FILM4

Light and sunny romantic comedy, perfect viewing for a dull winter evening. Reese Witherspoon (left) is an aspiring interior designer, newly separated and just turned 40, who makes some surprising new connections when she invites a group of film-makers to stay.

BLUE STREAK (1999) 12 ◆ 9PM, ITV4

Martin Lawrence impersonates a police officer to get his hands on some lost loot. He’s assigned an inept partner in Luke Wilson’s detective, and ends up being a far more effective cop than he was a robber.

AWAKENINGS (1990) 12 ◆ 9PM, SONY CLASSIC

Drama based on neurologist Oliver Sacks’s memoir, starring Robin Williams as shy Dr Sayer, whose ground-breaking use of a new drug liberated victims of a 40-year ‘sleeping sickness’. Robert De Niro, as his first patient, is the man waking from a catatonic state.

DEMOLITION MAN (1993) 15 ◆ 10.55PM, ITV4

Sylvester Stallone (right) stars as a cryonically frozen cop, thawed out in the year 2032 to take on a criminal from his own time (Wesley Snipes). Sandra Bullock is his partner, showing him a brave new world. Enjoyable sci-fi, with Stallone and Snipes at the top of their games.

Cobra (Monday) Sylvester Stallone was originally attached as the star of the film that would become 1984 smash hit Beverly Hills Cop, starring Eddie Murphy (right). Stallone had tweaked the Beverly Hills script, removing the comedy elements, and brought those changes with him in the making of this rather more deadpan crime thriller. WEDNESDAY DATING TO KILL (2019) 12 ◆ 2.15PM, CH5 ★★

Mum Jessica (Clare Kramer) is worried when her 18-year-old daughter starts dating a much older man, but matters get deadly serious when she realises she knew the man in her youth – and his motives are not pure.

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY (2015) 18 ▲ 9PM, 5STAR ★★★

This adaptation of the bestselling kinky novel is too tame for fans of erotica, and too plotless to work as a drama. Jamie Dornan is the stinking rich Christian Grey, who ties Dakota Johnson’s Anastasia in knots.

THE PATRIOT (2000) 15 ◆ 9PM, PARAMOUNT ★★★

The British come off badly in this historical drama, set during the American Revolutionary War. Luckily, it’s pure fiction, with Mel Gibson as the hard-working family man driven to take up arms. Joely Richardson stars as his sister-in-law, with Heath Ledger as his son.

ROMAN J. ISRAEL, ESQ (2018) 12 ◆ 9PM, FILM4 ★★★★

Denzel Washington’s performance is the making of this unusual legal drama. He plays the eccentric but brilliant civil rights lawyer of the title (below), whose career takes a surprising turn. Colin Farrell also stars.

EYEWITNESS (1970) 15 ◆ 9.05PM, TALKING PICTURES TV ★★★

Ziggy (Mark Lester) is the young daydreamer living with his grandfather (Lionel Jeffries) in the sunny Mediterranean. When he actually witnesses a shooting, he struggles to make people believe him, and with the killer out to silence him, Ziggy is in desperate need of allies.

RUDDERLESS (2014) 15 ◆ 1AM, CH4 ★★★

After his son is killed in a shooting massacre, Sam (Billy Crudup) spirals into depression and drink. As time passes, he discovers his son’s music, and forms a band with local musicians. Moving drama about music healing a broken heart.

THURSDAY THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI (1947) PG

● 10.35AM, SONY CLASSIC ★★★★

Apart from his dreadful Irish accent, Orson Welles delivers an inventively strange film noir, co-starring estranged wife Rita Hayworth (above). It’s a cavalcade of memorable set pieces, especially the hall of mirrors finale.

ANGEL AND THE BADMAN (1947) U ● 11.35AM, PARAMOUNT ★★★★

In this western, John Wayne plays against type, which audiences struggled to accept. He’s a gunman who is pacified by the kindness of Quakers – notably Gail Russell’s youngster.

SECRET STALKER: ABDUCTING LACY (2019) PG ● 2.15PM, CH5 ★★

Social media provides a way in for a stalker with a desperate plan in this thriller when mum Vanessa (Bree Williamson) is targeted by the birth mother of her adopted daughter.

VALKYRIE

(2008) 12 ◆ 9PM, FILM4 ★★★★

Compelling Second World War thriller following Tom Cruise’s German officer (above) as he takes part in a plot to assassinate Hitler. The impressive ensemble cast also includes Eddie Izzard, Kenneth Branagh and Bill Nighy.

SPONTANEOUS (2020) 15 ◆ 9PM, SKY PREMIERE ★★★

Pitch-black high-school comedy horror, with a strong lead performance from Katherine Langford (Love, Simon). When students start exploding, the randomness of sudden death eats into everyone’s sanity. Langford is Mara, the teen wondering if she will survive.

TREMORS (1990) 15 ◆ 10.55PM, ITV4 ★★★★

This fun monster movie stars Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward (right) as friends whose isolated town is under attack from giant flesheating worms.

FRIDAY TO OLIVIA (2021) PG ● 8PM, SKY PREMIERE ★★★

PREMIERE Hugh Bonneville and Keeley Hawes star as eccentric writer Roald Dahl and his American actress wife, Patricia Neal (who won an Oscar for Hud), in this biographical drama charting the couple’s marriage and the tragic death of their daughter, Olivia, in 1962.

STAN & OLLIE (2018) PG ● PG ● 8.25PM, BBC1 ★★★★

PREMIERE Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly are excellent as Laurel and Hardy (below) in this touching biographical drama. Nina Arianda and Shirley Henderson as their wives, give the film an extra boost of charm and wit.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD (2006) 15 ◆ 9PM, SONY MOVIES ★★★★

Robert De Niro returned to the director’s chair for his second (of two) films behind the camera – an examination of the birth of the CIA in the 1940s. Matt Damon is the man devoting his life to his federal duties; Angelina Jolie is the wife he leaves at home.

DARK ENCOUNTER (2019) 15 ◆ 11.15PM, FILM4 ★★★

PREMIERE A decent alien abduction yarn, following the parents (Laura Fraser and Mel Raido) of an eight-year-old girl who went missing. One year on, they spot strange lights in the woods, and a terrifying ordeal unfolds.

WITNESS (1985) 15 ◆ 11.35PM, BBC1 ★★★★

Lukas Haas is the Amish boy who witnesses a murder, with Harrison Ford (above) as the detective who holes up in rural Pennsylvania to protect him. There, the detective finds himself seduced – first by the Amish way of life, then

by the boy’s mother (Kelly Mcgillis).

WE ARE THE BEST! (2014) 15 ◆ 1.05AM, CH4 ★★★

Set in Stockholm in the 1980s, this lively Swedish drama follows three punkloving teenage girls as they spike up their hair and start a band together.