SATURDAY’S BEST PICKS
6 PM ( TCM) MOVIE In the Heat of the Night Director Norman Jewison’s first-rate 1967 mystery earned Oscars for best picture and best actor for Rod Steiger, who plays a bigoted Southern police chief forced to investigate a murder with a black Philadelphia police detective (Sidney Poitier). Ray Charles performs the wonderfully moody title song; Lee Grant and Warren Oates co-star. The film, and the novel upon which it was based, inspired a TV series that starred Carroll O’Connor.
7 PM ( OXY) Monster Preacher This new two-hour special takes a deep dive into the life of Philadelphia pastor Gary Heidnik, who lured six women and then held them captive in his basement. During November of 1986, Heidnik brutalized his prisoners, determined to mold them into sex slaves whose primary function was to bear his children. Josefina Rivera and Jackie Askin, two of the four survivors from that ordeal, take viewers on a chilling ride through a real-life horror story.
8 PM ( LIFE) MOVIE The Evil Twin After escaping a long-term but relentlessly abusive relationship, Emily flees back to her hometown, where she is thrown to discover she has a longlost twin sister. At first, though, she takes this discovery as an omen of unexpected good things to come. That’s before she discovers her twin may be a murderer. Emily Piggford, Ish Morris, Cory Lee and Tomas Chovanec star in this 2021 melodrama.
8 PM ( AMC) MOVIE Caddyshack If there’s one film that defines lowbrow comedy, 1980s-style, it’s this 1980 romp directed and co-written by Harold Ramis (“Ghostbusters”). Set in a country club, it stars some of the era’s best comic actors, including Rodney Dangerfield as the club’s newest member, a developer long on cash and short on couth. Bill Murray gives No-Respect Man a good run in the scene-stealing competition as the goofy greenskeeper with a gopher fixation.
8 PM ( HBO) MOVIE Kill Bill: Vol. 1 Violence, and extremely graphic violence at that, is hardly in short supply in director Quentin Tarantino’s (“Pulp Fiction”) furiously paced 2003 saga of a hit woman (Uma Thurman) seeking revenge after barely surviving a massacre on her wedding day. Her main target is the mastermind of the attack, her boss (David Carradine) — the Bill of the title. Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen and Vivica A. Fox play others she’s after. “Part 2” immediately follows.
8 PM ( SHO) MOVIE Resistance Marcel Marceau is best remembered today for his acclaimed professional work as a mime, but this 2020 biographical drama focuses on a less well-known yet more remarkable chapter of his life, when he worked undercover with the French Resistance in World War II to save orphaned children from the Nazis.
Jesse Eisenberg plays Marceau, whose artistic dreams are still taking shape as he risks his life for this higher calling. Clémence Poésy, Félix Moati, Ed Harris, Edgar Ramírez and Bella Ramsey also are featured in the large cast.
9 PM ( HALL) MOVIE Two for the Win When a world champion ski racer returns home to prepare for what is unquestionably the biggest race of his life, he finds a not-entirely-unwelcome distraction in the form of a romance on the slopes with a fetching local ski instructor in this 2021 romance. Trevor Donovan, Charlotte Sullivan and Siobhan Murphy star.
10 PM (TRAV) Kindred Spirits In 1673, the murdered corpse of Rebecca Cornell was found in her Rhode Island home. Days later, her restless ghost provided testimony that pointed the finger of guilt at her son. Now, in the new episode “False Witness,” Amy Bruni, Adam Berry and psychic medium Chip Coffey try to conjure the various spirits who, in life, played a role in this centuries-old crime and discover the truth of what actually happened.
10 PM ( SHO) MOVIE Dallas Buyers Club Matthew McConaughey earned wide praise — and an Academy Award — not only for his acting but also for his physical transformation in this fact-inspired 2013 drama about a modern cowboy who approaches the situation his own way when he’s diagnosed as HIV-positive. He goes to various, often risky lengths to find a cure on his own, ultimately getting a partner in his quest (played by fellow Oscar winner Jared Leto). Jennifer Garner and Steve Zahn also appear.