Sky UK TV Guide

05:00 Babette's Feast
Film This Danish film with a French star deservedly won the best foreign film Oscar and transcended the barriers of subtitles to capture the imagination of cinema-goers everywhere. Set in the 1870s, the story unfolds against the background of the grim Jutland peninsula, where two spinster sisters (Bodil Kjer, Birgitte Federspiel), daughters of the former pastor, continue his work in leading the religious sect he founded. Into their lives comes Babette (Stéphane Audran), seeking refuge from war-torn Paris, who becomes their housekeeper. Her presence gradually effects changes in the austere community, culminating in a magnificent feast that she cooks 14 years later, which serves as a profoundly cathartic event in the lives of all. Faithfully and brilliantly adapted by director Gabriel Axel from the story by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), this highly original and deeply poignant tale, leavened with well-judged humour, is that rare thing - a perfect work. It is exquisitely acted, with Audran - no stranger to dinner tables in the films of her husband Claude Chabrol - glowing at the centre. The film began something of a vogue for food as an emblem of love in the cinema, but nothing has equalled it. Resist it if you can.

06:55 The Screening Room
Film Piracy
Entertainment An in-depth look at movie piracy, the biggest problem affecting the film industry.

07:20 Inherit the Wind
Film This courtroom drama was inspired by the real-life trial in 1925 of a young Tennessee teacher who was charged with giving lessons on the Darwinian theory of evolution in a state school. Very much a drama of words and ideas, the film was a critical hit but a commercial flop in its day. Yes, the plot meanders and even drags at points, but ultimately it engrosses thanks to major-league performances from Spencer Tracy and Fredric March as the opposing lawyers in what became known as the "Scopes Monkey Trial". Eighty years on, we can all feel smug at the preposterousness of it all, but there is certainly no shortage of American Christian fundamentalists who would probably relish bringing to bear a similar prosecution today.

09:50 The Screening Room
Football and Cinema
Entertainment Myleene Klass introduces a celebration of movies about football.

10:30 Comes a Horseman
Film Montana has never looked more beautiful than in this interesting but mightily flawed attempt at a Fordian western - every shot creaking with symbolism - from Alan J Pakula. Despite some valiant performances from Jane Fonda as a hard-bitten ranch boss and Jason Robards as a land-grabbing cattle baron, the movie ultimately plods through its paces. Pakula makes the classic western directing mistake of hurling in a plethora of set pieces (stand-offs at the pass, saloon brawling et al) and attempts to hang the plot on these devices. Ford knew it was the other way round.

13:00 Alice
Film When this was originally released, several critics attacked Woody Allen for making the same film over and over again. But is there another Allen picture in which a woman is helped to confront her past with the aid of Chinese herbal teas, gets to meet the ghost of an old flame and spy on her family and friends while invisible? What gives this fantasy comedy that "oh-so-familiar" feel is the all too predictable and stylised performance of Mia Farrow, whose bored Manhattan underachiever undoes a lot of the good work by co-stars William Hurt and Joe Mantegna and the excellent supporting cast.

15:00 The Misfits
Film This drama from John Huston is more of a mausoleum than a movie. The last film of both Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, and some might say containing the last real performance by Montgomery Clift, it went from box-office flop to cult status within the space of a year. Written by Monroe's then husband, Arthur Miller, it's a grey, solemn and at times pretentious piece about three drifters who hunt horses destined to become pet food. Somehow the flat, arid Nevada landscape mirrors the characters' bleak existence and sets the overall mood of despair and depression. Dogged by various production problems (Monroe's emotional upheavals, Clift's substance abuse, United Artists freezing the budget, Huston's gambling exploits and more), it's a film that's easy to admire - especially for Gable's rugged charm - but so hard to enjoy fully.

17:20 The Bachelor Party
Film Screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky's gift for realism-as-fable was never grittier than in this adaptation of his own TV play, in which a bawdy stag-night becomes an odyssey in which the American male's inherent fear of women is brilliantly explored - from porn movies to strip-show to hooker confrontation - all floated along on a river of alcohol. Nervous groom-to-be Philip Abbott is counterbalanced by Don Murray, the married man wondering if he did the right thing, while office bachelor Jack Warden presents a cheery persona to hide his own loneliness. Director Delbert Mann just follows where Chayefsky's lines lead and that's into the heart of the marital matter. As a companion piece to Marty, two years earlier, it has some profound things to say about the macho psyche.

19:10 Along Came Jones
Film Fans of the Coasters' immortal 1950s record Along Came Jones should check out this undervalued film, in which amiable cowpoke Gary Cooper is mistaken for outlaw Dan Duryea. It's a likeable compendium of western clichés, ably handled by former editor Stuart Heisler, who would later direct "Coop" in Dallas (1950). There's much to enjoy here, not least a lovely, knowing performance from Loretta Young. (She was hand-picked by Cooper, who was also the film's producer.) The title passed into western movie folklore.

21:00 Blame It on Rio
Film Michael Caine and Joseph Bologna may give decent enough performances as best friends on a spree in Rio, but the romance that develops between Caine and Bologna's teenage daughter (Michelle Johnson) is just too leery for comfort. The holiday atmosphere is well evoked, but the bad taste from director Stanley Donen, who made such stylish nonsense as On the Town and Charade, is an unpleasant surprise, while, for Caine, this misfiring comedy was one of a series of disasters during the 1980s.

23:00 Heaven's Gate
Film This notorious western soared over budget and was so thoroughly trashed by the New York critics that the bankrupted studio, United Artists, withdrew the film and cut it by an hour. Sadly, this is the version usually seen today. While some of director Michael Cimino's ambition still shines through - notably the wondrous photography, the set-piece battle and the roller-skating dance - the story, about a Wyoming range war between cattlemen and persecuted immigrants, makes little sense. (The same story inspired Shane.) The full version, however, is a superb, five-star achievement.