THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING (2003)

Channel 4, 6.30pm

The climax to Peter Jackson’s Ring cycle matches its predecessors in epic scale and visual splendour. The Return of the King crams as much authentic Tolkien plot detail as possible into over three hours of grand battles and messianic allegory as Elijah Wood’s Frodo, Viggo Mortensen’s Aragorn and Ian McKellen’s Gandalf battle to save Middle Earth.

The first film since Titanic to break the billion-dollar box-office mark earned 11 Academy Awards, including two for Jackson. (201min)

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE (1993)

Five, 6.05pm

An unusual choice for Martin Scorsese, this lush adaptation of Edith Wharton’s novel about a scandalous love triangle in 1870s Manhattan stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder. The Age of Innocence trains a forensic eye on Wharton’s complex social universe of extravagant costumes, rigid conventions and repressed passions.

A visually ravishing period piece, but a little too cool and remote for such a fiery director. (132min)

ERIN BROCKOVICH (2000)

Five, 9pm

This likeable addition to the true-life courtroom thriller genre is an all-guns-blazing star vehicle for Julia Roberts, who earned an Oscar for playing the legal clerk who exposed the pollution secrets of a giant energy conglomerate.

In the first of many collaborations with Steven Soderbergh, Roberts gives a showy performance as the flighty, feisty Brockovich. Albert Finney and Aaron Eckhart co-star. (131min)

RIDING GIANTS (2004)

Channel 4, 10.05pm

After celebrating the skateboard subculture in his 2001 documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, Stacy Peralta tried a similar potted history of surfing with Riding Giants. Peralta traces the sport back to 1950s Hawaii via 1960s California, profiling many of its famous figures along the way. There is no faulting his passion for the topic, but the overreverential tone slightly mars an otherwise superb work. (105min)

THE STRINGER (1997)

BBC Two, 1.45am

The former Brookside regular Anna Friel made her feature debut in this politically slanted docu-drama written and directed by the Polish-born Pawel Pawlikowski.

Sergei Bodrov Jr stars a Moscow teenager with a cheap video camera who hopes to make money supplying Friel’s expat media executive with fake news stories. A mildly engaging romantic thriller, but Pawlikowksi went on to make much better work, including Last Resort and My Summer of Love. (88min)

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