If they had started within BC on TV’s 6pm-10pm primetime, one of the most imaginative American horrors ever shot (Unfriended, 10.45pm HBOP), a Tom Hardy vehicle (**Lawless, 10.50pm Max) or David Cronenberg’s most approachable film (**Eastern Promises, 11pm Sund) would have got the nod.

Today’s Number One Film:

*Slow West [aka Love and Death] 7.35pm Fox Movies Ch 559. Watch this if you liked The Revenant, The Wild Bunch or There Will Be Blood. The film BC on TV rated the best Western (and seventh-best, overall) DVD release of 2015 is a slow-paced Western that creeps under your skin and explodes into your consciousness. It needs to be seen several times for its depth to be appreciated but a lot of people won’t give it even the chance it deserves of a single watching, because it offers fewer explosions/gunfights per scene than most other modern films, including other Westerns. The violence it does include erupts without warning, is extreme, gory and distressing – and paints an accurate picture of what life is like in any frontierland at any time. One suspects a future, longer director’s version will close the one or two small gaps that stop it from being perfectly realised but, with Michael Fassbender at his gritty best and Kodi Smit-McPhee – the boy from The Road, which, by programming coincidence, you can see at 9pm – in the lead roles, this is exactly the kind of movie that by itself justifies both independent films and film recommendation features. Directed by John Maclean/2016/ UK-New Zealand/ Western/ 84 mins/ Rated R for violence and brief language.

JUST NOSED OUT:

The Road (Apocalypse-Drama), 9pm Sund; Looper (Action-Sci-fi-Thriller), 9pm HBOP Ch 532; The Squid & the Whale (Indy-Drama), 8.25pm ISat Ch 520; Wall Street (Drama-Thriller), 8.30pm Prmt; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Chinese language-Kung Fu-Thriller), 9.55pm ISat; No Reservations (Rom-Com), 6.05pm HBOF.

BEST Pay Per View BET: Doctor Strange (Superhero), Ch 410

*Starred films have been chosen in the last year. ** Double-starred films have been chosen in the last two months.

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