Citizen Kane, Cinderella, The Road, Shrek the Third, The Shawshank Redemption: films on TV today

So, is Orson Welles’s masterpiece truly the cinema’s greatest product? Whether it is or not, it must be in the squad. It tells of the life and death of Charles Foster Kane (Welles), a media magnate closely based on William Randolph Hearst, and is certainly one of the most influential films ever made. Somehow Welles, the 25-year-old debutant director, incorporated pretty well everything that had been learned since the birth of talking pictures and threw in several innovations of his own. In the use of light and shade and camera angles and in the clear telling of a convoluted story, which begins and ends in the same place, he provided an object lesson for every film-maker since. It is undeniably a great film, though it’s interesting to note that Welles himself thought his next picture, The Magnificent Ambersons, was, in its original form, even better. Unfortunately, the studio thought it too long and so hacked it about and all that remains now is a magnificent ruin.

Cinderella ★★★★
6.25-8.00pm C5

A rare showing of Disney's gorgeously rendered animated classic with Ilene Woods lending her dulcet tones to the skivvy who becomes a beautiful swan, loses her shoe and gains a prince.

The Road ★★★★
11.35pm-1.15am BBC1

A father and son struggle to survive a journey across post-apocalyptic America in a brilliantly realised adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel.

Shrek the Third ★★★
9.00-10.25pm BBC3

Chapter three in the funky fairy tale series finds the big green ogre distracted by impending parenthood and the search for a royal heir.

The Shawshank Redemption ★★★★★
9.00-11.55pm ITV2

The chances are you've already seen it — more than once. But this life-affirming prison drama with Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman has the power to hold you captive every time.

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