Goodbye, Mr Chips, Amour, The Player: films on TV today

Goodbye, Mr Chips ★★★★★
2.10-4.00pm BBC2

Based on the 1934 novella by James Hilton, in which a retired schoolteacher looks back over his career, this soberly, sentimentally romantic film from American director Sam Wood gave Robert Donat, whose clipped tones belie his Mancunian roots, the role of his career — and an Oscar. He ages 63 years over the course of Latin master Mr Chipping’s reminiscences. As the years pass, we find ourselves immersed in an ordered, idyllic, cloistered turn-of-the-century life (shot mostly in a studio, with exteriors at Repton School in Derbyshire), in which “Chips” graduates from by-the-book disciplinarian to a softer surrogate father figure, his journey greatly affected by Greer Garson’s free spirit and the uncertainty of the First World War. Truly, an education.

Amour ★★★★★
PREMIERE 1.20-3.30am C4

Emmanuelle Riva is a revelation in Michael Haneke's bleakly truthful Oscar winner about the effect of illness on an elderly couple's relationship.

The Player ★★★★★
11.35pm-2.05am Film Four

Robert Altman's marvellous Hollywood satire stars Tim Robbins as a slick studio executive who is suspected of murder.

Stalag 17 ★★★★
10.35am-1.00pm More4

Billy Wilder's outstanding Second World War drama stars an Oscar-winning William Holden as an opportunistic PoW in a camp run by ruthless Nazi Otto Preminger.

Meet the Parents ★★★★
8.15-10.00pm BBC3

The hilariously painful interaction between dad Robert De Niro and prospective son-in-law Ben Stiller may force you to watch this comedy with your hands over your eyes.

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