Your Night In: Every movie on TV tonight rated or slated

An enduring quotable classic dubbed one of the greatest movies of all time versus a global box office phenomenon about a sparkly vampire finding love. Will you be watching The Godfather or Twilight tonight?

THE GODFATHER (M)

*****

8.30pm VICELAND

One of the greatest movies of all time. Period. For many people, The Godfather was the first production to take them inside the inner sanctum of the Mafia. For so long, the movies had depicted gangsters as sharp-dressing, toothpick-chewing, violin-case-carrying thugs. There had to be a lot more to these people than that, and director Francis Ford Coppola showed it to us – the strangely noble code of honour, the backroom politicking, the intense family ties, and last but not least, the heartless animal instinct that took hold when survival was called for. The elaborate screenplay also sustained an astonishing amount of vivid characters, brought to life by a top-flight group of actors. Marlon Brando and a fresh-faced Al Pacino led from the front, and all the others followed.

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson.

TWILIGHT (M)

**1/2

8.30pm 7FLIX

The most remarkable aspect of this vampire movie for young teenage girls – which sparked a global box-office phenomenon – is just how chaste, clean and wholesome it is at all times. When Bella (Kristen Stewart) lays eyes on Edward (Robert Pattinson), it is definitely love at first sight. When Edward lays eyes on Bella, the feeling is both mutual and complicated. For Edward is a vampire, and his instinctive urge to bite Bella big-time can barely be controlled. If they so much as kiss for longer than a few seconds, this romance for the ages is over. If it is chilling horror you are after, you will be looking in the wrong place here. However, for hopeful adolescents and hopeless romantics alike, this bizarrely quaint love story (adapted from the first of a best-selling series of books by Stephenie Meyer) will play the heartstrings like a harp.

THE PEACEMAKER (M)

***

7.30pm GO!

A prime nuclear warhead has gone missing, and it is up to terrorist analyst Nicole Kidman and terrorist terroriser George Clooney to find it before it explodes. Will they save the day, and the free world to boot? Of course they … might. But not before a number of race-against-time scenarios are stressfully negotiated. Quality thriller that goes about its business with a monumentally impressive bluster. Oh, and if you’re after a wry chuckle, check out Kidman’s ungainly, all-limbs-akimbo running style.

George Clooney and Nicole Kidman in The Peacemaker.

MR PIP (MA15+)

***1/2

7.30pm WORLD MOVIES

Adapted from the best-selling novel by Lloyd Jones, Mr. Pip is a movie coming from a good place, destined to take you to a bad place. The setting is Bougainville Island, in the east of Papua New Guinea. It is here, in the late 1980s, that a dispute between PNG military separatists and foreign mining interests has escalated into a desperate struggle for the local community. Caught in the middle is the last white civilian left on the island, a socially awkward schoolteacher (Hugh Laurie). While in no way a total downer of an experience, it might be wise to steel yourself for a few severe jolts along the way.

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (MA15+)

***1/2

9.40pm WORLD MOVIES

What’s in a name? Not much. What’s in four names? Much more than you bargained for. So it goes for an angular and intense psychological drama about a young woman re-entering the real world. Where has Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) been exactly? You’d probably describe the country commune where she has wasted the past few years as one of those scary mind-control cults. The film gets downright spooky when Martha retreats inside her head to recall the horror of her time at the commune, and her abuse at the hands of its creepy, Charles Manson-like leader (John Hawkes). Not for all tastes, but the haunting power of the unheralded Olsen’s performance is undeniable.

THREE STREAMING OR RENTAL PICKS TO GET YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT

BAD BOYS FOR LIFE (MA15+)

***

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Twenty-five years may have passed since their first assignment, but Bad Boys will always be Bad Boys. So if you expect headliners Will Smith and Martin Lawrence to have suddenly become the most mature cops in Miami, you have definitely come to the wrong movie. Lawrence remains the more panicky and punchline-prone of the two as Marcus, now on the verge of grandparenthood and (hopefully) a cruisy retirement. Of course, Will Smith is the debonair and daring one. His character, Mike, thinks he can keep on culling crooks until he croaks. Each should know by now not to make too many plans for the future. Especially since a former Mexican drug baroness (Kate del Castillo) and her psycho son (Jacob Scipio) have Mike in their sights, and will not be caring if Marcus gets in the way. The action sequences (a long-time strength of the Bad Boys franchise) trade in the right combo of spectacularly combustive and conspicuously ridiculous.

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in Bad Boys for Life.

RUSH (M)

***

BINGE, FOXTEL

An enjoyable and exciting time capsule of old-school Formula One motor racing, with the main focus on the 1976 Drivers Championship. Two daredevils cleared out from the pack and duelled for the ultimate honours. Their rivalry? Beyond intense. Their individual personalities? Beyond opposite. British maverick James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) drives fast, and lives even faster. Austrian ace Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) plays the percentages, and lives only to drive. Though Lauda almost dies in a fiery wreck at the German Grand Prix, it all comes down to the final event of the season. As directed by Ron Howard from a workmanlike script by Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, The Queen), Rush goes about its business like Hunt and Lauda themselves: briskly and bluntly. Great racing sequences throughout, too.

BEFORE I FALL (M)

***

rent via GOOGLE, ITUNES, YOUTUBE MOVIES

This genuinely involving teen drama is very much a Groundhog Day: The Next Generation affair, with appealing rising star Zoey Deutch (Set It Up) doing a good job of filling the well-worn shoes of Bill Murray. Deutch plays Sam, a serenely self-obsessed high-schooler suddenly living the same day over and over. A day which traditionally ends with Sam perishing in a car crash that also kills her three bitchy best friends. As in Groundhog Day, Sam goes searching for an opening inside this closed loop of time to stop a tragic history repeating itself. Extract some pressing and lasting insights from the experience of a life lived like there is literally no tomorrow. Based on the hit YA novel by Lauren Oliver.

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Originally published as Your Night In: Every movie on TV tonight rated or slated