Michael Caine’s Alfie and Harry Brown stand out in a long career

This week’s picks include Alfie, Harry Brown, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and 1940 noir feature They Drive by Night.

Michael Caine plays a pensioner with an agenda in Harry Brown.

Michael Caine is receiving glowing notices from the Cannes film festival for his performance as an ageing conductor in director Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth, so the timing is perfect to revisit an early high point and late comeback in this durable actor’s career. As the self-centred womaniser in director Lewis Gilbert’s 1966 romantic drama Alfie (Thursday, 11.55pm, Fox Classics), Caine hit the big time in the wake of his performances in Zulu and The Ipcress File. Incredibly, as he told at least one journalist in Cannes, he hadn’t been back to the festival since Alfie won the special jury prize there, but he was denied best actor.

Caine’s been on something of a roll lately, thanks in no small part to his casting as the faithful butler Alfred in director Christopher Nolan’s immensely successful reboot of the Batman franchise. Worth seeking out as well is a film he made in the midst of those movies, the 2009 British vigilante thriller Harry Brown (Monday, 3.15pm, World Movies). Not unlike his weary but determined gangster in the seminal 1971 crime film Get Carter, Caine’s pensioner with an agenda to clean up his drug and crime-infested council block gets away with what he gets away with because of the steely resolve and moral authority the actor brings to even the most pedestrian of roles (he’s had plenty of those).

With the welcome news that David Lynch is finally on board for the long-gestating sequel to the out-there TV murder mystery series Twin Peaks, now is as good a time as any to revisit the northwestern US hamlet of the title via Lynch’s ill-fated 1992 big-screen prequel/sequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (Tuesday, 6.15pm, World Movies). The movie plays today as an intriguing standalone reminder of the iconic weirdness that made the TV series so popular, as well as a cautionary tale of how too much of that weirdness can overstay its welcome. What jumps out in particular is the commitment of Sheryl Lee, whose ill-fated student Laura Palmer is a study in deer-in-the-headlights, B-movie histrionics.

The 1940 black-and-white film noir They Drive By Night (Monday, 11.40pm, TCM) is based on author AI Bezzerides’ 1938 novel The Long Haul and stars George Raft and Humphrey Bogart as a pair of hard-luck truckie brothers in and around Los Angeles. Pay particular attention to veteran genre director Raoul Walsh’s fascination with pinball machines, which were at the time considered cutting-edge technology.

Another legendary genre author, Richard Matheson, has seen his post-apocalyptic meditation I am Legend (Saturday, 8.30pm, Thriller) made into films no less than three times. Will Smith is very good in this 2007 version of the tale, which was also made with Vincent Price as The Last Man on Earth in 1964 and Charlton Heston as The Omega Man in 1971. They’re all worth watching.

I am Legend (M)

3.5 stars

Saturday, 8.30pm, Thriller

They Drive by Night (PG)

3.5 stars

Monday, 11.40pm, TCM

Alfie (M)

3.5 stars

Thursday, 11.55pm, Fox Classics