film of the week

A Streetcar Named Desire

BBC2, Tuesday, 1.30pm

The recent death of director Elia Kazan stirred up some mixed feelings: his star was tarnished for good when he ratted on friends and colleagues to Senator Joseph McCarthy's House UnAmerican Activities Committee. However, this unforgettable adaptation of Tennessee Williams's classic play stands as testament to Kazan's talent; and provided two of Hollywood's most iconic figures with two of their most iconic roles. Vivien Leigh mustered all her not inconsiderable reserves of vanity, fragility and borderline mental derangement to play Blanche DuBois, a woman with a murky past who comes to stay with her meek sister Stella in a time of need. Sparks of various kinds fly between Blanche and her brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski, an unreconstructed macho brute, played by Marlon Brando.

Supporting performers Kim Hunter and Karl Malden both won Oscars, but the film is still primarily remembered for the work of its two leads. Leigh's Blanche is arguably a little too histrionic and breathy, even for the greatest drama queen in all drama - but then Tennessee Williams himself was pretty impressed. After seeing the film, he wrote: ''She brought everything I intended to the role, and even much more than I had dared dream of.''

Brando, meanwhile, lost out on an Oscar to Humphrey Bogart (for The African Queen) but gave every young actor something to brood about, and did a colossal favour to manufacturers of clingy white T-shirts. (1951)

Saturday

How the West was Won

Channel 4, 3.45pm

A truly mammoth Western comprising three sections made by different directors. John Ford, Henry Hathaway and George Marshall each take a segment of the history of pioneer family the Prescotts, guiding them through emigration, war and hardship. Stars include Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Debbie Reynolds, John Wayne and Gregory Peck. The music and scenery compensate for somewhat hokey and dated dialogue and a plot that sprawls rather too much to hold the attention. (1962)

GoldenEye

ITV1, 9.35pm

The Cold War is over, and women don't fall for bedhopping cads the way they used to. So where does that leave James Bond? Even spy boss M is a lady (played by Judi Dench), and she thinks 007 is a ''sexist, misogynist dinosaur''. Yet although the forces of change and political correctness are against him, Bond has found a tremendously effective nineties embodiment in Pierce Brosnan. The enemy here is a powerful crime syndicate equipped with the sinister GoldenEye satellite activator, which can disable all electronic equipment from space. Sean Bean plays rogue agent 006, while the obligatory girlie action is provided by bad Famke Janssen and good Izabella Scorupco. (1995)

American History X

Channel 4, 10.55pm

Ed Norton buffed up for this savage tale of American neo-Nazism, and employed some of his newfound muscle in an almighty argument with British director Tony Kaye, who subsequently disowned the film and engaged in a public slanging match with Norton. Despite (or perhaps because of) the friction, Norton's powerful performance is the lynchpin of an otherwise somewhat confused study of masculinity, prejudice and family ties. (1998)

Sunday

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Channel 4, 3.25am

Uma Thurman, currently securing her place in every geek's heart with a kick-ass performance in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, stars in Gus Van Sant's eccentric and much-maligned adaptation of the cult novel by Tom Robbins. She is Sissy, a model and hitch-hiker, well-equipped for the latter pursuit thanks to her outsized thumbs. John Hurt and Keanu Reeves co-star, and the film nails its retro beatnik colours to the mast with cameos from William Burroughs and Ken Kesey. (1994)

Monday

Happy Gilmore

ITV1, 11.25pm

Very silly but not unenjoyable comedy, starring Adam Sandler in his customary ''rage-afflicted misfit'' role. He is the eponymous Happy, an ice-hockey fanatic hampered by a lack of talent and an excess of violent anger. However, his ability to whack a ball a very long distance makes him an expert golfer. Can he keep his temper under control and use his new-found talent to keep his grandmother out of a nursing home? (1996)

Tuesday

Barbarella

BBC1, 12.10am

Meaningless but eminently stylish eroto-fluff, starring Jane Fonda as an intergalactic sex kitten. Director Roger Vadim, who was married to Fonda at the time, basically uses Jean-Claude Forest's adult comic strip as an excuse to display her in a variety of fetishistic get-ups and unlikely clinches. Throw in Anita Pallenberg as the witchy Black Queen, a lot of scary devil dolls and some consummately kitschy retro-futuristic design and you have the last word in eccentric pop-culture ephemera. (1968)

Wednesday

Coyote Ugly

ITV1, 9pm

Daft romantic comedy with plenty of girl bonding for female viewers and plenty of clothes falling off to keep the teenage boys watching. Piper Perabo stars as a shy singer-songwriter who finds her voice doing karaoke in a sweaty bar run by other photogenic but highly assertive young women. (2000)

The Mission

Channel 4, 1.15am

Roland Joffe's highly acclaimed jungle epic stars Jeremy Irons and Robert De Niro and was shot entirely on location in Columbia and Argentina. It is 1750, and the Spanish and Portuguese are reallocating their South American colonies to protect their slave-trading interests and diminish the influence of Jesuit missionaries - with bloody consequences for the indigenous native American population. Sweeping, intense and serious, but strangely cold. (1986)

Thursday

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls

ITV1, 11.30pm

Jim Carrey stars in a second vehicle for his most irritating comic creation, a detective who specialises in animal-related mysteries. Traumatised by his failure to save a raccoon in distress, Ventura has retreated to a mountain monastery, but he is drawn back into what he does best when ... oh, take it from me, you don't need to worry about it. Basically, if you find Jim Carrey, bat dung and Carry On-style sexual innuendo funny, go forth and guffaw. If not, avoid. (1995)

Friday

Unforgiven

five, 9pm

Clint Eastwood's dingy, complex, intelligent Western remains one of the finest modern additions to that genre: loyal to its conventions but offering a sharp challenge to its moral and political assumptions. As well as directing, Eastwood plays a retired gunslinger, now a widowed farmer with children to support. Times are hard, and when a bounty is placed on the head of the murderer of a local prostitute he reluctantly hooks up with his old partner in crime (Morgan Freeman) and takes up the chase. (1992)

Crimson Tide

ITV1, 12.05am

Slick and exciting underwater thriller starring Gene Hackman as a warmongering submarine captain who falls out with his more cautious executive officer (Denzel Washington) over an imminent nuclear catastrophe. Directed by Tony Scott (Top Gun, True Romance), with script doctoring by Quentin Tarantino, whose influence becomes evident when two characters have an incongruous argument about their favourite comic-book characters. (1995)

Eight Men Out

five, 2.10am

Written and directed by John Sayles, this intense and intelligent drama tells the story of the 1919 World Series baseball scandal, in which eight players from the Chicago White Sox threw a game in exchange for bribes from gambling hoodlums. Sayles sticks close to the recorded facts, but also emphasises the symbolic shockwaves the scandal sent through a country accustomed to idealising its sporting heroes. With John Cusack and Charlie Sheen. (1988)