There's something here for everyone...
One Night in Millstreet
9:30pm, RTÉ One
This winner of a documentary mixes canvas, chutzpah, and comedy as it takes you back to the Ireland of 1995 - yesterday and a lifetime ago - as Dublin boxer Steve Collins makes his bid to take the crown of reigning WBO Super-Middleweight Champion Chris Eubank. With Collins and Eubank superb interviewees in the present day, One Night in Millstreet is edge-of-the-seat stuff all over again. It also makes for a terrific time capsule of the 4x3, social media-free Ireland that was once home. The film is 10 minutes too short - we needed more of an epilogue - but that's the only points deduction here. A place among the top-ranked sports movies is thoroughly deserved; the greatest victory, however, is that Collins and Eubank still have their health.
Top of the Pops Review of the Year 2024
6:00pm, BBC Two
Clara Amfo (pictured) is our host as we look back on the music year that was. Among the highlights are Dua Lipa and Coldplay at Glastonbury - and Taylor Swift will probably get a mention in the biggest music moments of 2024 too... Also, Teddy Swims and Myles Smyth talk about having a year to remember, and Clara counts down the ten biggest-selling songs of the past 12 months.
I, Tonya
11:15pm, BBC Two
Based on "irony-free, wilfully contradictory, and totally true interviews", I, Tonya chronicles the rise and fall of real-life figure skater Tonya Harding (played by the Oscar-nominated Margot Robbie). Harding went from being a relative unknown outside her chosen sport to an overnight global hate figure following the 1994 attack on skating rival Nancy Kerrigan, which was 'masterminded' by Harding's on-again, off-again ex-husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan). In the decades since, Harding's skating talent has become a footnote. This caustic character study and skewed sports film puts that right - but leaves the halo back in the props warehouse. It also doubles down on classic performances: along with Robbie, we get the Oscar-winning Allison Janney in flamethrower form as Harding's mother, LaVona. I, Tonya does a great job at showing how Harding brought her relationship rage and outsider status to the rink, but with the black humour as thick as the ice, it's also laugh-out-loud funny as the tragedy + time = comedy theory is proven yet again.
That They May Face the Rising Sun
RTÉ Player
ICYMI on RTÉ One on St Stephen's Day, this glorious adaptation of the late John McGahern's final novel is the movie equivalent of the grand stretch and should be regarded with the same sense of wonder. In a lakeside community of yesteryear, we watch blow-ins Joe and Kate Ruttledge (Barry Ward and Anna Bederke) as time does its thing to all things. "The rain comes down, the sun shines, grass grows, children grow old and die. That's the holy all of it. We all know it full well but can't even whisper it," muses one of the endearing locals early on in this tour of enchantment. Ah yes, but there's a lot of living to be done too - and here we're reminded to revel in the small moments. Making his big move into straightforward drama, writer-director Pat Collins (Silence, Song of Granite) will cause a gentle stampede towards McGahern's source novel after this. What Collins, co-writer Éamon Little, the cast and crew have achieved here is magic. The acting is brilliant, and Ireland has never looked better in the role of No Place Like Home.
3:10 to Yuma
4OD
Fifty years after the Glenn Ford and Van Heflin-starring favourite, director James Mangold paired Christian Bale and Russell Crowe for a remake and made the better Western. This one-man-stands-tall story sees Bale's war veteran rancher stick to his guns as he tries to get Crowe's infamous outlaw on the titular train. The chemistry between them is superb; there are plenty of twists to go with the bang-bang, and the ending does justice to everything that precedes it. Mangold had already shown his cowboy clout with 1997's Sylvester Stallone-starring crime drama Copland, and when he got the chance to travel back in time to 1884 he made a film that honoured all the heroes and villains of yesteryear. Here's hoping he makes another Western down the line. In the meantime, Mangold's new film, the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, opens in cinemas on 17 January.
