HDTV Movie Premieres: November 19-25

Fight Club: TV3, 8.30pm Saturday.

On paper, David Fincher’s gruelling, satiric assault on consumerism, complacency and corporate culture sounds absurd: perverse post-yuppies Brad Pitt and Edward Norton found a gloves-off male support group whose members pummel one another senseless in the name of freedom and personal growth. Yet on screen it’s a darkly funny, potently observed account of emasculation and empowerment that’s as breathtaking as it is extreme. (1998)

Atonement: Sky Movies Greats, 8.30pm Saturday.

Keira Knightley plays a woman of privilege whose precocious younger sister, a budding writer with a rampant imagination, sabotages her fledgling relationship with their housekeeper’s son (James McAvoy) when she accuses him of rape. Like Ian McEwan’s novel, it leisurely unfolds from different points of view and seamlessly segues from the real to the surreal, from the lyrical to the cruel. Joe Wright (The Soloist, Pride & Prejudice, Hanna) directs. (2008)

500 Days of Summer: TV3, 8.30pm Sunday.

Few romantic-comedies are as original, innovative or grounded as this gem from, believe it or not, the writers of Pink Panther 2. About an odd couple’s year-and-a-half relationship, it’s cleverly structured, trenchantly written and divinely executed with only a couple of missteps. Marc Webb directs Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, who soon will be seen in Four’s new sitcom, New Girl; Geoffrey Arend (Body of Proof) and Chloe Grace Moretz (Kick-Ass, Let Me In) co-star.  (2009)

The Tourist: Sky Movies, 8.30pm Sunday.

Johnny Depp plays a heartbroken American touring Europe who crosses paths with a glamourous stranger (Angelina Jolie) on the run from the law and the Mob. Critics widely scorned this romantic thriller from The Lives of Others writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, with Empire magazine offering one of the kinder assessments: “One of those frustrating almost-good films which never really catches fire.” (2010)

Red Eye: Sky Movies Greats, 8.30pm Sunday.

Buckle up – it’s going to be a jumpy ride. Scream director Wes Craven’s white-knuckle thriller is an efficient, tightly wound exercise in suspense that overcomes lapses in plausibility to keep you strung out for 85 minutes. Rachel McAdams (Morning Glory, Sherlock Holmes) plays a hotel executive who’s forced by a fellow airline passenger (In Time’s Cillian Murphy) to help orchestrate a political assassination 30,000 feet up. (2005)

Cyrus: Sky Movies, 8.30pm Wednesday.

This is a wondrous if weird romantic-comedy with an edge, about a self-proclaimed Shrek who, on the eve of his ex-wife – and best friend – remarrying, is rescued from dark, existential limbo by an “angel of sex”. The catch is she’s already in a relationship, of the creepy co-dependent kind, with her live-at-home adult son. What ensues is funny, gentle, empathetic and unexpected. John C Reilly, Jonah Hill and Marisa Tomei star. (2010)

Lucky Numbers: Sky Movies Greats, 8.30pm Thursday.

Bland, black comedy about a Lotto scam that casts two likable leads — John Travolta and Lisa Kudrow — in repugnant roles. Travolta and Kudrow click but little else does under Nora (Julie & Julia) Ephron’s flat direction. The unlucky cast includes Tim Roth, Bill Pullman, Ed O’Neill and Michael Moore; ex-David Letterman Show writer Adam Resnick (Saturday Night Live, The Larry Sanders Show) wrote the screenplay. (2000)

Boogie Nights: Sky Movies Greats, 8.30pm Friday.

This overwrought, overlong yet skilfully crafted and sometimes dazzling drama about flesh-peddling and filmmaking revolves around a ’70s porno producer (Burt Reynolds) and the newest recruit to his seamy company: a teenage kitchen-hand (Mark Wahlberg) whose “gift” makes him the hottest sex star since Linda Lovelace.. We’ve seen this rise-and-droop tragedy before but rarely with such raunch and virtuosity.  (1997)