My Top Ten TV Movies

This may be the weirdest top ten list I've written yet, for a couple of reasons. First, it's a post about celebrating the red-headed stepchild of the media world, the television movie, which has never gotten its fair shake as a legitimate form of media after decades of cheap ripped-from-the-headlines dreck. Second, this list is conspicuously missing many of the obvious, high profile titles that usually are held up as shining examples of television movies - for the simple reason that I never had access to premium cable channels like HBO and Showtime for the vast majority of my life. As a result, all the celebrated HBO prestige features that win so many Emmys are nowhere in sight. And so my list is, well, it's unique.

Duel (1971) - Let's start with one of the obvious classics. Steven Spielberg directed and Richard Matheson wrote this bare bones thriller about a truck that menaces a poor salesman during a long drive through the Mojave desert. This was only Spielberg's second feature, and he was already displaying a remarkable visual sense and facility with screen language. You never see the driver of the tanker truck, and you never need to. The film was so successful, additional scenes were shot, and the movie was given a theatrical release in Europe and other overseas markets.

The Naked Civil Servant (1975) - The biopic of Quentin Crisp put him in the spotlight as a prominent queer British icon, and features John Hurt in one of his most famous performances. It took me a while to find the film, which is currently streaming on Topic, and I'm so glad I took the trouble. It's such a daring a brutally honest portrayal of a homosexual man struggling to survive the first half of the twentieth century, you almost can't believe that either the man or the film actually exists. And John Hurt's fearless lead performance as Crisp really is one for the ages.

The Lathe of Heaven (1980) - PBS funded and aired this bare bones adaptation of the Ursula K. LeGuin science-fiction novel, starring Bruce Davison as a man whose dreams change reality, and Kevin Conway as the psychiatrist who hijacks his powers. I just love the way that such an epic story is told with so few resources, how a few cleverly dressed sets and rudimentary video effects can convey massive societal changes and catastrophes from scene to scene. This is a film of ideas and substance more than glitz and spectacle, and it really comes through in every aspect of the production.

Meantime (1983) - Mike Leigh made ten television films in the '70s and '80s before gaining enough support to make the jump to theatrical films permanently. "Meantime" is one of his best, a candid look at a working class family living in London's East End, where jobs are scarce and future prospects are dim. Gary Oldman had his screen debut here, as a skinhead, and Tim Roth plays one of the leads. Like so much of Leigh's work, the film is interested in ordinary people living out ordinary lives, and serves as a great snapshot of the state of Britain in the uncertain days of the 1980s.

The Halloween Tree (1993) - After Turner bought Hanna-Barbera in the '90s, there was a brief period where they tried to produce more ambitious projects. This included a Halloween-themed feature based on Ray Bradbury's YA novel, "The Halloween Tree." Bradbury himself wrote the teleplay, reducing the number of characters and updating the material. The animation is a little on the rough side, but the simplicity of the imagery is charming and perfectly nostalgic. I also want to highlight the great John Debney score and Leonard Nimoy's performance as Moundshroud.

Bloody Sunday (2002) - This one had its premiere at Sundance and got a theatrical run, but it was produced for ITV and aired there first, so I count it as a TV film. I strongly suspect that Paul Greengrass got tapped for the "Bourne" movies because of his work here, which depicts the 1972 Northern Irish Bloody Sunday shootings. The shaky-cam cinematography, the intense immediacy of the action choreography, and the fast-paced editing are all clearly visible here. This is certainly a prestige project, but it's a chilling and uncompromisingly bleak one that caught me off guard.

Sybil (1976) - This is the entry that's closest to what the popular conception of a TV movie is, a melodrama featuring terrible domestic abuses, women in trouble, and other potentially salacious subject matter. However, "Sybil" also features two fantastic performances from Sally Field and Joanne Woodward, and I love its approach to its heroine's personal struggles, even though the conception of DID is very dated. At three hours in length, parts of the film can be a slog, but I think it's worth it to get to the lovely final counseling session, where Sybil finally meets herself.

Behind the Candelabra (2013) - For Steven Soderbergh's sake, I went and tracked down this HBO film, about the relationship between Liberace and his longtime partner Scott Thorson, played by Michael Douglas and Matt Damon respectively. Not being very familiar with Liberace, I enjoy the movie purely as a trashy (but affectionate) gay love story and black comedy with a fabulous cast - witness Rob Lowe's towering achievement in coiffure. At the time, this was supposed to be Soderbergh's final film project before retirement - and I'm very glad that it didn't stick.

White Dwarf (1995) - Now here's a real oddity. Francis Ford Coppola was one of the producers behind this striking fantasy film, which was initially put together as a pilot for a possible series. As such, there's no real plot to the thing, just a string of introductions to interesting places and people, played by a bevy of familiar character actors. However, the worldbuilding and the weird mix of influences really sets this one apart. There are shapeshifters, warriors, monsters, and magic in abundance. And the weirdest thing is that this is actually a medical drama at its core.

The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982) - Here's a favorite from my childhood - the absolute best adaptation of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" ever made, starring Jane Seymour and Anthony Andrews, with Ian McKellan as the villain. This is largely thanks to the excellent performance of Anthony Andrews as the ridiculously foppish Percy Blakeney. The rest of the film, likewise, is all adventure and romance and fun, never taking itself too seriously. The politics are little out of date, which is why I suspect the property hasn't been remade often since, but the story is still a charmer.
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