The best films to watch on UK TV today: Sunday, 23 August

Boyhood, Legend, District 9.
Not to be missed: Boyhood, Legend, District 9.

There are not one, but TWO great movies called Legend starring famous film stars called Tom on telly today at as TopFilmTip brings you the best films on TV for Sunday, 23 August.

One is an under-appreciated Ridley Scott fantasy epic, the other stars Tom Hardy as both Ronnie and Reggie Kray. Also not to be missed is Richard Linklater’s ambitious and moving coming-of-age tale Boyhood.

Some films may require a Sky subscription.

Moral complications of recognition and respect for emerging artificial intelligence, creativity and life explored in gay marriage metaphor Isaac Asimov’s Bicentennial Man 1:45pm Sony Movies

Explosions, chases and teenage crushes and races as geek Viking learns secrets of dragon taming in outstanding animated fantasy How to Train Your Dragon 3:20pm Film4

Lost in New York, timid hound and rehoused stray survive sewers, maniacal bunny and each other to make it home to their owner in family fun The Secret Life of Pets 5:15pm ITV2

Marmalade munching, ear-brushing, self-taping furry catastrophe seeks London home in guffaw inducing immigration analogy Paddington 5:15pm Film4

Perpetual squatter Tom Cruise rescues innocent warbling princess from unicorn hunting goblins and Satan in hyperbolic fantasy Legend 6:40pm Horror Channel

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Soft step-dad's tenuous fatherhood is shaken by arrival of badass biological in emasculating bike crashing comedy fun Daddy's Home 7:05pm Film4

Widow seducing mouse threatener uncovers insidious global crime-spiracy in Sam Mendes' trepanning, breathless beauty Spectre 8:00pm ITV2

Misogynistic homophobic racist writer finds friendship and redemption by eruditely insulting those he loves most As Good as It Gets 9:00pm Comedy Central

Retired couple must chose to fight for or flee hopeful life in French countryside when terrorised by teen-sociopaths in shovel slaying brutal and bloody boomer horror Offensive 9:00pm Horror Channel

A drunken Bruce Willis discovers his principals and protects Mos Def from crooked cops in exceptional, real time thriller 16 Blocks 9:00pm Paramount Network

American actors Jeanne Tripplehorn and Tom Cruise on the set of The Firm, based on the novel by John Grisham and directed by Sydney Pollack. (Photo by Francois Duhamel/Sygma via Getty Images)
American actors Jeanne Tripplehorn and Tom Cruise on the set of The Firm, based on the novel by John Grisham and directed by Sydney Pollack. (Photo by Francois Duhamel/Sygma via Getty Images)

Tom Cruise’s new dream job drops him in-between vicious mafia overlords and unforgiving FBI agents in top Grisham drama The Firm 9:00pm 5 Star

Psychotic cockney crime twins Tom Hardy rise to rule London in brutal orgy of BDSMing, charisma, fraud and intimidation Legend 9:00pm Film 4

Abused by child, corporate slave dumps directives to annihilate drug messiah in brain transplanting, blood squibbing fun RoboCop 2 9:55pm ITV4

Illiterate girl survives nazi rule, forging courage in world of words and learning value of life, literacy and liberty The Book Thief 10:00pm Channel 4

Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in the film adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' <i>The Notebook</i> (New Line Cinema)
Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in the film adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook (New Line Cinema)

Forbidden union by class discrimination, a life long love binds two soulmates together through troubled years apart The Notebook 10:30pm BBC One

Smart-mouthed subway cop reluctantly assists ruthless train-jackers in flawless 1970s thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three 11:15pm Sony Movies Action

Two brothers on different sides of the law have their loyalties tested when the Russian mob bays for their blood We Own the Night 11:20pm Sony Movies

Over 13 real-time years, child grows to manhood accepting life is change amid tumult of family fractures- uplifting wonder Boyhood 11:40pm Film 4

American actors Richard Gere and Diane Lane on the set of Cotton Club, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. (Photo by Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)
American actors Richard Gere and Diane Lane on the set of Cotton Club, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. (Photo by Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)

Musicians, singers and dancers mingle with Harlem’s gangsters in Francis Ford Coppola’s stellar casted, atmospheric love letter to Jazz era grim and glamour The Cotton Club 00:05am Talking Pictures

Self-serving idealistic art expert fails to live up to his own ideology after petty inconvenience prompts an existential crisis in jaw-dropping satire The Square 00:30am Channel 4

Bureaucratic yes man mutates into fooking pron and goes on splattery alien gun rampage in unparalleled allegorical sci-fi District 9 1:35am Sony Movies

Bullied boy and outcast girl find amity as they dream up an imaginary world in bittersweet tear-jerking wonder Bridge to Terabithia 3:55am Sony Movies

Everything new on streaming in September:

The films premiering on Sky Cinema and Now TV in September

The best new films coming to Disney+ in September

Everything coming to Netflix UK in September