THE DEER HUNTER
Cinemax, 8:00 p.m. ET
This amazing 1978 war movie, directed by Michael Cimino, begins on the home front, with Robert De Niro, John Cazale, John Savage, Christopher Walken, and George Dzundza playing friends in a factory town in Pennsylvania. After a wedding – with a bridesmaid played by a young and radiant Meryl Streep – some of the equally young men go off to war in Vietnam, where things get horrible. And, from that point, never get much less intense. It’s an astounding film, with riveting performances from all involved, and with an immediacy and vividness that hasn’t dulled at all with the passage of time.