{"id":611772,"date":"2026-07-30T14:16:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T14:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/611772\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T14:16:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T14:16:23","slug":"tcms-new-films-on-film-franchise-leans-on-documentaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/611772\/","title":{"rendered":"TCM’s New ‘Films on Film’ Franchise Leans on Documentaries"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThose scholarly folks at TCM<\/a> have done it again.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe network has unveiled its latest franchise, \u201cFilms on Film,\u201d which will feature a documentary followed by a selection of movies that gives viewers an opportunity to delve deeper into and further appreciate the subject. (Check out the promo here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\n\tHosted by Ben Mankiewicz<\/a> and running on Fridays starting at 5 p.m. PT, \u201cFilms on Film\u201d kicks off with the broadcast premiere of Charles Grodin: Rebel With a Cause (2025), a portrait of the deliciously droll actor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat will be followed by screenings of four of his movies: Martin Brest\u2019s Midnight Run (1988), Aram Avakian\u2019s 11 Harrowhouse (1974) \u2014 from a screenplay written by the actor \u2014 Jay Sandrich\u2019s Seems Like Old Times (1980) and Gene Wilder<\/a>\u2019s The Woman in Red (1984).<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Sept. 11, TCM presents Ennio (2021), a doc celebrating Oscar-winning Italian composer Ennio Morricone<\/a> from Cinema Paradiso director and countryman Giuseppe Tornatore. That sets up Sergio Leone\u2019s A Fistful of Dollars (1964), Sergio Corbucci\u2019s The Great Silence (1968), Roland Joff\u00e9\u2019s The Mission (1986) and Gillo Pontecorvo\u2019s The Battle of Algiers (1966).<\/p>\n

\n\tCoinciding with Hispanic Heritage Month, Sept. 18 starts with the broadcast bow of Beyond the Border: Latino Representation in Hollywood (2026), presented with film historian Luis Reyes. That\u2019s followed by Gregory Nava\u2019s Mi Familia (1995) and George Stevens\u2019 Giant (1956).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe month concludes Sept. 25 with The Tramp and the Dictator (2002), an examination of how comedy confronted fascism during World War II. That doc, co-directed by Kevin Brownlow and Michael Kloft and narrated by Kenneth Branagh<\/a>, precedes Charlie Chaplin<\/a>\u2019s The Great Dictator (1940), Ernst Lubitsch\u2019s To Be or Not to Be (1942), Mel Brooks<\/a>\u2019 The Producers (1967), Leo McCarey\u2019s Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942) and Jerry Lewis<\/a>\u2019 Which Way to the Front? (1970).<\/p>\n

\n\tFriday nights in October will feature the documentaries Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces (2000), Boorman and the Devil (2025), Becoming Hitchcock: The Legacy of Blackmail (2024), Carl Laemmle (2019) \u2014 about Expressionism in Hollywood \u2014 and Vincent Price: What Keeps Us Alive (2026), followed by films including He Who Gets Slapped (1924), Point Blank (1967), North by Northwest (1959), The Invisible Man (1933) and The Fly (1958).<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAngie Dickinson with Lee Marvin in 1967\u2019s Point Blank, directed by John Boorman.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, TCM senior vp programming Charlie Tabesh said he heard last year from \u201csomeone who works with Steven Spielberg that thought we should do some kind of franchise about the making of films.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve come across some great documentaries over the years, and it makes a lot of sense. They might get lost if we just play them here and there; it\u2019s nice to have a regular franchise where people know when they are going to be on.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s been really fun for me to dig in \u2014 I\u2019ve been watching a ton of them \u2014 and putting [related] films around them. It\u2019s also a good excuse to play movies that are lesser known that people can discover.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTCM screened documentaries on weekend mornings under a \u201cFilms on Film\u201d umbrella about 20 years ago, Tabesh noted. This franchise will run \u201cindefinitely,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith this and other initiatives like 2024\u2019s Making Change: The Most Significant Political Films of All Time<\/a>, TCM is cementing its place as a venerable history class for viewers. \u201cPeople often tell us how we get them through hard times, but we\u2019re also proud to educate people, that\u2019s definitely part of our mission,\u201d Tabesh said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Those scholarly folks at TCM have done it again. The network has unveiled its latest franchise, \u201cFilms on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[263],"tags":[65049,250892,13100,18,117,238692,19,17,242548,107597,84205,327,73150],"class_list":["post-611772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-alfred-hitchcock","tag-ben-mankiewicz","tag-charlie-chaplin","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-gene-wilder","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jerry-lewis","tag-kenneth-branagh","tag-mel-brooks","tag-movies","tag-tcm"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117009356184611559","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}