GONE GIRL (2014) 10:15 p.m. on HBOSGe. Based on the 2012 best seller by Gillian Flynn, who also wrote the screenplay, “Gone Girl” follows the alternating narratives of the husband and wife Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike), as an investigation mounts once Amy is discovered missing and Nick becomes a suspect in her disappearance. The Times critic Manohla Dargis described the film as “a ghastly vision” in her review of the movie. “At its strongest,” she added, “‘Gone Girl’ plays like a queasily, at times gleefully, funny horror movie about a modern marriage.”
Saturday
A SOLDIER’S STORY (1984) and SERGEANT RUTLEDGE (1960) 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. on TCM. This week’s selection for Turner Classic Movies’ Black History Month Saturdays features two films that focus on the Black experience in the Army. First is the Academy Award-nominated “A Soldier’s Story,” which Lawrence van Gelder described in his 1984 review for The Times as mixing “mystery, history, sociology and inquiry into the psychopathology of hatred and the poison of accommodation to injustice.” Based on Charles Fuller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Soldier’s Play,” a loose adaptation of Herman Melville’s novella “Billy Budd,” the film is set in rural Louisiana during World War II and tells the story of Capt. Richard Davenport (Howard Rollins Jr.), a JAG officer who has been called in to investigate the murder of Vernon Waters (Adolph Caesar), a sergeant in an all-Black Army unit. “Sergeant Rutledge” continues this exploration of themes of racial prejudice and justice. Set in the Southwest in the post‐Civil War years, it follows Braxton Rutledge (Woody Strode), a sergeant in one of four all-Black units, as he is tried in the rape and killing of a white girl and the slaying of her father, his commanding officer. Directed by the four-time Oscar-winning director John Ford, “Sergeant Rutledge” represents a shift in the racial consciousness of Ford’s work.
Sunday
PUPPY BOWL XIX 2 p.m. on Animal Planet. Returning for its 19th year, Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl is a call-to-adoption television event that highlights the work of a range of animal rescues and shelters while adoptable puppies “compete” in a series of games. This year’s Puppy Bowl will feature over 120 puppies from 67 shelters, some of whom viewers will learn about in more depth over the course of the three-hour special (in addition to a number of featured kittens during “Kitty Halftime”).
SUPER BOWL LVII 6:30 p.m. on Fox. Fox Sports presents its live coverage from State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., as the AFC champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, play the NFC champions, the Philadelphia Eagles, in a battle for the ultimate title. This year’s game is notable for being the first Super Bowl to feature two Black quarterbacks, and the first time a set of brothers will be competing against one another. The 2023 game also pits Andy Reid, the head coach for Kansas City, against Philadelphia, for which Reid was head coach from 1999 to 2012.
