The title characters of the 1990 film...

The title characters of the 1990 film of Tom Stoppard’s play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (KCET Sunday at 9 p.m.) are hazily familiar as the treacherous school fellows of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” The blithe Rosencrantz (Gary Oldman) and the icily glum Guildenstern (Tim Roth) have been mysteriously summoned to Elsinore. The unfolding of the familiar tragedy from a fresh perspective has struck some viewers as brilliantly literate, but be prepared to find it a little tedious.

In the 1986 triumph-over-adversity TV movie Nobody’s Child (KCAL Sunday at 10 p.m.), Marlo Thomas is splendid as the real-life Marie Balter, who spent nearly 20 years in a mental institution yet went on to get a master’s degree from Harvard and work as a supervisor in a mental health agency. This film is special, thanks largely to director Lee Grant and Thomas, who is luminous in an unglamorous role.

A mother’s skepticism over the mysterious death of her child in a foster home results in the foster mother being charged with murder in the well-made 1992 TV movie A Child Lost Forever (NBC Monday at 9 p.m.). Beverly D’Angelo tackles the role of the biological mother with gusto. This film is also based on an actual incident.

As the riveting 1993 TV movie Men Don’t Tell (CBS Tuesday at 9 p.m.) unfolds, we watch a violent, temperamental wife (Judith Light) increasingly use her husband (Peter Strauss) like a punching bag in a drama that turns wife abuse inside out.

The Mambo Kings (KCOP Saturday at 6 p.m.) has such gaudy life we’re willing to forgive its cliche acting, cartoonish emotions and an uncertain plot. None of this matters much in the face of this 1992 movie’s ability to hook us into the sexy, sensual mambo music of the ‘50s. Armand Assante galvanizes the film with his recklessly dynamic presence. The quietly effective Antonio Banderas co-stars as his fellow rumba-loving Cuban emigre brother.

Lorraine Bracco, Harry Dean Stanton and Terence Stamp star in the 1991 Stranger in the Family (ABC Saturday at 8 p.m.), which Stamp also directed. The film is based on the Patricia McDonald thriller about a woman whose kidnaped boy returns 10 years after his abduction, only to become the target of a madman who wants him dead.

Cool Hand Luke (KCOP Saturday at 8 p.m.) is that solid yet antic 1967 prison film with Paul Newman and an Oscar-winning George Kennedy.