Black Orpheus (French). Director Marcel Camus' modern version of the Orpheus legend, set in Brazil, is one of the most impressive cans of film so far cast up on U.S. shores by the so-called New Wave of French movies.

The 400 Blows (French). In another excellent New Wave film, the story of a runaway delinquent boy is turned into a broad indictment of the audience itself and society at large.

Ben-Hur. Hollywood's most colossal film deserves most of the stupendous adjectives that M-G-M has lavished upon it.

Third Man on the Mountain. Beautifully photographed in Switzerland, James Ramsey Ullman's Banner in the Sky has become a sort of alpine Huckleberry Finn.

They Came to Cordura. A Gary Cooper shoot-'em-up with depth, exploring the nature of courage--physical and spiritual. With Rita Hayworth.

Pillow Talk. Rock Hudson, as a songwriting satyr, amusingly shares a party line with Doris Day, an overdecorated interior decorator.

The Magician (Swedish). Writer-Director Ingmar Bergman pleases the eye and agitates the mind with a production often as eerie as a Kafka nightmare.

North by Northwest. Superb Hitchcock-and-bullets, with Gary Grant and Eva Marie Saint.

TELEVISION

Wed., Jan. 20 Armstrong Circle Theater (CBS, 10-11 p.m.).* A primer for all potential stock speculators. Full Disclosure is a frank and fact-filled tour of the "bucket shops" and "boiler rooms" where too many market amateurs are separated from their cash.

Fri., Jan. 22 The Twilight Zone (CBS, 10-10:30 p.m.). The department-store buyer's vaca tion was supposed to be a pleasant cross country car trip, but somewhere, as The Hitchhiker shows, she made the wrong turn. With Inger Stevens.

Sat., Jan. 23 Young People's Concerts (CBS, 12:30-1:30 p.m.). Live, from Carnegie Hall. Leonard Bernstein conducts the New York Philharmonic.

World Wide 60 (NBC, 9:30-10 p.m.). The first of a new series reflecting the net work's decision to beef up its news and public-affairs programs. Castro's Year of Power will examine the impact on Cuban life of the revolutionary regime. Color.

Sun., Jan. 24 Television Workshop (CBS, 12 noon-12:55 p.m.). Established last fall to develop fresh TV writing and directing talent, the workshop makes its debut by presenting The Brick and the Rose, a first TV play by Lewis John Carlino.

Johns Hopkins File 7 (ABC, 12 noon-12:30 p.m.). How did the Aztec and Maya Indians -- who almost surely never saw an elephant -- come to put the big beasts in their art and writings? Johns Hopkins Geographer George Carter tackles the intriguing question in Elephants Are Where You Find Them.

Conquest (CBS, 5-5:30 p.m.). How "rocket astronomy," one of the fascinating developments of space-age research, is said to have taught man more about the sun in two years than he has learned in all previous history. Host for The Mystery of the Sun: Charles Collingwood.

Ring Crosby Golf Classic (ABC, 5:30-7 p.m.). The pros and their amateur partners at Pebble Beach, Calif.

Twentieth Century (CBS, 6:30-7 p.m.). On-the-spot films of the Danish underground at work during World War II, including an interview with Captain Christian Kisling, last leader of Denmark's secret saboteurs.

Our American Heritage (NBC, 8-9 p.m.). Destiny West is a vignette from the life of John Charles Fremont, pioneer of America's 19th century continental expansion. With Jeffrey Hunter (Fremont), Howard St. John (Thomas Hart Benton), Susan Strasberg (Jessie Benton Fremont) and James Daly (Kit Carson).

Tues., Jan. 26

Ford Star Time (NBC, 9:30-10:30 p.m.). In The Wonderful World of Jack Paar, the big-budget show salutes an operator who showed TV producers how to entertain for peanuts. Jack is joined by some guests he has helped promote: Singer Pat Suzuki, Comic Jonathan Winters, Pianist Joes Melis.

THEATER

On Broadway

The Andersonville Trial. Playwright Saul Levitt and Director Jese Ferrer recreate the post-Civil War trial of the Confederate officer who ran the notorious prison camp at Andersonville, Ga. Although damagingly forced and ultimately unsatisfying, the moral battle in the courtroom has both bursts of eloquence and bouts of theater.

Five Finger Exercise. British Playwright Peter Shaffer lays out the battle lines of a marital war between a man of rough sensibility (Roland Culver) and his culture-fey wife (Jessica Tandy), with their son and a German tutor caught in no man's land.

Fiorello! Actor Tom Bosley makes the most of his Little Flower pot in a musical that overwhelms its faults with reminiscence and satire.

The Miracle Worker. Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke unsentimentally re-create the story of young Helen Keller and Nurse Annie Sullivan in an uneven but theatrically stirring play by William (Two for the Seesaw) Gibson.

The Tenth Man. If Paddy Chayefsky's play is weak philosophically, it is nonetheless an authentic theater piece about mental illness treated by ancient methods in a Mineola, L.I. synagogue.

Take Me Along. The musical version of Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! is a nostalgically pleasant experience. Walter Pidgeon, Jackie Gleason, Eileen Herlie.

BOOKS

Best Reading

The Good Light, by Karl Bjarnhof. A moving sequel to a fine novel (The Stars Grow Pale), the book tells of an adolescent boy in an institution for the blind, who slowly loses his sight but retains his sanity and love of life.

Collected Essays, by Allen Tate. Trenchant examinations of authors, critics and 20th century society, categories well supplied with targets for Agrarian Poet Tate's disapproval.

Charley Is My Darling, by Joyce Gary. An early (1940) Gary novel about an adolescent slum runner evacuated to the English countryside during the blitz, wryly and sympathetically written to show that "every ordinary child is by nature a delinquent."

The Joy of Music, by Leonard Bernstein. Using mostly scripts of his notable TV shows, the conductor-composer writes about music for the layman without sounding like a practitioner of what he calls the "Music Appreciation Racket."

Where the Boys Are, by Glendon Swarthout. A comical, exaggerated investigation of the springtime phenomenon: the collegian swarm to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where the action is as hot and horizontal as the sand.

Friday's Footprint, by Nadine Gordimer. A skilled author writes stories of whitest Africa, and of outwardly jolly characters within whom soundless voices cry for help.

Strike for a Kingdom, by Menna Gallic. Welsh coal miners strike, and so does a murderer in this sorrow-laced, comic novel by a woman who writes well of men.

Billy Liar, by Keith Waterhouse. A young mortician's clerk in Yorkshire dreams of becoming a London gag writer, but succeeds, in this slightly muddled comic novel, only in losing his head while all about him are keeping theirs.

Diplomat by Charles W. Thayer. The hazards and trade secrets of the morning-coat trade are well described by the author, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. foreign service.

The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. I, edited by Leonard W. Labaree. Philadelphia's journalist-gadgeteer-diplomat appears far livelier than his own homilies in this well-prepared collection that extends through his 28th year.

Best Sellers

FICTION

1. Hawaii, Michener (1)*

2. Advise and Consent, Drury (2)

3. Dear and Glorious Physician, Caldwell (4)

4. Exodus, Uris (6)

5. The Darkness and the Dawn, Costain (5)

6. Poor No More, Ruark (3)

7. The Ugly American, Lederer and Burdick (7)

8. The War Lover, Hersey (10)

9. The Devil's Advocate, West (9) 10. The Breaking Point, Du Maurier

NONFICTION

1. Act One, Hart (1) 2. Folk Medicine, Jarvis (2)

3. This Is My God, Wouk (7)

4. The Longest Day, Ryan (5)

5. The Status Seekers, Packard (3)

6. The Joy of Music, Bernstein (6)

7. May This House Be Safe from Tigers, King

8. My Wicked, Wicked Ways, Flynn

9. The Armada, Mattingly (4)

10. The Stolen Years, Touhy (8)

* All times E.S.T. -- Position on last week's list.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.