‘Little Women’

Gillian Armstrong’s beguiling 1994 version of Louisa May Alcott’s novel brings alive the past vividly. Armstrong, screenplay adapter and co-producer Robin Swicord and their colleagues have got everything just right. In their vision, Alcott’s alter ego-heroine, Jo March (played by a perfectly cast Winona Ryder, pictured), is not a modern-day feminist but points the way to the future in her unladylike ambition and outspoken free thinking. The filmmakers acknowledge the second-class status of Victorian-era women without making a federal case about it (HBO Saturday at 8 p.m.).