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Christmas TV guide: All the movies to watch, from Wreck-It Ralph to Ant-Man

Ranging from beloved classics to more recent superhero outings

Jacob Stolworthy

Friday 28 December 2018 11:45 GMT

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The Jungle Book Clip - Introduction To Shere Khan

Let’s be honest, Christmas is a time for opening presents, eating – and watching loads of films.

It’s most likely the only time you have off work for a sustained period, and this is a fact that should be truly embraced.

Fortunately, the TV schedules are bursting at the seams with films – ranging from beloved classics to more recent superhero outings – that you can settle down to watch over the coming weeks.

If picking what to watch seems like a gargantuan task, don’t fret: below is a highlight of the films showing on television each day.

Saturday 22 December

The Muppets, BBC2, 10am

The Muppet Christmas Carol may be a festive go-to, but this 2011 adventure – starring Jason Segel and Amy Adams – is a treat that’s as much fun for the kids as it is the grown-ups.

The Wizard of Oz, ITV3, 1pm

There’s no better time to venture over the rainbow and watch this musical, starring Judy Garland, than at Christmastime. An unadulterated classic.

Old School, BBC1, 12.35am

An underrated comedy that’s rightly earned cult status since its release in 2003. It follows three thirtysomethings, played by Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn and Will Ferrell, who re-live their college days by starting a fraternity.

Sunday 23 December

Brief Encounter, ITV3, 2.45pm

In his time, David Lean may have enjoyed making a sweeping epic or two (see: Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago), but he still found room for more intimate affairs. This romantic drama, starring Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson, is still considered one of Britain’s greatest films.

Krampus, Channel 5, 11pm

An entertaining way to spend a few hours. This festive horror-comedy – based on the malevolent hoofed figure from European folklore – is an offbeat departure from the Christmas classics of which you might have grown tired.

The Grand Budapest Hotel, Film4, 11.20pm

Wes Anderson’s Oscar-nominated gem is as enjoyable now as it was upon its release in 2012, bolstered by an uproarious performance by Ralph Fiennes, who leads an all-star ensemble including Willem Dafoe, Saoirse Ronan and Edward Norton.

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Films to watch before you die

Show all 35

1/35Films to watch before you die

Films to watch before you die

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

With this update and upgrade of the 1930s serial adventure, Steven Spielberg turns what could have been pastiche into a practically perfect film. Harrison Ford’s daring archaeologist is almost always out of his depth but has impeccable underdog charm, and Douglas Slocombe’s casually stunning cinematography is matched by one of John Williams's finest scores. Indy is ultimately irrelevant to the entire plot, interestingly, but his indefatigable effort to do the right thing still inspires. HO

Rex

Films to watch before you die

Spirited Away (2001)

Japanese animation legend Hayao Miyazaki's films delight kids with their bright colours, imaginative characters and plucky heroines (usually). But there's meat to their bones for adults to digest, especially in this towering fantasy epic. As young Chihiro takes a job in a mysterious bathhouse peopled by spirits in order to save her parents, viewers can explore everything from deeply rooted interpretations of traditional Japanese myth to Miyazaki's fascination with Western filmmaking and the Second World War. And visually it’s unparalleled. HO

Toho

Films to watch before you die

Avengers (2012)

Yes, but hear us out: Avengers is a grand experimental film. Marvel risked four popular franchises on this superhero throw of the dice, something never attempted in cinema history. They won, and made the fizzing chemistry of the unlikely gang who must save us from aliens look easy. But the failure of every Marvel imitator since makes clear how impressive this billion-dollar gamble really was, and how difficult it is to tell character-driven stories in blockbuster cinema on this scale. And as a bonus, it has a Hulk. HO

Marvel Studios

Films to watch before you die

The Shining (1980)

Stanley Kubrick’s creep-show classic is remembered for the indelible images of that violent finale chase, but its reputation and influence stem from the slow-winding tension that precedes it. Jack Nicholson is the struggling writer whose sanity frays over a winter season at an isolated and haunted hotel; Shelley Duvall plays his increasingly desperate wife. Touching on questions of domestic violence as well as delivering a ghost story for the ages, this will get under your skin and stay there. HO

Warner Bros/Hawk Films/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock

Films to watch before you die

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

One of those remakes that justifies remakes, Philip Kaufman’s beautifully skilful spin on the McCarthy-era alien-clone thriller translates it wickedly to the psychobabble age of the 1970s, with a bit of post-Watergate panic thrown in. Donald Sutherland’s lugubrious health inspector is a nicely grumpy enemy of the pod people, and the hysteria ratchets up masterfully. PS

Films to watch before you die

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Wes Anderson's meticulously mannered and beautifully composed films are not to all tastes, but when combined with a cast of this calibre and a more-than-usually heartfelt script, they are capable of magic. Gene Hackman plays the disgraced patriarch of a family of geniuses, making one last attempt at redemption. With a who’s who of Hollywood in support, it’s a story that is as bizarre, hilarious and moving as family life itself. HO

Buena Vista Pictures

Films to watch before you die

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

David Lean’s First World War epic about TE Lawrence remains a filmmaking milestone, the movie that Steven Spielberg rewatches before starting each new film. Its genius is to combine huge scale battles – notably the attack on Aqaba – with psychological insight into the toll that the war took on Lawrence’s mind. The white-led casting of Arab characters is appalling to modern eyes, but with its daring, dazzling filmmaking it remains one to watch despite that. HO

Rex

Films to watch before you die

Bicycle Thieves (1948)

A devastating portrait of the poverty trap, Vittorio De Sica’s neo-realist masterpiece remains all too relevant. Antonio (Lamberto Maggiorani) is offered a desperately-needed job – but it requires a bicycle, and when his is stolen he and his son resort to desperate measures to get it back. Shot with non-professional actors who lived in circumstances close to that of their characters, this is a study in compassion and empathy. HO

Rex Features

Films to watch before you die

Farewell My Concubine (1993)

Spanning five decades of Chinese history, this sprawling epic follows two stars of the Peking Opera from harsh childhood training through the perils of the Second World War, the Communist takeover and the Cultural Revolution. Director Chen Keige drew on his own experience of the Cultural Revolution to shape this groundbreaking, tormented romance both between Zhang Fengyi’s Ziaolou and Leslie Cheng’s Dieyi, and between Ziaolou and his former prostitute wife Juxian (Gong Li). HO

Miramax Films

Films to watch before you die

Tokyo Story (1953)

Pauline Kael thought that the basic appeal of movies was the “kiss kiss bang bang” of action and romance, but Yasujirō Ozu demonstrates that film is capable of much more in this quiet family drama. It’s a simple story about two elderly parents visiting their adult children, only to find that the younger generation is busy with other things. But it’s also a meditation on the passing of time, and on grief, and on the constant push towards the new that will break your heart every time you watch it. HO

Rex Features

Films to watch before you die

Double Indemnity (1944)

If we have learned anything from film noir, it is that murder pacts never work out well for both parties. That’s certainly the lesson when Fred MacMurray’s infatuated salesman offers life insurance to Barbara Stanwyck’s femme fatale Phyllis against her unloved husband. The scheme gives way to a riveting stew of suspicion and paranoia, with Stanwyck’s ruthless determination warping MacMurray’s Neff out of all recognition as director Billy Wilder tightens the screws. HO

Rex Features

Films to watch before you die

Days of Heaven (1978)

Terrence Malick’s second, and for many, greatest film is a mesmerisingly gorgeous love triangle set in the Texas Panhandle in 1916, loosely based on an Old Testament parable. Richard Gere and Brooke Adams are the lovers who pose as brother and sister to fool a rich, dying farmer (Sam Shepard). Nestor Almendros’s astounding magic-hour photography rightly won an Oscar, and Linda Manz supplies heartbreaking, plainspoken narration as Gere’s younger sister. PS

Paramount Pictures

Films to watch before you die

Citizen Kane (1941)

The problem with calling something “the greatest film ever made” is that it begins to sound like homework. Forget that: beyond all the technical dazzle and ground-breaking filmmaking Orson Welles’s masterpiece has red blood in its veins and a huge beating heart. What’s more, its portrait of a thrusting, occasionally demagogic tycoon and the hollowness at the heart of his success remains as relevant as it ever was, and the suggestion that America might be susceptible to media manipulation all too believable. HO

Films to watch before you die

Les Enfants du Paradis (1945)

Marcel Carné's immortal saga about a 19th-century Parisian theatre company – often called the French Gone with the Wind – has a swooning romanticism but majors in heartbreak, too. Among this ensemble, brilliantly played by some of the best Gallic actors of their day, hopes rise and are shattered, and jealousy mounts among all the acolytes of a courtesan called Garance. It looks back to mime and stagecraft as essential components in the prehistory of cinema, while also being great cinema.

Rex Features

Films to watch before you die

Rear Window (1954)

Whether you see it as Alfred Hitchcock’s celebration of voyeurism or simply one of the most nail-biting thrillers ever made, it’s a superb example of the Master of Suspense at work. James Stewart’s photographer, laid up with a broken leg, becomes obsessed with the lives of his neighbours and suspects one of murder. The unusually vulnerable hero – as in Vertigo – increases the stakes and ensures that simple brawn won’t save the day, while Hitchcock ratchets up the tension unbearably by putting Grace Kelly’s plucky girlfriend in the lion’s mouth. HO

Films to watch before you die

It Happened One Night (1934)

Claudette Colbert's eloping heiress and Clark Gable's hack on his uppers warily team up on a Greyhound bus, only to aggravatingly fall for each other. Frank Capra's evergreen romcom all but invented the love-hate formula that's one model for silver screen chemistry, hoicking up Colbert's skirt to flash a leg when they need to hitch-hike, and dismantling Gable's smarmy defences. The biggest hit of its day for a reason, it was also the first ever film to win the big five at the Oscars. PS

Films to watch before you die

Hoop Dreams (1994)

The trials of young black basketball hopefuls in Chicago tell us volumes, from their upbringing to all-or-nothing career rimshots, about the opportunities otherwise denied them. For these portraits of inner-city poverty, gliding between frustration and triumph, Steve James’s epic of ghetto realities has been influential on every sports doc that has come in its wake. The Academy’s documentary branch will never quite live down failing to nominate it. PS

Kartemquin Films

Films to watch before you die

The Apartment (1960)

This blistering Billy Wilder and IAL Diamond script is a demonstration of just how dark a love story can be get without tipping entirely into bitterness, a standing rebuke to every lazy, schmaltzy comedy going. While the entire cast is stellar and Shirley MacLaine was never better, it’s worth ignoring them all and just watching Jack Lemmon’s meek office worker CC Baxter. Every gesture and glance is flawless; he carries entire scenes without a word. HO

Rex

Films to watch before you die

Paris, Texas (1984)

In Wim Wenders's Palme d'Or winning trek through America's byways, Harry Dean Stanton plays a wreck of a man who's gone missing, found wandering silently through the Texan wilderness. He travels hundreds of miles to reconcile with his ex (Nastassja Kinski), whom he finds, oblivious to who he is, on the other side of a Houston peepshow window. Culminating unforgettably with this long-take tête-a-tête, it's a shattering quest for redemption, eerily scored by Ry Cooder.

Films to watch before you die

Before Midnight (2013)

Céline (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) have settled down since the two earlier films in Richard Linklater’s essential trilogy, Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004), but the problems in their lives – self-inflicted by now – only keep proliferating. Trenchantly pushing them into full-on battle-of-the-sexes territory, the film squares them off for a bitterly adult dissection of a long-term relationship, asking stark questions about love, compromise and lasting the course. PS

Films to watch before you die

Le Mépris (1963)

Other Jean-Luc Godard films are punchier, ruder, more experimental. But this is his most lavish, measured, and sad: an elegiac fantasy of filmmaking, as a loose adaptation of the Odyssey grinds to a halt on Capri, with Jack Palance as the brash American producer trying to sell art by the yard. Meanwhile, the screenwriter (Michel Piccoli) and his beautiful, bored wife (Brigitte Bardot) tussle and reconcile in an incessant, pained ballet. PS

Films to watch before you die

Casablanca (1942)

Some films strain under the weight of greatness; Casablanca’s quality bubbles through. Against the backdrop of the Second World War, two former lovers reunite though everything in the world is pulling them apart. Bogart’s Rick hides a huge heart under a thin veneer of cynicism; opposite him Ingrid Bergman’s luminous Ilsa would melt an iceberg. Packed with quotable lines and brimming over with impeccable cool, here we are, still lookin' at you, kid. HO

Films to watch before you die

A Trip to the Moon (1902)

Georges Méliès pioneered many of the visual and special effects techniques that have formed the backbone of fantastical filmmaking ever since, and he pushed them all to their limits in this turn-of-the-century tale of a rocket trip to the moon to meet the strange creatures who live upon it. Witty touches and a real sense of story mean that this is still entertaining more than a century later, and if the effects are less awe-inspiring now, they’re still beautifully designed and executed. HO

Rex Features

Films to watch before you die

His Girl Friday (1940)

A screwball comedy of substance, Howard Hawks's remake of The Front Page is an objectively odd mix of high stakes and high comedy. Yet it works because the machine-gun dialogue is so quick that there's never a moment to question what’s happening (the great screenwriter Ben Hecht, who co-wrote the original Broadway play, worked on it uncredited). Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, as the warring editor and star-reporter trying to work together long enough to land the story of the year, remain the standard by which all on-screen chemistry should be judged. HO

Films to watch before you die

The Conversation (1974)

Francis Ford Coppola slipped this paranoid masterpiece in between the first two Godfathers, though it was left to his wizardly editor Walter Murch to resolve the plot in post-production. Gene Hackman, never better, plays Harry Caul, a loner surveillance expert called upon to pry into a situation he doesn't fully understand, and winding up dangerously complicit in murderous malfeasance. No other film managed to foreshadow Watergate quite so uncannily.

Paramount Pictures

Films to watch before you die

Blow Out (1981)

John Travolta's Z-movie sound man, out recording one night, accidentally tapes what turns out to be a political assassination. Brian De Palma hit peak ingenuity and gut-punch profundity with this stunning conspiracy thriller, mounted with a showman's élan but also harrowing emotional voltage from its star. It’s one of the most delirious thrillers of the 1980s, with a bitterly ironic pay-off that’s played for keeps. PS

Filmways Pictures

Films to watch before you die

City of God (2002)

There’s a deep contradiction at the heart of this acid-bright portrait of the violence in Rio’s favelas. On one hand these child hustlers and teen gangsters have an intense lust for life, an exuberance displayed in dance and play and love; on the other, they value life cheaply and take it without a qualm. Director Fernando Meirelles and co-director Kátia Lund cast a talented band of local kids to give it authenticity and then punctuated their story with Scorsese-esque violence that still shocks. HO

Films to watch before you die

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

The diverging romantic fortunes of Hannah (Mia Farrow), Lee (Barbara Hershey) and Holly (Dianne Wiest, who won an Oscar, as did Michael Caine) provide an ideal structure for Woody Allen to check in on a midway state of adulthood, when there's already a sense of disappointment about squandered promise, but still much to play for. It hits the miraculous sweet spot between all Allen’s modes and tones. PS

Moviestore/Rex

Films to watch before you die

Raising Arizona (1987)

The Coen Brothers had already established a ghoulish signature style with Blood Simple, but here they showed us how funny they could be, in a zig-zagging kidnap farce which manages the difficult feat of being both zany and adorable. Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter are the unlikely couple whose abduction of a spare newborn quintuplet, Nathan Jr, causes all hell to break loose. PS

20th Century Fox

Films to watch before you die

Caché (2005)

This looks and acts like a thriller, but in reality Michael Haneke’s exploration of colonialism, guilt, paranoia and privacy cares more about subtext than about scares or mystery. A well-to-do Parisian family are tormented by the arrival of surveillance tapes of their lives, but it’s not clear who could be sending them or why, leading patriarch Georges (Daniel Auteuil, never better) to confront his own past sins. As a subversion of genre and viewer expectation, there are few to match it. HO

Rex

Films to watch before you die

The General (1926)

Orson Welles suggested that Buster Keaton’s silent Civil War comedy might be the greatest film ever made, and who are we to argue? Keaton’s Johnny Gray is a key figure on the railroads of the Confederacy, but he and his engine, The General, must go above and beyond to defeat a Union spy. Ignore the dodgy politics and focus on the sublime physical comedy of Keaton’s beautifully composed routines. You’ll come out wondering if movies even need sound. HO

Rex

Films to watch before you die

The Babadook (2014)

The Babadook is a black, hunched pop-up book monster who raps on your door three times before paying a visit. And you can’t get rid of him. Widowed mum Amelia (brilliant Essie Davis) can’t remember reading his book to her emotionally disturbed misfit of a son (Noah Wiseman) before. Jennifer Kent’s thoughtful Australian chamber shocker, a feast of inventive design, claws its way into you and leaves scratch marks. PS

Films to watch before you die

When Harry Met Sally (1989)

Is it impossible for men and women to be purely platonic? It is according to Harry, in this beautiful, brainy comedy about two neurotic New Yorkers who become friends and then more. Directed by Rob Reiner and written by wonderful Nora Ephron, it's a paean of sorts to Woody Allen's early films, with razor-sharp observations about sex and dating ("I'll have what she's having"). It's still the pinnacle of both Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan's careers.

Columbia Pictures

Films to watch before you die

Inside Out (2015)

Toy Story revolutionised animation; Up and Wall-E vie for the best opening of any film this century, but for sheer audacity Pete Docter’s head-trip must prevail. As a little girl struggles to adapt following a family move across country, her emotions go on a madcap adventure through the mind itself. What’s dazzling here is that two completely separate films unfold at once. Kids watch brightly coloured sprites on a quest; adults watch a psychologically dense depiction of how we think and feel. It’s wonderful.

Getty

Films to watch before you die

True Romance (1993)

Disinterred from a script Tarantino wrote in the mid-Eighties called The Open Road – the same screenplay that also spawned Natural Born Killers – Tony Scott's True Romance is a pulpy, hyperviolent twist on a damsel-in-distress fairytale, with a plinky-plonky score that is based on Badlands. Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette are the lovers on the lam, chased by Christopher Walken's suave mafioso. Bombastic, brash – and totally brilliant.

Rex

Christmas Eve

Zootropolis, BBC1, 2.55pm

Disney pulled it out of the bag once again with this tale of a world run by animals, in which a bunny (Ginnifer Goodwin) attempts to break out of her rural roots to become a city cop. One of the best animations of the decade.

Rear Window, Channel 4, 3.20pm

Having time off work over Christmas provides you with time to catch up with the classics you might not have seen. Start with Rear Window, the Alfred Hitchcock thriller following a housebound photographer who becomes convinced his neighbour has murdered his wife.

Gremlins, ITV, 9.30pm

Gremlins may have seemed like a risky experiment (it’s a creature feature Christmas horror comedy, after all), but it’s one that paid off. When a teenager is given a cute new pet named Gizmo, he’s instructed to follow a set of three rules, which he swiftly breaks. You know the rest...

Christmas Day

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Channel 5, 1.05pm

If you’ve not seen this musical – which features a standout performance from screen legend Howard Keel, and deserves as much love as Stanley Donen’s other classic, Singin’ in the Rain – this Christmas is the time to rectify that oversight.

The Jungle Book, BBC1, 3.10pm

The BBC’s big premiere is Disney’s live-action remake of The Jungle Book, which was released to acclaim back in 2016. Director Jon Favreau (Iron Man) did such a good job, the studio handed him the reins for a similar Lion King remake, which will be released in cinemas in the summer of 2019.

Monsters, Inc, ITV, 4.10pm

Naming your favourite Pixar film is an increasingly difficult task, but Monsters, Inc should always be in contention. In it, monster duo Sulley and Mike Wazowski (brilliantly voiced by John Goodman and Billy Crystal) live in a city fuelled by children’s screams, which is turned upside down by the arrival of a young girl named Boo.

Boxing Day

Song of the Sea, Channel 4, 5.40am

This little-seen fantasy film, an Irish co-production, charts the journey of a young boy who discovers that his mute sister is a mythical selkie. The beautiful hand-drawn animation alone makes it worth your time.

Raiders of the Lost Ark, BBC1, 1.25pm

As is Christmas norm, the BBC will show the original Indiana Jones trilogy over three consecutive nights. Apologies to Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but there’s no denying the franchise peaked with its debut – an adventure film unlike any in existence.

Saving Mr Banks, BBC2, 2.30pm

Saving Mr Banks is a worthy watch if only for the on-screen chemistry between Emma Thompson – here starring as Mary Poppins creator, PL Travers – and Tom Hanks who plays the man responsible for bringing the character to screen: Walt Disney. John Lee Hancock’s film brings the emotion (all together now) in the most delightful waaaay.

Thursday 27 December

The Pirates! In An Adventure with Scientists!, BBC1, 9.25am

Cast-iron proof that Aardman Animation is every bit as good as Pixar and DreamWorks. This feature takes viewers to the high seas for an adventure centred on Hugh Grant’s kooky captain.

Skyfall, ITV, 8pm

Bond 23 may be patchy, but it features several highlights, namely Javier Bardem’s genuinely eerie bad guy. The thrilling opening sequence is one of the most memorable in 007 history.

Jimi: All Is by My Side, BBC2, 12.50am

This music drama was a festival favourite upon its release in 2013. Written by 12 Years a Slave scribe John Ridley, it charts the beginning of Jimi Hendrix’s career, weighted by an impressive lead performance from Outkast’s André Benjamin.

Friday 28 December

Emma, BBC2, 12.30pm

Perhaps the most entertaining Jane Austen adaptation there is. Gwyneth Paltrow leads the troupe as the eponymous character who plays matchmaker in her small community in 19th-century England. Toni Collette and Ewan McGregor also star.

Wreck-It Ralph, BBC1, 4.10pm

Whether you’ve recently seen its new sequel or you’re planning a cinema trip before the new year, Wreck-It Ralph is undoubtedly worth your time. The voice work of John C Reilly and Sarah Silverman – who plays video game character Vanelloppe von Schweetz – is Disney’s most compelling since Goodman and Crystal’s in Monsters, Inc.

Vertigo, Channel 4, 1.50am

Watched Rear Window the other day? Now it’s time to tick another Hitchcock classic off the list (or re-watch it for the hundredth time). This regular fixture at the top of “Best of...” lists demands to be devoured.

Saturday 29 December

Groundhog Day, Channel 5, 11.35am

If it seems like Groundhog Day’s on television at the same time every year, that’s probably the point. Harold Ramis’s seminal comedy – starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell – is as charming now as it was upon its release 25 years ago.

Ant-Man, BBC1, 7.50pm

If you find the Marvel Cinematic Universe slightly impenetrable, but are on the hunt for an undemanding way in, Ant-Man‘s the film for you. Starring Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly and Michael Douglas, it’s a film that can be enjoyed by all the family, regardless of whether you like superheroes or not.

Philomena, BBC2, 9pm

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll cheer in this incredible adaptation, which charts the journey of an Irish woman (Dame Judi Dench) searching for her son, who was taken away by nuns at birth. Steve Coogan, who plays the real-life journalist helping her on her way, co-wrote the Oscar-winning script.

Sunday 30 December

Paddington, Channel 4, 5.40pm

While Paddington 2 may still have a 100 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes, don’t go forgetting that its predecessor was equally as glorious. Paul King brilliantly captures the spirit of Michael Bond’s beloved bear, who finds himself taken in by a kindly family in London after straying from his home turf of Peru.

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, ITV, 8pm

It’s been a rough year for the Star Wars saga, with disappointing box office takings for its second spin-off, Solo. However, The Force Awakens remains a glistening jewel that blends the old and new eras effortlessly, thanks to the capable direction of JJ Abrams.

Calvary, BBC2, 12am

John Michael McDonagh – brother of Three Billboards writer-director Martin McDonagh – followed up his razor-sharp directorial debut The Guard with this shocking murder mystery of sorts. it follows Brendan Gleeson’s priest who is warned, in confession by an unknown member of his congregation, that he’ll be killed in a week’s time.

15 Christmas films to watch on Netflix

Show all 15

1/1515 Christmas films to watch on Netflix

15 Christmas films to watch on Netflix

The Christmas Chronicles

The Christmas Chronicles, a holiday adventure from producer Chris Columbus (“Home Alone”, "Harry Potter") and director Clay Kaytis ("The Angry Birds Movie"), tells the story of sister and brother, Kate (Darby Camp) and Teddy Pierce (Judah Lewis), whose Christmas Eve plan to catch Santa Claus (Kurt Russell) on camera turns into an unexpected journey that most kids could only dream about. After staking out Santa’s arrival, they sneak into his sleigh, cause it to crash and nearly derail Christmas. As their wild night unfolds, Kate and Teddy work together with Santa - as you've never seen him before - and his loyal Elves to save Christmas before it's too late.

Michael Gibson/Netflix

15 Christmas films to watch on Netflix

The Princess Switch

One week before Christmas, Margaret, the gorgeous Duchess of Montenaro, switches places with Stacy, a “commoner” from Chicago, who looks exactly like her. With the assistance of a magical Santa's helper, Margaret falls in love with Stacy’s handsome co-worker, while Stacy falls in love with Margaret's fiance, the dashing Prince.

Netflix

15 Christmas films to watch on Netflix

The Holiday Calendar

A struggling but talented photographer inherits an antique holiday advent calendar, the contents of which seem to predict the future. Will this magical calendar lead her to love this holiday season?

Netflix

15 Christmas films to watch on Netflix

The Holiday

Dumped and depressed, English rose Iris (Kate Winslet) agrees to swap homes with similarly unlucky in love Californian Amanda (Cameron Diaz) for a much-needed break. Iris finds herself in a palatial Hollywood mansion while Amanda navigates the lanes of a picture-perfect English village. Also starring Jude Law and Jack Black.

YouTube

15 Christmas films to watch on Netflix

Nativity!

Paul (Martin Freeman), charged with directing the school nativity play, falsely boasts that his ex-girlfriend plans to turn the production into a film.

YouTube

15 Christmas films to watch on Netflix

Deck the Halls

Neighbours Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito face off in this holiday comedy co-starring Kristen Davis.

YouTube

15 Christmas films to watch on Netflix

Arthur Christmas

At Santa Claus’s super-secret toy-making facility, Mr Claus entrusts his son, Arthur, to carry out an ultra-important Christmas mission.

YouTube

15 Christmas films to watch on Netflix

A Christmas Prince

Christmas comes early for an aspiring young journalist when she's sent abroad to get the scoop on a handsome prince who's poised to be king.

Netflix

15 Christmas films to watch on Netflix

A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding

A year after Amber helped Richard secure the crown, the two are set to tie the knot in a royal Christmas wedding - but their plans are jeopardized when Amber finds herself second-guessing whether or not she's cut out to be queen, and Richard is faced with a political crisis that threatens to tarnish not only the holiday season, but the future of the kingdom.

Netflix

15 Christmas films to watch on Netflix

Last Holiday

Upon learning that about terminal illness, Georgia, a shy woman decides to sell off all her possessions and live it up in a posh hotel.

YouTube

15 Christmas films to watch on Netflix

Angela's Christmas

Based on the beloved children’s book by Frank McCourt (author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir Angela’s Ashes), Angela’s Christmas is a funny, heartwarming and poignant story about the power of family and the innocent desire of a child to ensure everyone is safe, warm and loved at Christmas time.

Netflix

15 Christmas films to watch on Netflix

Christmas Inheritance

Before ambitious heiress Ellen Langford can inherit her father's business, she must deliver a special Christmas card to her dad's former partner in Snow Falls. When a snowstorm strands her at the town inn, she discovers the true gift of Christmas.

Netflix

15 Christmas films to watch on Netflix

Love the Coopers

For their annual Christmas Eve celebration, Sam Cooper (John Goodman) and his wife Charlotte (Diane Keaton) welcome four generations of extended family, including son Hank (Ed Helms), daughter Eleanor (Olivia Wilde) and Charlotte's father, Bucky (Alan Arkin). Sam and Charlotte are separating after 40 years of marriage, while Hank is in the middle of a divorce. As the guests reveal their respective problems, they also rediscover the importance of kinship and the spirit of the holiday.

YouTube

15 Christmas films to watch on Netflix

Christmas Wedding Planner

A wedding planner is in the midst of planning her cousin's lavish and exclusive wedding when a devilishly handsome private investigator turns her world upside down.

YouTube

15 Christmas films to watch on Netflix

Once Upon a Holiday

A princess visiting New York during Christmas escapes her royal entourage to experience the city. She is saved from muggers by a handsome man, and romance blooms when he shows her his side of the city.

YouTube

New Year’s Eve

Big Hero 6, BBC1, 2.40pm

Another Disney gem that’ll have you beaming one minute and grabbing the tissues the next, Big Hero 6 features surely the cuddliest of the studio’s characters: the inflatable robot Baymax.

Absolutely Fabulous: the Movie, BBC1, 9pm

Absolutely Fabulous is the latest comedy to get the big-screen treatment, reuniting Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders’s fashionistas, along with a wide range of bizarre cameos (see: Jon Hamm). It may not be vintage Ab Fab, but it’s still a lot of fun.

Basic Instinct, ITV, 12.10am

Christmas doesn’t only have to be a time for festive films. Basic Instinct – the controversial erotic thriller starring Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone – is the perfect antidote to all the cheery fun you’ll have undoubtedly had over the past week.

New Year’s Day

Inside Out, BBC1, 5pm

Pixar’s cerebral yet entirely accessible film is for kids and adults alike. Following a series of personified emotions inside a young girl’s head, it’s a film whose complex, existential concept makes for movie magic.

The Revenant, BBC2, 10pm

This intense drama, which won Leonardo DiCaprio his first Oscar, places viewers in the 19th-century wilderness and tracks one man’s hunt for his missing son after a grizzly bear attack. It’s thrillingly directed by Alejandro G Iñárritu, who won an Oscar for best director, having also won the year before for Birdman.

Young Frankenstein, BBC2, 12.25am

“Puttin’ on the Riiiiiiiiitz.” You don’t get funnier than Mel Brooks’s horror spoof, starring Gene Wilder as a descendant of Mary Shelley’s famous scientist.

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