Merry Christmas you filthy animals! The great festive movie guide 2023

From classics like Home Alone and Singin’ in the Rain to brand new blockbusters Saltburn and Across the Spider-Verse, here is your handpicked selection of the very finest films on TV this season

Recent hits

House of Gucci
Astonishing and preposterous in equal measure, this is Ridley Scott’s sweeping retelling of the rise and fall of the Gucci family. During its best moments (of which there are many) this plays like wonderful high camp; bringing the best actors of their generation together simply to make them do impressions of the Dolmio puppet family.
Friday 22 December, 9pm, BBC Two

Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire
Netflix’s big festive offering is the new Zack Snyder film. Rebel Moon is a blockbuster space opera about a young woman who is chosen by her people to battle a tyrannical galactic force that threatens their moon. If you like it, rejoice, because part two is coming out in April. After that will come video games, comic books, a TV show, animation and a podcast, as well as more films. Never say the man doesn’t think big.
Out now, Netflix

Saltburn

Emerald Fennell’s blackly funny aristocratic thriller feels as if it was only released in cinemas a few weeks ago, but it’s already making its streaming debut. This is brilliant news because, despite its divisive ending, the film contains some of the performances of the year. Worth watching purely for Rosamund Pike’s witheringly imperial aristocrat.
Out now, Prime Video

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
How do you follow the greatest Spider-Man movie ever made? By going bigger, deeper and weirder. In the follow-up to 2018’s Into the Spider-Verse, Miles Morales finds himself dragged into a dizzying network of near-infinite Spider-Men. Films are often described as kaleidoscopic, but the animation here is the literal definition of the term. Just incredible.
Out now, Sky Cinema/Now

Allelujah
Jennifer Saunders, Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi and Russell Tovey star in this adaptation of Alan Bennett’s play about a hospital threatened with closure due to NHS funding cuts. Although it received mixed reviews upon release, the film basically functions as a full-throated defence of the health service, and for that it should be applauded.
Sat 23, noon, 6.30pm, Sky Cinema Premiere

The Super Mario Bros Movie

After Barbie, The Super Mario Bros Movie grossed more than any other film globally this year. It isn’t hard to see why: this is a bright, fast, buzzy love letter to a character who hasn’t previously done very well when it comes to films. Like all the Mario games, the film is about a plucky plumber fighting a sort of mutant turtle. Happily, unlike the games, Princess Peach gets more to do than simply sit around waiting to be rescued.
Christmas Day, 9.45am, 4pm, Sky Cinema Premiere

Belfast
Kenneth Branagh has a complicated relationship with Belfast. He was born and spent the first 10 years of his life there, before his family moved to Berkshire to avoid the Troubles. Although he lost the accent, as part of a conscious attempt to assimilate, the city never left him. Belfast is Branagh’s love letter to his place of birth: a warm, joyous burst of nostalgia, shot in monochrome, set against a burbling disquiet.
Christmas Day, 1.45am, BBC Two

Respect
A biographical drama about Aretha Franklin’s life and rise to fame. The story goes that this film couldn’t be made for years because no one could match Franklin’s raw power, but then Jennifer Hudson came along. If that’s true, it makes total sense. Hudson is on belting, blazing form here, almost singlehandedly propping up the entire enterprise.
Thursday 28 December, 9pm, BBC Two

Amazing Grace
If your appetite was whetted by Respect, BBC Two has much, much more Aretha Franklin for you, with two hours of TV documentaries followed by the premiere of Amazing Grace, a documentary film about the recording of Franklin’s album of the same name. Originally filmed by Sydney Pollack, the project was first delayed due to syncing issues with the audio and visuals, and then twice more thanks to numerous lawsuits by Franklin herself. Now it is out, though, and exactly as soaring and powerful as you’d expect it to be.
Thursday 28 December, 1.30am, BBC Two

Marry Me

Christmas isn’t always for incredible works of high prestige. Sometimes it’s about mindless fluff you can watch half-drunk with your family. To this end, there may not be any more suitable film this year than Marry Me, in which pop star Jennifer Lopez spontaneously decides to marry anonymous nobody Owen Wilson. Enjoyable tosh.
New Year’s Eve, 8.25pm, BBC One

Arthur’s Whisky
Patricia Hodge plays a widow who learns that her late husband invented a potion that makes the drinker appear much younger than they actually are. With the help of her friends, played by Diane Keaton and Lulu, she sets out to carve out a second chance in a world that has left her behind. This is a real film that actually exists.
New Year’s Day, 2.20pm, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere

Family fun

The Addams Family 2

The series of animated Addams Family cartoons turned out to be unexpectedly entertaining. Featuring Oscar Isaac and Charlize Theron as pitch-perfect Morticia and Gomez Addams, this is a wild shaggy dog of a road trip story where the family travels America, Wednesday tries to work out if she’s adopted or not and Uncle Fester turns into a squid. Plus Snoop Dogg plays Cousin It, so that’s something.
Christmas Day, 12.55pm, BBC One

Toy Story 4
Despite Toy Story 3 concluding with what might genuinely be the best ending of any film series in history, Woody and the gang return for a fourth outing. This time the toys hit the road, on a journey full of fun, adventure and the third best role in Keanu Reeves’s filmography. Not as perfect as the original trilogy, but pretty darn great.
Christmas Day, 3.10pm, BBC One

Sing 2
Garth Jennings’s singing animal film had the potential to run out of steam early on, but the final result was so warm, and so weirdly moving, that a sequel was always inevitable. The formula remains largely unchanged here – lots of cartoon animals singing hits by Elton John, Billie Eilish and System of a Down – except now Bono plays a lion, obviously.
Christmas Day, 4.30pm, ITV1

Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway

While the first instalment suffered from the cognitive shock of hearing James Corden’s cackle burst from the mouth of Beatrix Potter’s most beloved creation, the second wisely just assumes that we all know what we’re in for. A great, slightly meta sequel about a greedy publisher trying to exploit the story of Peter Rabbit, it reinforces Domhnall Gleeson’s claim as the most underrated comic actor around.
Boxing Day, 3.15pm, BBC One

The Lion King
Often called a live-action remake, despite being exactly as animated as its source material, Jon Favreau’s remake of the Disney classic still has a lot going for it. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Donald Glover and Actual Beyoncé star and, while the photorealism might have been amped up 10% too much, the laughs and thrills are present and correct.
Boxing Day, 5.05pm, BBC One

Spirit Untamed
DreamWorks’s Spirit franchise, about a wild and noble horse that finds itself caught up in the American Indian wars, has proved unusually durable. Following the first instalment, Stallion of the Cimarron, in 2002, the horse has inspired four separate multi-season TV shows, two television specials and now this movie sequel. Whether you’ll like it or not depends on your tolerance for cartoon horses, of course.
Wednesday 27 December, 11.40am, BBC One

Paddington 2

Paddington 2 is a movie so perfect that other movies have started to make jokes about how perfect it is, as demonstrated by the scene in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent where Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal watch it together, weeping. Nevertheless, there’s still something deeply magical about this film. Obviously Hugh Grant clatters away with the whole thing as villain Phoenix Buchanan, but the rest is just as wonderful.
Saturday 30 December, 6pm, BBC One

The Boss Baby 2: Family Business
If you have young kids, especially ones who wolf down whole episodes of the Netflix cartoon series as if it’s going out of style, this is a no-brainer. Like the previous Boss Baby film, the plot doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny whatsoever, but it’s fun and it’s fast and it’s visually inventive, and Alec Baldwin gets to go full Jack Donaghy in the lead.
New Year’s Day, 11.15am, BBC One

Paw Patrol: The Movie
Those parents who have been forced to endure several years of the Paw Patrol animated series will find your expectations rightly in the gutter for this big-screen adaptation. But brace yourself to be pleasantly surprised; this is Paw Patrol at its most spectacular, dramatic and (thankfully) self-aware. High praise, I know – though there is already a sequel out.
New Year’s Day, 12.55pm, Channel 4

The Witches
It takes guts to follow in Anjelica Huston’s footsteps, especially when her peerless performance as the Grand High Witch has been responsible for traumatising an entire generation of children. But that’s what Anne Hathaway chose to do with this 2020 Robert Zemeckis remake of the Roald Dahl novel. Not quite as chilling as the original, but maybe that’s no bad thing.
New Year’s Day, 5.55pm, BBC One

Festive favourites

Scrooged

As we threaten to be overwhelmed by the suffocating sugariness of Christmas, Bill Murray’s ferocious dyspepsia is always welcome. As such, Richard Donner’s Scrooged has become a festive mainstay. A yuppie retelling of A Christmas Carol, starring Bill Murray as a wholly selfish television executive, it’s both funnier and more cynical than the source material.
Saturday 23 December, 2.35pm, Channel 4

The Christmas Tree
A startlingly young Brian Blessed stars in this sweet British adventure film from the mid-60s about three children tasked with getting a Christmas tree to a hospital on time. A series of classic scrapes ensue – there are robbers and river crossings and policemen and soldiers – and the whole thing couldn’t be any more charming if it tried.
Saturday 23 December, 4.35pm, Talking Pictures TV

The Holiday

Forget the nonsense casting, which implies that both Kate Winslet and Jack Black are too unconventional to star in a Hollywood romcom, because The Holiday is a sweetness overload. An American and a Brit swap houses, and both of them fall in love, and if this hasn’t bloomed into an immortal Christmas classic then something has gone terribly wrong.
Christmas Eve, 3.25pm, Channel 5

Miracle on 34th Street
As a child, this film had a habit of leaving you feeling short-changed – you wanted to see a magical film about Santa, not a boring legal drama – but 1994’s Miracle truly does improve with age, not least thanks to Richard Attenborough’s ability to twinkle with mischievous joy as Kriss Kringle.
Christmas Eve, 5.45pm, Channel 4

Home Alone
For all the wild, life-threatening injury of the final third, there is an argument to be made that Home Alone contains the most perfect moment of any Christmas film. You know the one. Old Man Marley, in a church, fighting all the loss and regret of estrangement to secretly watch his granddaughter sing in a choir. It’s devastating. And then Joe Pesci gets his head set on fire.
Christmas Day, 5.30pm, Channel 4

High-Octane action

Silent Night

The perfect festive bait and switch. Sounds like a Christmas movie, is actually a John Woo film about a father going on a bloody revenge spree after he watches his son die in the crossfire of a gang. Perhaps wait until granny is in bed before putting this on.
Christmas Eve, 9.15pm, Sky Cinema Premiere

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Not remotely Christmassy, Quentin Tarantino’s alternative history of the Charles Manson murders is extremely violent. A long, meandering tale of a star (Leonardo DiCaprio) coming to the end of his career, the whole thing bursts to life in the final act when Brad Pitt’s laconic bodyguard turns on some home invaders with so much ferocity that it’s like watching a live-action Itchy and Scratchy movie. Scheduled perfectly to ensure that the bloodiest bits happen on Christmas Day itself.
Christmas Eve, Film4, 10.50pm

Polite Society

Nida Manzoor’s martial arts comedy is a colossal amount of fun; a whipsmart, genre-bending coming-of-age story about a British-Pakistani woman who dreams of becoming a stunt performer, largely because she wants to be like Eunice Huthard, the 1994 series champion of Gladiator. This week is quite heavy on martial arts films, but this is worth seeking out regardless.
Friday 29 December, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere

Sisu
Another movie that is only tangentially linked to Christmas. It’s a blood-soaked, gory, wild Finnish war film in the mould of First Blood, about a retired commando forced to kill his way through a colossal wall of Nazis. It’s a film stuffed with snapping bones and flying limbs, brutal to the point of parody. And the Christmas connection? It’s set in Lapland.
Saturday 30 December, 10.15pm, Sky Cinema Premiere

Stillwater
Think “unemployed Oklahoma oil rig roughneck” and Matt Damon probably isn’t the first name to spring to mind. However, he’s surprisingly convincing in this rugged crime drama, one that sadly got lost in the weeks during lockdown. Had it not, there is every possibility that Stillwater would have opened up another avenue of Liam Neeson-style revenge thrillers for Damon.
New Year’s Eve, Prime Video

Old faithfils

The Wizard of Oz

Few films feel as if they were made specifically for being on in the background while you snooze off a Christmas lunch, but The Wizard of Oz – in all its wonderful timeworn familiarity – lives up to the job. Truly intergenerational, this will be the last time this film will be shown at Christmas, before next year’s Wicked adaptation steals its thunder. Embrace it.
Christmas Day, 3.10pm, Channel 5

The Trouble With Angels
When Hayley Mills wanted to break out of the box she found herself in after years of starring in Disney fare, she chose this. The Trouble With Angels is a 1966 comedy about a pair of rebellious schoolgirls trying to avoid trouble at a convent school. Aside from a climax that is literally too preachy, this is a fun little jaunt .
Christmas Day, 7pm, Talking Pictures TV

Raiders of the Lost Ark
This year’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was much better than its lousy box-office performance suggested, but this remains the definitive Indiana Jones film. To watch Raiders of the Lost Ark is to watch many, many people giddy that they’re being allowed to get away with this wildness. A romp about one man trying to stop the Nazis from becoming invincible, every action film made since Raiders owes it a debt of gratitude.
Boxing Day, 6.50pm, Channel 4

Gone With the Wind

It’s worth getting up early to watch this, the most popular film ever made. When adjusted for inflation, Gone With the Wind has made over three billion dollars globally, which isn’t bad going for a movie about a frustratingly annoying woman and her uncomfortably happy slaves. Lots of films have aged better, but this is still a very important one.
Wednesday 27, 8.45am, Channel 5

Police Academy
If you were around in the 1980s, you might remember that they made a Saturday morning kids’ cartoon out of Police Academy, a movie that was full of swearing, smoking, female nudity and implied oral sex. Channel 5 is showing the movie over Christmas, at noon. Expect it to either be heavily censored or wildly inappropriate.
Thursday 28 December, 11.50am, Channel 5

The Ten Commandments
Almost 70 years old and Cecil B DeMille’s gargantuan epic is still a gift to television schedulers everywhere, who can just bung it on in the middle of the day and watch smugly as it fills an entire afternoon. Running from 1.10pm to 5.30pm, this is the story of Moses (Charlton Heston) with maximum attention given to pure mid 20th-century spectacle.
Thursday 28 December, 1.10pm, Channel 4

Harry Brown
At the time of its release in 2009, Harry Brown was positioned as a cousin to Get Carter, in that they both feature Michael Caine deciding to take justice into his own hands. In truth, this movie is really more of a Gran Torino, as it is about a man with a violent past who struggles to function in the world. Still, nice to have this version of Caine around.
Friday 29 December, Disney+

Funny Girl

Someone at the BBC has clocked that Barbra Streisand has a memoir out this Christmas, as it’s devoted an entire afternoon to her. Presented in a double bill with 1969’s Hello, Dolly!, Funny Girl was Streisand’s first film, and still her finest hour. Charming and weird and heartbreaking in equal measure, Streisand essentially used Funny Girl to change the face of what a leading lady could be.
Friday 29 December, 4.05pm, BBC Two

Game Night
John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, who specialise in making films that are far better than they have any right to be, wrote and directed this incredible, ambitious comedy – a riotously silly riff on David Fincher’s The Game – about a group of people whose game night spills out of control and seeps into the criminal underworld. Everyone is on top form here: it is almost universally the best film that anyone in its cast (which includes Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams) has ever been in.
Friday 29 December, 12.10am, BBC One

Zulu
Cy Endfield’s epic retelling of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift was such an enormous hit on release that it stayed in cinemas for 12 years. Zulu is also notable for introducing the world to the talents of Michael Caine. Don’t bother asking your dad to come and visit on New Year’s Eve because he’ll be watching this.
New Year’s Eve, 4pm, Channel 4

Singin’ in the Rain
Gene Kelly swinging on a lamppost. Cyd Charisse’s endless gravity-defying scarf. Donald O’Connor destroying his body in the name of entertainment. The way that Good Morning grows and grows into an all-out extravaganza. The perfect movie? Maybe. The only thing you should be doing at this point on New Year’s Day? Without a doubt.
New Year’s Day, 2.10pm, Channel 5

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