Christmas is here and with it, an array of classic movies to watch the old-fashioned way: live on the telly. And this year, those wise TV elves have delivered a bumper sack of big-screen magic from their cosy cabin in the North Pole. Seriously, isn’t is nice to let somewhere else pick the film for you once in a while?
On the schedule this month are perennial favourites (Die Hard, Jaws) and recent hits (Oppenheimer, Across the Spider-Verse) that have finally made their way onto terrestrial TV. But we’ve taken a magnifying glass through the listings to find a few deeper cuts too. Have that remote handy...
🎄 The best Christmas films of all time
Sense and Sensibility
Emma Thompson’s Oscar winning screenplay brings all the wit and wisdom of Jane Austen’s great novel to this Ang Lee masterpiece. With Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant and Kate Winslet all in top form, it’s guaranteed bliss on a frosty afternoon in.
2.50pm, Dec 20. BBC Two
Die Hard
Yes, it is. Merry Christmas!
9.10pm, Dec 20. Channel 4
Apocalypse Now: Final Cut
The definitive version of Francis Ford Coppola’s trippy Vietnam War classic? Discover it afresh with the final edit the auteur put together for the film’s 40th anniversary in 2019. War is hell; this is film heaven.
11.50pm, Dec 20. Channel 4
The Little Mermaid (2023)
This hit live action redo of Disney’s Hans Christian Andersen fable is one for the younger family members, though nostalgic Gen-Xers will get a kick out of it too – despite the glaring absence of the animation’s fishy banger ‘Les Poissons’.
4.50pm, Dec 21. Channel 4
Oppenheimer
It’s the time for giving, but isn’t it also the time for contemplating man’s propensity to rain death and destruction down upon himself? What’s that? No? Okay, well, still give Christopher Nolan’s period epic about the creation of the A-bomb a little room in your festive viewing schedule. It’s seven Oscars’ worth of precision-tooled period epic. If you’ve yet to see it, you will not be disappointed.
9pm, Dec 21. BBC Two
Doctor Zhivago
Maurice Jarre’s symphonic score and Freddie Young’s lush cinematography elevate it to the heavens, but it’s Julie Christie and Omar Sharif’s heartbreaking love story that makes David Lean’s epic romance a classic. When they say they don’t make ’em like they used to, this is what they’re taking about.
2.55pm. Dec 22. BBC Two
Spartacus
When you’ve been busy vying with loved ones for that last mini-sausage with the bacon, you’ll have a sense of what it must be like to be Kirk Douglas’s Spartacus in this Stanley Kubrick epic – the forks are just a bit bigger. Settle in for a supercharged vision of a real-life slave rebellion, the granddaddy for Ridley Scott’s Gladiator and the like.
3pm, Dec 23. BBC Two
Meet Me in St Louis
Watch Judy Garland assault a snowman in an MGM Christmas musical with a bruised heart and a soundtrack full of join-in-able classics. It’d make a pretty perfect double bill with Home Alone.
1.25pm, Dec 24. BBC Two
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
A wildly entertaining collision of pop art, graffiti culture, hip hop and superhero traditions, Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s follow-up to Into the Spider-Verse has spectacle and wit to burn. Hit the red button ASAP.
2.55pm, Dec 24. BBC One
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
Released in time for last Christmas, Aardman’s second Wallace and Gromit movie is on telly to perk up this one. Reece Shearsmith voices Norbot, Wallace’s newest and most anarchic invention. Vengeful supervillain Feathers McGraw, of course, speaks for himself.
11.40pm, Dec 25. BBC One
Jaws
The shark is terrifying, of course, but there’s something new to take in appreciate with every viewing of Spielberg’s 1975 masterpiece, a Thanksgiving movie that works equally well on Christmas day. You’re going to need a bigger (gravy) boat!
9.15pm, Dec 25. BBC Two
When Harry Met Sally…
Scheduled before the tragic death of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele, the presence of the New Yorker’s love letter to classic romantic-comedies and his hometown takes on extra resonance on Christmas Day. Find out what make this genial genius such a loss as Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal trade timeless zingers.
11.35pm, Dec 25. BBC One
Bringing Up Baby
Screwball comedy peaked when Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn joined forces for this ecstatically funny caper about a paleontologist, an absent-minded heiress and a rogue leopard called Baby. A comedy for the ages, and definitely one for Christmas.
9am, Dec 26. BBC Two
2001: A Space Odyssey
Home for the HAL-idays? Allow this never-not-timely vision of artificial intelligence dazzle you afresh, as Stanley Kubrick match-cuts from the birth of man to his technologically-enabled rebirth amongst the stars.
3.45pm, Dec 26. ITV4
Paddington 2
Paddington was good; Paddington 2 is even better. In fact, it might just be the perfect family movie, thanks to its giant heart, a ridiculously enjoyable Hugh Grant villain, and the little Peruvian himself, spreading joy and empathy (and the odd hard stare).
5.20pm, Dec 26. BBC Two
The Great Escaper
Sure, you can watch The Great Escape (4.45pm on December 26) but don’t sleep on this deeply moving drama starring Michael Caine and, in her last screen role, Glenda Jackson. Caine is a World War II veteran who elopes from his nursing home to attend the D-Day memorial celebrations in Normandy, while Jackson is the loving, mischievous wife who covers his tracks. Have one of your new gift hankies ready.
9.30pm, Dec 26. BBC Two
Blue Velvet
Another big loss in 2025, David Lynch will leave a void that can only be filled by watching his extraordinary films as often as humanly possible. Start with one of his most extraordinary, a Pandora’s box that unleashes all the darkness of suburban America in a noir dreamscape.
12.55am, Dec 26. BBC Two
The Godfather
The BBC is making an offer we can’t refuse this Christmas by screening two of the greatest films ever made on consecutive evenings. Follow Michael Corleone into the moral maze of power and crime in Francis Ford Coppola’s Mafia masterpiece. Its equally brilliant sequel, The Godfather Part II, airs at 10pm on December 29.
10pm, Dec 28. BBC Two
Shrek 2
Head to Far Far Away for more adventures with Mike Myers’s loveable swamp-dwelling ogre, his new wife Princess Fiona and their chatty pal Donkey. Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) is along for the ride this time, the first screen outing for the swashbuckling feline.
12.10pm, Dec 29. ITV1
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On
Cute as a button, tiny Marcel (voiced by Jenny Slate) is a one-inch-tall talking shell who lives with his grandmother (Isabella Rossellini) and Alan, his pet ball of lint. So no, not a true story, but thanks to Dean Fleischer Camp’s joyful stop-motion/live-action comedy, he’s the star of a movie that’s full of tender truths.
9.35am, Dec 31. BBC One