An intelligent, polished and gorgeously photographed dissertation on what the utterly amoral can achieve. The Whole Nine Yards
(Jonathan Lynn, 2000) , ITV1
Matthew Perry, aka Chandler of Friends, stars as a dentist in this enjoyably black comedy that's pumped full of laughing gas. His debt-ridden "Oz" Oseransky learns that new neighbour Jimmy Tudeski (Bruce Willis) is a mafia hitman in hiding, and grasses on him to collect the reward. Light-hearted performances keep it funny.
King Rat
(Bryan Forbes, 1965) , BBC2
Like Billy Wilder's Stalag 17, a story of PoWs hustling for survival. Wilder's German-run camp is a more benign environment than this recreation of the notorious Changi jail in Singapore, run by brutal Japanese soldiers. And George Segal's Corporal King, wheeling and dealing with fellow inmates' possessions, is a more cynical character than William Holden's Sefton of the Stalag.
Chinatown
(Roman Polanski, 1974) , Five
A faultless recreation of film noir, set in a dazzling 1930s Los Angeles shaded by the themes of evil and corruption that seem to resonate in the Polanski psyche. Jack Nicholson is private eye JJ Gittes, Faye Dunaway the femme fatale, as a murder at a dam starts a tortuous trail towards lecherous old John Huston.
The Wisdom Of Crocodiles
(Po-Chih Leong, 1998) , C4
Jude Law plays the most seductive of vampires in this stylish, brooding horror-romance. He's happy sinking the fangs into women such as Kerry Fox's Maria, but when he falls for engineer Anne (Elina Lowensohn) his appetite deserts him.
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
(Don Siegel, 1956) , BBC2
Hysteria grips a small California town: people are seeing their loved ones turning into complete strangers. Doc Kevin McCarthy, aided by the woman of his dreams, Dana Wynter, soon discovers the awful truth. Alien pods are replicating the townsfolk, and there is no way out.
Sunday December 19
The Thomas Crown Affair
(Norman Jewison, 1968) , Five
Steve McQueen's Thomas Crown is a highly successful businessman who gets his real kicks plotting the perfect caper: but he meets his intellectual and romantic match in Faye Dunaway's cool insurance investigator. With its fancy photography split-screen shenanigans and irritatingly catchy theme song (The Windmills Of Your Mind), it's the epitome of the stylish-but-silly 1960s thriller.
Jingle All The Way
(Brian Levant, 1996) 2pm, ITV1
One of Arnie's gentle giant acts, in which Schwarzenegger plays an ordinary, loving dad desperately trying to find the must-have toy of the yuletide for his son. He's pretty good at the comic capers - after all, there's not that much difference between slapstick and his usual bruising set-pieces.
North By Northwest
(Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) , Five
Exquisite Hitchcock, artfully blending suspense, comedy, and the thrill of the chase. Businessman Cary Grant is mistaken for a spy and flees James Mason's henchmen, delightful Eva Marie Saint on-arm: the Mount Rushmore climax, with nasty Martin Landau stamping on Grant's fingers.
The Grinch
(Ron Howard, 2000) , ITV1
Adapted from the Dr Seuss tale How The Grinch Stole Christmas!, this may look like simple festive fun, but it isn't. The account of how the furry green meany - a Scrooge with bells on - tries to wreck Christmas for the piggy little critters of Whoville is mainly a dark, depressing experience, with only the love of sweet Cindy Lou Who (Taylor Momsen) to warm things up a little. Starring Jim Carrey.
LA Confidential
(Curtis Hanson, 1997) 9pm, BBC2
Superb, dense and dark thriller featuring Russell Crowe as a hardnut cop teaming up with colleagues Guy Pearce and Kevin Spacey to root out crime and corruption. Hanson and Brian Helgeland richly deserved their Oscars for adapting James Ellroy's long, intricate novel, and the murky underworld of 1950s LA is brilliantly realised.
Rosemary's Baby
(Roman Polanski, 1968) , BBC1
Mia Farrow's vulnerable, elfin features are perfect for Rosemary, the mum-to-be who is slowly convinced that she is carrying the Devil's child. Polanski brilliantly sustains the cruel tension: is Rosemary the victim of satanists, or mere social alienation?
TwentyFourSeven
(Shane Meadows, 1997) 12midnight, BBC2
Meadows' first feature has Bob Hoskins trying to drum up community spirit by opening a boxing club on a rundown housing estate. Beautifully handled, it's gritty, funny and shot with grainy authenticity, while the cast of young unknowns give the excellent Hoskins plenty of tough support.
Monday December 20
Penny Serenade
(George Stevens, 1941) , BBC2
In less skilled hands than George Stevens', and with smaller talents than Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, this might have been a horribly sentimental affair, but instead it's a glorious drama, a weepie that actually makes you weep.
My Favourite Wife
(Garson Kanin, 1940) , BBC2
The brilliant original version of a much-remade tale. Irene Dunne is the wife returning, after seven years' marooned on a desert island, on the very day that hubby Cary Grant is remarrying. A delightfully daft comedy.
Cool Runnings
(John Turteltaub, 1993) , BBC1
Did you hear the one about the Jamaican bobsled team? Um - well, that's about it really. Mainly failed sprinters, they really did compete in the 1988 winter Olympics, and this Disney production puts the most feelgood gloss it can manage on the tale.
The Battle Of The River Plate
(Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1956) , BBC2
A riveting factual account of the first major naval engagement of the second world war, when three British cruisers cornered the German battleship Graf Spee in Montevideo. John Gregson and Anthony Quayle play the Brits, while Peter Finch's Langsdorff, captain of the Graf Spee, is allowed more sympathy than was customary for war-film Germans.
Armageddon
(Michael Bay, 1998) , BBC1
Doomsday scenario: an asteroid the size of Texas is headed for earth, and only top driller Bruce Willis and his bunch of lovable roughnecks can save the day. Among them is Steve Buscemi's standard weirdo and Ben Affleck, a son-in-waiting in love with Brucie's daughter, Liv Tyler. They may be the wrong stuff, but Nasa man Billy Bob Thornton has them make like astronauts, land on the rock and bore nuclear-bomb holes into it. Awesome effects.
Halloween
(John Carpenter, 1978) , BBC1
Jamie Lee Curtis is the high school kid pitted against a teenies-killer in an Illinois town on Halloween night: Donald Pleasence plays psychiatrist Loomis, aiming to return his escaped psychopathic charge to the asylum. Carpenter handles the suspense and terror like a young Hitchcock.
Witchfinder General
(Michael Reeves, 1968) , BBC2
A minor masterpiece of horror, with Vincent Price in his greatest incarnation of evil. He plays Matthew Hopkins, lawyer turned infamous witchfinder in the desperate civil war-torn England of 1645. Ian Ogilvy is the trooper trying to rescue his girlfriend Hilary Dwyer from his clutches.
Tuesday December 21
Muppet Treasure Island
(Brian Henson, 1996) , BBC1
Muppets make good movies, and this is no exception. A pretty straight rendition of the classic adventure, with Tim Curry as Long John Silver and Kevin Bishop a likable Jim, lad. But heaving into view are Kermit the frog, aka Capt Smollett, Miss Piggy as the island beauty Benjamina Gunn, and the rest of the furry gang for the usual musical antics. Yo-ho-ho.
Remember The Titans
(Boaz Yakin, 2000) , BBC1
Muscular sporting tale with Denzel Washington as football coach at a newly-integrated high school in Virginia, 1971. With previous (white) coach Will Patton now his assistant, racial tensions run high, but with his strict training regimes Denzel builds team spirit like a Jose Mourinho.
Witness
(Peter Weir, 1985) , BBC1
Weir's atmospheric thriller has hardboiled city cop Harrison Ford fleeing to the rural retreat of the Amish, a community living as close as possible to their 17th-century origins, and the home of a boy (Lukas Haas) who has witnessed a murder on a rare trip to the city with his mother (Kelly McGillis).
The Boxer
(Jim Sheridan, 1997) , ITV1
This third teaming of Sheridan and Daniel Day-Lewis doesn't pack quite the punch of In The Name Of The Father and My Left Foot, but it's a strong, earthy human drama nevertheless. Day-Lewis plays the boxer, a former IRA man picking up the gloves back in Belfast after serving 14 years in prison.
Ratcatcher
(Lynne Ramsay, 1999) , BBC2
Ramsay's debut feature is a tender but unsentimental portrait of troubled youth. It's set in the Glasgow tenements of the 1970s, at the height of the dustmen's strike, and focuses on William Eadie's 12- year-old James, a boy stricken with guilt after the accidental drowning of a friend in the canal. A beautiful but grimly realistic film.
You Can Count On Me
(Kenneth Lonergan, 1999) 1am, C4
Lonergan's small-town tale centres on a marvellous performance by Laura Linney as a single mum bringing up son Rory Culkin, getting into an unwise affair with her boss (Matthew Broderick) and unsettled by the arrival of her drifter-brother Mark Ruffalo. It's one of those small movies with a big heart.
Wednesday December 22
Prince Valiant
(Anthony Hickox, 1997) , BBC1
Arthurian romance done in a heady pop-video style, with gothic touches from horror-man Hickox and a dash of Braveheart in the battles. Stephen Moyer is Prince Valiant; Katherine Heigl a very post-Leia princess and Edward Fox is King Arthur. But best is Joanna Lumley as scheming Morgana Le Fey: see Ab Fab's Patsy get medieval!
The Prince Of Egypt
(Brenda Chapman, Simon Wells, Steve Hickner, 1998) , BBC1
Dreamworks' animated story of Moses is an epic affair: a cast of thousands and thousands is a cinch when they're all drawn. So the big set-pieces - the plague of locusts, the parting of the red sea, a chariot race - are majestic creations, but some of the best scenes are quieter and more reflective. Voiced by the likes of Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Dunkirk
(Leslie Norman, 1958) , BBC2
An Ealing Studios recreation of the great retreat of 1940, when the British army, pursued by the allconquering Wehrmacht, slipped back across the Channel on a huge fleet of little boats. It's done with solid monochrome authenticity and a steadfast cast: Richard Attenborough, Bernard Lee and, best of all, John Mills.
Thunderheart
(Michael Apted, 1992) 9pm, Five
A murder thriller set against the heated, dusty backdrop of native American anti-government protest. After the killing of a Sioux on a South Dakota reservation, FBI agents are called in: Sam Shepard and Val Kilmer, who must come to terms with his own Indian blood to solve the mystery.
The Omen
(Richard Donner, 1976) , BBC1
When people call young Damien a little devil, they ain't kidding. The adopted son of American ambassador Gregory Peck and Lee Remick has an impish sense of humour - making his nanny hang herself, for instance. But then, Damien is the son of Satan.
The Five Obstructions
(Lars Von Trier, 2003) , C4
A bizarre project, even by the maverick Von Trier's standards. It's really a documentary on Danish documentarist Jorgen Leth, who in 1967 made an experimental blackand- white short called The Perfect Human. Von Trier challenges him to remake the film five different ways, under his command, and according to his own strict Dogme rules. Instead of running a mile, Leth agrees, and an oddly compelling battle of wills ensues between the film-makers.
Thursday December 23
Swing Time
(George Stevens, 1936) , BBC2
Middle-of-the-range Fred and Ginger: he's "Lucky" Garnett, she's dance teacher Penny Carroll, and he falls for her when he should be wedding the local millionairess (that's supposed to be lucky?).
Gremlins
(Joe Dante, 1984) , C4
The gremlins are super-beasty furries, sweet as teddy bears until a splash of water has them running amok with a gruesome sense of iconoclastic humour in a small town straight out of It's A Wonderful Life. In Dante's jolly horror show, Hoyt Axton is the maddish inventor who gets the party started when he gives son Zach Galligan one of the little creatures for a Christmas present...
Footloose
(Herbert Ross, 1984) , BBC1
... But not fancy free in the little midwest town of Bomont, where the youngsters want to bop but the Bible-thumping elders, led by fire-and- brimstone preacher John Lithgow, say no. Into this little local difficulty dances groovy Chicago boy Kevin Bacon, winning the tractor race, the preacher's sexy daughter Lori Singer, and young hearts all round with his disco binge. Corny but fun.
Hell In The Pacific
(John Boorman, 1968) , BBC2
An American pilot and a Japanese naval officer are marooned on a tiny Pacific island during the war: at first they're inclined to continue hostilities, but gradually come to a boozy understanding. Well shot and solidly founded on the craggy head-to-head of Lee Marvin versus Toshiro Mifune.
Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil
(Clint Eastwood, 1997) , Five
At a grand Christmas party in Savannah, Georgia, the host (Kevin Spacey) shoots dead his lover (Jude Law): in the ensuing investigation, visiting journalist John Cusack is left gawping at the bizarre reality beneath the town's genteel veneer. Eastwood's film is full of vivid characters, and though the drama gets lost in a baroque swirl, it's a fascinating portrait of time and place.
Christmas Eve
The Karate Kid
(John G Avildsen, 1984) , C4
A teenie version of Rocky, which was also directed by Avildsen. Ralph Macchio plays Danny, who's a punchbag for the punks from the No Mercy karate club until Mr Miyagi, the maintenance man from Okinawa, teaches him inner - and of course, outer - strength.
Casper
(Brad Silberling, 1995) , BBC1
This warmhearted ghost story has exorcist Bill Pullman contracted to clean out a haunted mansion by nasty heiress Cathy Moriarty and her stooge Eric Idle: they want to get at the treasure buried therein. However, Pullman's teenage daughter (Christina Ricci) takes to lonely Casper.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
(Ken Hughes, 1968) , ITV1
Hughes and Roald Dahl concocted this musical fantasy from the children's tales of James Bond creator Ian Fleming. Dick Van Dyke is daffy inventor Caractacus Potts who, with his two children, rescues an old banger from the scrapyard and discovers it has magical powers. But it's too long, and at times dull as a traffic jam.
Babe
(Chris Noonan, 1995) , BBC1
About five minutes into Noonan's delightful, Oscar-winning adaptation of the Dick King-Smith book, disbelief is entirely suspended and it seems perfectly natural that these farmyard animals should natter away to each other, Babe being a chatty piglet with a gift for rounding up sheep. An inspired comedy.
Gremlins 2: The New Batch
(Joe Dante, 1990) , C4
Further adventures of the mogwais, the lovable little critters that turn mean when wet: there's a skyscraper full of them made mad as hell by demented Dr Catheter (Christopher Lee). Engagingly nasty.
My Fair Lady
(George Cukor, 1964) , BBC2
Lacks the harsher tones of Shaw's Pygmalion, but this much-loved, multi-Oscar-winning musical is rich entertainment. There's an elegant cast, with Rex Harrison as Prof Higgins betting Wilfrid Hyde- White's Colonel Pickering he can teach cockney flower girl Eliza (Audrey Hepburn) to talk proper.
The Princess Diaries
(Garry Marshall, 2001) , BBC1
An enjoyable wish-fulfilment teenie comedy. Anne Hathaway plays Mia, a clumsy San Francisco schoolkid who discovers she is heir to the throne of Genovia, a quaint little European state. Julie Andrews is regal as anything as her grandma, Queen Clarisse Renaldi, who has the job of transforming clutzy Mia into a princess.
Shrek
(Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jenson, 2001) , BBC1
Dreamworks' exuberant animated fairy tale has a wicked sense of humour, taking the mickey out of umpteen years of (mainly Disney) animated adventures. Shrek, voiced by Mike Myers, is a grumpy green ogre who just wants to be miserable in his swamp; but an invasion of cartoon creatures leads him and trusty donkey (Eddie Murphy) into a quest to rescue Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) from a dragon. A delight.
A Christmas Carol
(David Jones, 1999) , C4
What's Christmas without A Christmas Carol? This modest TV movie may not live up to the classic big-screen versions, but it serves the purpose well enough. Patrick "Picard" Stewart makes a fine, curmudgeonly Scrooge, with Richard E Grant and Saskia Reeves as the pathetic Cratchits.
Chocolat
(Lasse Hallstrom, 2000) 9pm, BBC2
In 1950s Gascony, the village of Lansquenet is a museum piece, preserved in staunch Catholic values by its stern mayor (Alfred Molina). Then in breezes Juliette Binoche's Mme Rocher to turn the old bakery into a chocolate shop - and at Lent, too. There is a reactionary backlash, but her sweet wiles win over many of the villagers, not to mention the handsome Gypsy down by the river (Johnny Depp).
Bonnie And Clyde
(Arthur Penn, 1967) , Five
Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway play the infamous 1930s robberlovers as latter-day Robin Hoods, stealing from banks but not from the poor. Filmed in the midwest towns where the real-life pair operated, it's nevertheless a glitzy Hollywood love-and-bullets romance.
Gone With The Wind
(Victor Fleming, 1939) , ITV1
Margaret Mitchell's epic novel about the grand passion of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara. Vivien Leigh won one of its eight Oscars, and became a star: Clark Gable was persuaded to risk his macho image and weep on screen, crying all the way to the bank. It's baggy and overblown, certainly, but a huge cinematic event.
Christmas Day
The Music Box
(James Parrott, 1932) , BBC2
There's plenty of competition, but this is probably the funniest Laurel and Hardy short movie ever. Stan and Ollie play delivery men hauling a piano up an enormous flight of steps. A comic masterpiece.
Little Women
(Mervyn LeRoy, 1949) , BBC2
The middle one of three big screen versions of Louisa May Alcott's classic novel, and very much the little sister of the family. The MGM production values are impeccable, it's shot in handsome Technicolor and the cast includes June Allyson, Margaret O'Brien, Elizabeth Taylor and Janet Leigh - but still it seems lacklustre compared to George Cukor's 1933 scintillating original and Gillian Armstrong's spirited 1994 account.
Santa Claus: The Movie
(Jeannot Szwarc, 1985) , BBC1
Ah, the Christmas turkey. Little Dudley Moore is in danger of typecasting as Patch the elf, the grumbler in Santa's toyshop. His failed attempt to update custom and practice leads him from the North Pole to villainous John Lithgow's New York toy factory, where he puts a spanner in the devious works.
The Rugrats Movie
(Norton Virgien, Igor Kovalyov, 1998) , C4
The yukky but lovable toddlers of the TV cartoon series get a much bigger playground with their first feature film, and the result is fun for kids and adults. Jealous Tommy gets his pals to help him return his new baby brother to the hospital, but the job quickly goes pear-shaped, leaving them lost in the woods.
White Christmas
(Michael Curtiz, 1954) , BBC2
Fifty years on, this is still the ultimate Christmas movie, thanks to Bing Crosby's crooning rendition of Irving Berlin's sloppy title song and director Curtiz going for full-on seasonal slush. Bing and Danny Kaye put on a show to help old army buddy Dean Jagger while simultaneously wooing cabaret girls Vera-Ellen and Rosemary Clooney. A cracker.
Singin' In The Rain
(Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen, 1952) , Five
One of the great Hollywood musicals, in which stars, songs and sets meld into a joyous celebration of... the Hollywood musical. And while the Gene Kelly-Debbie Reynolds romance is airy-light, there's a hard satirical edge to the portrayals of the tough-nut studio bosses wrestling with the arrival of sound.
102 Dalmatians
(Kevin Lima, 2000) , BBC1
A frenetic, panting follow-up to Stephen Herek's live-action remake of the Disney classic. Glenn Close returns as the polkadot fetishist Cruella De Vil, released from jail but soon harbouring plans for a puppy-skin coat with Gerard Depardieu's larger-than-life designer, Le Pelt.
Great Expectations
(David Lean, 1946) , BBC2
Perfectly handled and visually thrilling, this is probably the best screen Dickens, and one of Lean's masterpieces. The eerie, gothic tone is set in the opening scene - Pip's graveyard encounter with Magwitch - and reaches through the film to the spurned Miss Havisham's sunless, embittered existence. The flawless cast includes John Mills, Valerie Hobson and Alec Guinness.
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone
(Chris Columbus, 2001) , BBC1
The first Potter movie proved to be more magical than Muggle. Everyone knows that this is the story of young wiz Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), plus chums Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint), who enrol at the wonderful Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry and have their first encounter with evil Lord Voldemort. Columbus's directing is a little stodgy, but there is some marvellous CGI invention; and with a whole coven of British acting talent (including Alan Rickman, the late Richard Harris, Fiona Shaw, Julie Walters, and biggest and best of all, Robbie Coltrane's Hagrid) on hand, there's enough magic dust sprinkled about to keep fans spellbound.
The Pink Panther
(Blake Edwards, 1964) , C4
Inspector Clouseau's first case features Peter Sellers in inspired form as the bungling detective, engaged in clumsy cat-and-mousery with debonair thief David Niven for possession of the legendary Pink Panther diamond.
Buena Vista Social Club
(Wim Wenders, 1998) , C4
Another fecund partnership of Wenders and Ry Cooder, the musician who made the score for Paris, Texas. This is the story of Cooder pulling together a group of aged Cuban performers to make a CD and go on tour. All in their 80s or 90s, the musicians - including Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo and Ruben Gonzalez - play and talk about their lives, Wenders works it into a rich, heartwarming whole.
The Manchurian Candidate
(John Frankenheimer, 1962) , Five
Far more subversive and thrilling than the Demme remake: Korean war hero Laurence Harvey is in fact a brainwashed assassin, primed to murder the president and sweep the far right into the White House. What's more, the trigger is Mom, Angela Lansbury, in a neat perversion of the apple-pie type. Frank Sinatra is the killer's former comrade who learns the awful truth.
Finding Forrester
(Gus Van Sant, 2000) , ITV1
Coming after Good Will Hunting, this is Van Sant's second film about a working-class lad-cum-genius. But here the youngster, Rob Brown's Jamal, a Bronx kid who hides his writing skills behind his basketball talent, shares the screen with an older protagonist, Sean Connery's Forrester, the Salinger-like author of one great novel. A sensitive, engrossing drama.
Out Of Sight
(Steven Soderbergh, 1998) , BBC1
This hip and witty thriller brought indie star Soderbergh storming into the mainstream. George Clooney's bank robber and Jennifer Lopez's federal marshal fizz with odd-couple chemistry; Ving Rhames is dead cool as Clooney's partner in crime, and Michael Keaton and Samuel L Jackson appear, unannounced.
Young Frankenstein
(Mel Brooks, 1973) , BBC1
This lighthearted monster movie is one of Brooks's most successful spoofs. The Brooks/Gene Wilder script runs the gamut of screen humour from witty to slapstick, and there's a top-flight, fall-about cast, including Madeline Kahn, Marty Feldman and Gene Hackman.
Suburbia
(Richard Linklater, 1997) , Five
A group of aimless 20-year-olds hang out, boozing and arguing, in a parking lot: it's just another night in suburbia, until an old schoolmate turned rock star (Jayce Bartok) turns up and sparks old jealousies and rivalries. A complex, riveting work with an utterly convincing cast.
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