Film: Dances With Wolves (1990)
Showing: Sat Dec 19, 4.30pm, BBC2
Why It's A Must-See: If ever a movie was doomed to failure on paper, it was this one. Clocking in at over three finger-wagging hours, it was heavily subtitled, rooted in an unfashionable period of history and helmed by a first-timer whose acting career had already showed signs of yo-yoing alarmingly.
And yet, somehow, Costner smashed it: Wolves’ expansive romance is shamelessly indulgent, yet just earthy enough to be utterly engrossing. The director was subsequently adopted as an honorary member of the Sioux nation, ferchrissakes.
Don’t Get Up For A Mince Pie...when Costner and his new-found buddies ride out on a horseback hunt among several hundred honking, stampeding, dust-kicking buffalo. A proper outdoorsy, traditional Western moment that neatly encapsulates the film’s sweeping themes of freedom, tension and violence.
Film: Blade Runner: The Final Cut (1982)
Showing: Sat Dec 19, 9pm, BBC2
Why It’s A Must-See: Ridley Scott’s seminal dystopian sci-fi has always been essential viewing, but this 2007 Final Cut version is the one he always wanted to put his name to.
The previous effort at a definitive version, 1992’s Directors Cut, was actually only ‘approved’ by Scott, and was in fact created largely in his absence; this edit was completely hands-on, ensuring the finished article was as close to how the iconic helmer envisaged it as possible.
Don’t Get Up For A Mince Pie...when Roy delivers his rain-soaked rooftop soliloquy to Deckard. An oddly beautiful and profoundly moving coda to a thrilling chase, even though we basically have no real idea what the mad bio-bot bugger is wittering about.
Film: The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Showing: Sun Dec 20, 11.30am, BBC2
Why It’s A Must-See: Henry Selick may have directed this ghoulish family fairytale, but it absolutely wallows in producer/co-writer Tim Burton’s idiosyncratic sugar-coated gothicisms.
The character models are instant cult classics, the animation is wonderfully Harryhausen-esque, and at least two of the songs - This Is Halloween and What’s This? - would make an all-time Danny Elfman top five with ease.
Don’t Get Up For A Mince Pie...when either of the aforementioned songs kick in, or when Jack Skellington goes off on his ill-advised sleigh ride, spooking the bejesus out of the world’s children with some divinely macabre presents.
Film: The Ten Commandments (1956)
Showing: Mon Dec 21, 12.05pm, C4
Why It’s A Must-See: Cecil B. DeMille’s second crack at the Biblical behemoth is arguably the very definition of the old-school afternoon epic, with a manlier-than-thou Chartlon Heston playing Moses and Yul Brynner as his brother Pharaoh Ramesses.
It goes on for bloody ages and features more sandals, sweat and storm clouds than you could shake a thickly cascading beard at. They just don't make them like this any more. Although Mel Gibson probably wants to.
Don’t Get Up For A Mince Pie...when Moses parts the Red Sea to allow his people through. DeMille achieved the eye-popping SFX shot using reversed footage of a flooding tank, with a close-up on a sliced cube of a jelly for that authentic wall-of-water wobble.
Film: Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971)
Showing: New Year’s Day, 4.50pm, TV1
Why It’s A Must-See: Having claimed earlier that Burton and Depp was always a match made in heaven, it’s probably time to ‘fess up and concede that they are of course far from infallible - quite why they felt the need to remake this charmingly mental 70s fever dream of a children’s film will forever remain a mystery.
Needless to say, Burton and Depp failed to improve on the original. How could they when this version boasts Gene Wilder, forever cementing his status as the definitive candy-creating whackjob?
Don’t Get Up For A Mince Pie...actually, do get up for a mince pie - around the time the gang are all swept on a river of worryingly orangey-pin-klooking chocolate into space-time’s most chilling tunnel. You won’t sleep for a week after revisiting those childhood terrors, and that’s no way to kick-start your 2010.
We’d sooner sit alone in the dark watching The Exorcist any day...
Film: Dick Tracy (1990)
Showing: Tue Dec 22, 11.55am, C4
Why It’s A Must-See: Warren Beatty went all auteur on us here, directing, producing and starring in this pulpy comic book adaptation alongside Madonna, Dustin Hoffman and a genuinely demented-looking Al Pacino chewing the scenery as crime boss ‘Big Boy’ Caprice.
Lavish visuals evoke a Nighthawks-era Hopper painting and the overall tone, though tongue-in-cheek, remains grittier than a gravel toastie.
Don’t Get Up For A Mince Pie...whenever Pacino’s creepy, enorma-chinned cartoon pimp starts yelling and frothing and generally hamming things up a treat - even poor Madonna looks terrified, bless ‘er.
Film: Some Like It Hot (1959)
Showing: New Year’s Day, 12.30pm, ITV1
Why It’s A Must-See: Because it’s simply one of the best Hollywood comedies ever made. This is thanks in part to the unusual black-and-white fusion of grit and slapstick in a tale about two witnesses to a mob hit attempting to flee the scene in drag.
But it’s mostly down to the dream buddy pairing of Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, neatly offset the smouldering presence of one Ms Marilyn Monroe. An inspired flourish of casting that has seldom, if ever, been bettered since.
Don’t Get Up For A Mince Pie...when either of the male leads are clattering along in stiletto heels and flouncy blouses; particularly behind a steam-blasted Monroe in that iconic train station sequence.
Film: Midnight Run (1988)
Showing: New Year’s Eve, 12.05am, ITV1
Why It’s A Must-See: Actually, anyone sober enough to work a telly by five minutes past midnight is clearly doing New Year wrong, but you should set your recorder for this one before the first cork is popped.
Robert De Niro doesn’t always nail it when doing comedy, but he absolutely does here, playing a criminal-escorting bounty hunter in this odd couple road comedy alongside corporate thief Charles Grodin. Good hangover stuff for the next morning, say we.
Don’t Get Up For A Mince Pie...while De Niro and his captive are driving along bickering about everything and anything, like some old married couple. Despite some reasonable set pieces elsewhere, these brilliantly bathetic squabbles are definitely the highlight of Martin Brest’s surprise multi-sequel-spawning mini-hit.
Film: Shrek 2 (2004)
Showing: Christmas Eve, 5.45pm, BBC1
Why It’s A Must-See: This one’s all about the glorious voice cast, with Mike Myers starring as the titular bogey-hued ogre, and a show-stealing turn from Eddie Murphy as his jive-talking chum Donkey.
Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, Julie Andrews and John Cleese all bring something valuable to the party, ensuring the franchise totally justified this rollocking sequel before soiling itself with a third instalment in 2007.
Don’t Get Up For A Mince Pie...when Shrek’s buddies send their sublimely silly colossus - Mongo the gingerbread man - to storm the royal ball and prevent a double-crossing princess snog.
Film: The Big Combo (1954)
Showing: Tue Dec 29, 1.10am, BBC2
Why It’s A Must-See: Hard-boiled, murky and savagely menacing; this John Alton-shot noir thriller details the cat-and-mouse pursuit of deranged kingpin Mr Brown by obsessed cop (and would-be suitor to the current Mrs Brown) Leonard Diamond.
The film was unusually bleak and aggressive for its time, but even so, it’s Alton’s stunning monochrome photography that’s the real revelation here.
Don’t Get Up For A Mince Pie...during the final scenes around the aeroplane hangar. In them, we find our key protagonists silhouetted against swirling fog, chewing out a brooding climax that could easily be used as some stark synecdochic reference point for the noir genre in its entirety.
Film: The Graduate (1967)
Showing: Boxing Day, 12.40am, ITV1
Why It’s A Must-See: Stone cold classics can’t really be argued against in any sane way, and this epoch-defining satire rocks up somewhere near the top of almost any serious all-time list you care to mention.
The thoroughly inappropriate boot-knocking between Dustin Hoffman’s ennui-riddled Benjamin Braddock and Anne Bancroft’s divinely manipulative Mrs Robinson is played out to perfection, and the Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack is just sublime.
Don’t Get Up For A Mince Pie...during the initial post-party solicitation attempt - you’ll miss one of the greatest deadpan one-liners of the 1960s as a nervous Braddock attempts to man up and call the conniving cougar’s bluff.
Film: Corpse Bride (2005)
Showing: Christmas Eve, 6pm, ITV1
Why It’s A Must-See: It could so easily have been hokey as hell, given that an uncharacteristically simpering Tim Burton made it purely as a vehicle for his artfully dishevelled baby momma, Helena Bonham Carter.
Then again, it’s essentially a slicker stop-motion big sister to The Nightmare Before Christmas, and it reunites the golden triumverate of Burton, Depp and Elfman, and...and...well, it was never really at risk of not being genius, was it?
Don’t Get Up For A Mince Pie...during Victor and Emily’s beautifully rotten little piano duet, wherein their frankly illegal romance starts to look as though it might in fact have a (somewhat maggoty) future after all.
Film: Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End (2007)
Showing: Boxing Day, 7.30pm, BBC1
Why It’s A Must-See: The stubbornly convoluted plotting of the third Captain Jack Sparrow flick made it smack less of brazen opportunism than the first sequel did, but it manages to be just as much fun as the Pirates franchise ever was.
Moreover, its relative complexity means that you won’t have to talk to your relatives; they’ll be too busy silently picking over the crummy remnants of their selection boxes in gurning, sherry-addled concentration.
Don’t Get Up For A Mince Pie...during the suitably tense stand-off climax to that chaotic heart-stabbing finale. It might be choreographed to within an inch of its life, but we're still suckers for a Western-style good-vs-evil duel. And of course, it doesn't all end as predictably as you might think...
Film: The Incredibles (2004)
Showing: Christmas Day, 3.10pm, BBC1
Why It’s A Must-See: Well, apart from the fact that it’s essentially BBC1’s flagship Christmas title for 2009, there’s also the (quite reasonable) argument that it’s bloody ace.
Pixar’s A-grade conveyor belt had really cranked into overdrive by the release of this Simpsons-esque (hardly surprising, with Brad Bird at the helm), quip-packed tale about decommissioned superheroes struggling to cope with domestic anonymity.
Don’t Get Up For A Mince Pie...at all. You’re bound to miss one of the countless backhanders or underplayed sight gags that make Pixar’s technical tour de force a film that viewers of all ages will be able to milk for chuckles by the bucketload.
Film: Gilda (1946)
Showing: Christmas Eve, 2.10am, BBC2
Why It’s A Must-See: Two words...Rita. Hayworth. The classic noir femme fatale was never so alluringly portrayed as Hayworth manages with her fickle, flame-haired temptress.
The simmering resentment that bubbles away under the tale of gambling hucksters and Nazi businessmen all stems from her wholly believable ability to beguile the pants off any bloke who wanders into her tractor beam.
Don’t Get Up For A Mince Pie...whenever Hayworth swims under the club stage spotlight to deliver one of her effortlessly paralysing song-and-shimmy numbers. Not that you could if you wanted to.