Fest of the best

The pick of Christmas TV films... from comedy to classics and box-fresh offerings

- BY FRAN WINSTON

THEY'RE the familiar favourites that have endured through the decades and still manage to wow new audiences.

Top of the list is Frank Capra's 1946 offering, It's a Wonderful Life (tomorrow, ITV, 12.45pm). Even those who haven't seen it know the story of George Bailey, played by James Stewart, who is visited by an angel and shown what life would be like if he had never existed.

It's a beautiful, timeless movie made even more poignant when you consider it was the first postwar project for the director and the star. Both had served in the Second World War and brought their harrowing experiences to the screen.

Miracle on 34th Street (Disney+) released one year later in 1947, stars Maureen O'Hara and a young Natalie Wood. It was remade in 1994, but the original version remains the best.

The plot sees a lawyer and a little girl attempt to prove that a man claiming to be Santa Claus is the real deal. If you don't believe in the man in the red suit by the end of it then you haven't been paying attention.

Back in 1951, Alastair Sim set the standard for all future actors playing Charles Dickens' iconic character Ebenezer Scrooge in Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (December 24, C5, 9.10am).

Everyone knows the story of the miserly businessman who is visited by a series of ghosts who convince him to mend his ways and undergo a spiritual epiphany. This version manages to retain the dark undertones of Dickens' work while also making the titular character sympathetic.

Find more cheery fare in the glorious technicolor brilliance of White Christmas (available on NOW). The 1954 musical stars Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye as entertainers who follow two singing sisters, played by Rosemary Clooney (George Clooney's real life aunt) and Vera Ellen, to Vermont, where they end up performing in a joint Christmas show to put their old commander's failing inn back in business. And yes, it does feature that song.

FAMILY