1st January 2026

1235 - 5

So once you’ve woken up and had some breakfast you could very easily settle down and spend all day with Channel 5 as they cover all the bases here; back to back disaster films, Crocodile flipping Dundee for your knifey/spoony needs, big lads lifting heavy stuff and moving it from one place to another, bit of comedy and then one of the top tier Dad films. A near faultless bank holiday schedule

1250 - Film4

A nice double bill here, starting with something that you wouldn’t expect from a David Lynch film; a sweet family film about a guy driving his lawnmower. It’s a proper treat, and then the tone shifts to glorious Harryhausen stop motion. It's not quite the best of its class but its still a great watch

1405 - 5 Star

Sure we’ve had a couple here before but wanted to include them in this run of films that has a couple of other standouts; Jupiter is a great film that got a proper mauling when it was released. I think that was due to the critics wanting to lay the boot into the Wachowskis rather than due to the quality of the film itself. And then Prometheus, a film which definitely isn’t an Alien film at all. It looks great and has a couple of really good sequences but really it should have been its own thing as all the non-Alien stuff really drags it down

1515 - BBC1

A proper musical here which has bangers after banger on the soundtrack. Also nazis that are escaped from when really they needed punching first.

1840 - 4 Seven

Both modern Jumanjis here for you, moving things on from board games to video games. They’re better than they should be frankly, although the first probably takes it. Also Jack Black gives good Jack Black in both films which is generally worth the price of admission alone.

1840 - Channel 4

More Bake Off fun, this time with previous contestants from the show teaming up. A relay sounds mad, but if it’s as fun as the Instant Dance was in this year’s Strictly then it should be a lot of fun

2100 - Legend Xtra

A palate cleanser here with mid-period JCVD; this is after the highs of Universal Soldier but not long before the wheels come off after Street Fighter. This is decent but is a bit of a drop off in quality as it slots in between Universal Soldier and Hard Target in the filmography and can’t really compete with either of those

2105 - BBC1

The first series of The Night Manager was cracking so a follow up is warmly received. The only issue here is that Hugh Laurie was a big part of the success of that first series so without him will it be as good? He’s in the credits there but it’s not clear if that’s just flashbacks or a small cameo. Guess we’ll have to watch it and find out!

2325 - BBC1

So does this mean the BBC are showing all of these? Can’t argue with that. This one is well known to be the black sheep of the franchise, probably because the hype for it was so huge. A John Woo Mission: Impossible? Limp Bizkit producing a banger of a cover of the theme? I spent hours downloading the trailer in the best quality, but the film just couldn’t bear the weight of all that hype. As time passes that gets better but its flaws don’t all go away; it is a bit of a mess and pulls the mask trick one too many times. It also establishes the Tom Cruise hair length to Mission: Impossible quality ratio that still stands to this day.