Best films to watch on TV today, tonight and this week

And this time out, we have another varied list for you, with everything from classic musicals like Meet Me in St Louis and West Side Story to more recent hits like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. So, there really is something for everyone.

With so many amazing films airing, we've compiled a list of the best flicks for you to choose from below.

Friday 15th December

Only Two Can Play -10:40am, Talking Pictures TV

Comedy based on the novel That Uncertain Feeling by Kingsley Amis, starring Peter Sellers and Mai Zetterling. In a small Welsh town, married librarian John Lewis tries to inject a little excitement into his life by starting an affair with the wife of the library committee chairman. Read our full review

Traffic - 9:40pm, Dave

Michael Douglas, Benicio Del Toro, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Don Cheadle star in Steven Soderbergh's Oscar-winning, multilayered crime drama that shows how disparate lives in the USA and Mexico are interconnected through the drugs trade and the battle to stop the traffickers. Read our full review

Mud - 11:05pm, BBC Two

Drama starring Matthew McConaughey, Tye Sheridan and Reese Witherspoon. Two 14-year-old boys are messing about on the Mississippi River when they encounter a charismatic fugitive on the run for murder. The boys agree to keep his whereabouts a secret and to help reunite him with his estranged lover. Read our full review

Point Break - 11:30pm, BBC One

Action thriller set among California's surfing community, starring Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves. Novice FBI agent Johnny Utah is assigned with partner Angelo Pappas to track down a gang of four bank robbers, who carry out their raids wearing masks of former American presidents. In the belief that the gang are surfers, Utah goes under cover to learn surfing skills and encounters the mysterious Bodhi. Read our full review

Saturday 16th December

The Ipcress File - 1pm, BBC Two

Spy thriller starring Michael Caine. Intelligence agent Harry Palmer is plunged into the shabby and treacherous world of counter-espionage as he uncovers a bizarre "brain drain" among scientists. Nobody can be trusted and nothing is what it seems. Read our full review

Swallows and Amazons – 2pm, BBC One

Adventure based on Arthur Ransome's classic children's novel, starring Rafe Spall and Kelly Macdonald. England in the 1930s: while on holiday in the Lake District, the four Walker children dub themselves the "Swallows" (after their sailboat) and lay claim to a nearby island where they set up camp. However, the local Blackett sisters ("the Amazons") consider that spot to be their domain, so before long battle lines are drawn. Read our full review

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - 5:45pm, ITV1

Fantasy adventure, the final part of JK Rowling's epic saga, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint. Harry continues his search for the magical horcruxes, the key to the evil Lord Voldemort's immortality. Acting on information from the goblin Griphook, Harry is led to the vault of Voldemort's ally Bellatrix Lestrange before returning to Hogwarts for a final confrontation with his archenemy. Read our full review

Saving Private Ryan - 9pm, Channel 4

Second World War drama directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore and Edward Burns, and featuring Matt Damon. As the horror of the Normandy landings takes its toll, three brothers lie dead. Captain Miller is sent on a special mission in occupied France to bring home the fourth brother, Private Ryan - no matter what the cost. Read our full review

Fight Club – 12:15am, Channel 4

Satirical drama starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. Meeting by chance, soap salesman Tyler Durden and a frustrated office worker conceive the Fight Club, where disaffected young men seeking release from their frustrations can beat each other up with bare knuckles. Their idea is hugely successful, but as Tyler becomes a cult hero, his actions grow increasingly reckless. Read our full review

Sunday 17th December

Monsters vs Aliens - 1:40pm, Channel 4

Animated sci-fi comedy featuring the voices of Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen and Hugh Laurie. Susan Murphy is in love and about to marry her weatherman fiancé Derek when she is struck by a meteorite that endows her with extraordinary powers. Codenamed Ginormica, she is enlisted by the military to join other "monsters" in defending the Earth from alien invasion. Read our full review

Men in Black - 5:25pm, BBC Two

Sci-fi comedy starring Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. When a New York police officer is recruited by a top-secret agency that monitors alien activity he finds himself in a race against time to save the Earth from destruction. Read our full review

Edge of Tomorrow - 9pm, Channel 5

Sci-fi action drama starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. After being killed on his first day of combat in a war against aliens, Major William Cage finds himself in a time loop, living the same day over and over again. Gaining more knowledge each time he is killed, Cage realises that the key to victory is for him to keep on dying. Read our full review

Bridge of Spies - 10pm, BBC Two

Spy thriller based on a true story, starring Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance. At the height of the Cold War, it falls to insurance lawyer James B Donovan to represent Soviet spy Rudolf Abel and broker a prisoner swap involving two American men - pilot Francis Gary Powers and student Frederic Pryor. Read our full review

Cape Fear - 12:30am, BBC One

Thriller starring Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte and Jessica Lange. After 14 years behind bars, brutal rapist Max Cady is free to exact revenge on the man who could have kept him out of jail, lawyer Sam Bowden. Too clever to attack his victim directly, the devious ex-convict begins a reign of terror that threatens Bowden's wife and teenage daughter. Determined to crush the family, Cady's sadistic campaign causes underlying tensions to explode with devastating results. Read our full review

Monday 18th December

Guys and Dolls - 1:50pm, BBC Two

Musical comedy based on Damon Runyon's short stories, starring Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons and Frank Sinatra. Hustler Nathan Detroit searches for a new location for his dice game while being pursued by the police. When he finds a suitable garage, he makes a $1,000 bet with slick gambler Sky Masterson to raise the necessary finance. However, that means Sky must persuade a pious young missionary to go to Havana to have dinner, or else he loses the wager. Read our full review

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse - 6:45pm, Film4

Animated action adventure featuring the voices of Shameik Moore and Jake Johnson. Teenager Miles Morales is bitten by a radioactive arachnid and develops superhuman abilities like those of local hero Spider-Man. When Spidey is taken out of action by villain Kingpin, Miles must step up to prevent an unstable supercollider from sending New York into another dimension. But he soon finds he's not the only spider-being in town... Read our full review

1917 - 10:30pm, BBC Two

First World War drama starring George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman. Two young British corporals are tasked with delivering an urgent warning about an enemy ambush to a battalion further along the Western Front. The quickest way to do this is to go over the top, through the abandoned German trenches and across the French countryside - but they soon run into peril and face an increasingly fraught race against time... Read our full review

Tuesday 19th December

The African Queen - 1pm, BBC Two

Classic First World War romantic adventure starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. East Africa, 1914: when her home is destroyed by invading Germans, a prim missionary finds an unlikely saviour in the scruffy, gin-drinking captain of a small steam-driven riverboat. Read our full review

The Railway Children - 2:40pm, BBC Two

Classic period drama based on the novel by E Nesbit, starring Jenny Agutter, Sally Thomsett and Gary Warren. When a government official is arrested on suspicion of treason, his wife and three children are forced to leave their London home and move to a small cottage in Yorkshire. While their mother fights for her husband's release, the children have marvellous adventures. Read our full review

The Shawshank Redemption - 10:40pm, BBC One

Prison drama, based on a story by Stephen King, starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. Maine 1946: sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife and her lover, mild-mannered banker Andy Dufresne tries to adapt to the brutalities of prison life. Over the years, Dufresne's friendship with long-term inmate Red and the discovery that his financial expertise is suddenly in big demand make his ordeal easier to bear. Read our full review

Wednesday 20th December

Pillow Talk - 1pm, BBC Two

Romantic comedy starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Interior decorator Jan Morrow shares her phone line with philandering songwriter Brad Allen, a man she despises. Meeting a handsome Texan, she is favourably struck by the difference between the two men. Read our full review

The Bridge on the River Kwai - 3:50pm, Film4

Second World War epic starring Alec Guinness, William Holden and Jack Hawkins. Despite being held in a Japanese PoW camp in Burma, Colonel Nicholson still runs his regiment by the military textbook. However, Nicholson meets his match in the equally stubborn prison commander Colonel Saito, and the two find themselves on a collision course when Saito gets orders to build a strategically important railway bridge. Read our full review

Belfast - 9pm, BBC Two

Period drama starring Jude Hill, Caitríona Balfe, Jamie Dornan and Judi Dench. Northern Ireland, 1969: nine-year-old Buddy starts a new school year, only vaguely aware of the political turmoil that surrounds him. When Buddy's Protestant father is approached to join with dangerous local sectarians, the family is increasingly affected by the violence of the Troubles. Read our full review

Thursday 21st December

Meet Me in St Louis - 1pm, BBC Two

Classic musical starring Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien that charts the everyday adventures and romantic entanglements of the Smith family in early 20th-century St Louis. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, The Trolley Song and Skip to My Lou are just a few of the memorable numbers belted out by Garland and the cast. Read our full review

Edward Scissorhands - 5:50pm, BBC Two

Fantasy starring Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder. Edward is a man-made boy built by an inventor whose sudden death leaves his creation with sharp metal shears instead of hands. After he is discovered by an Avon lady, who takes him home to her family, Edward is greeted with curiosity by the outside world. Read our full review

Raging Bull - 10:15pm, BBC Two

Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning drama, based on the life of middleweight boxer Jake La Motta, starring Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty and Joe Pesci. 1941: under the managership of his brother Joey, Jake La Motta establishes a reputation as a world championship contender with a string of brutal victories. He begins an affair with Vickie, a teenager who becomes his second wife, but his obsessive jealousy sends both his personal life and career into a downward spiral. Read our full review

Friday 22nd December

West Side Story - 3:25pm, BBC Two

Film version of the classic musical with songs by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, starring Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is updated to late-1950s New York where two rival gangs, the American "Jets" and the Puerto Rican "Sharks" are preparing for confrontation. The tension is heightened when Maria, the sister of "Sharks" leader Bernardo, falls in love with a former "Jet", Tony. Read our full review

Sherlock Homes - 4:40pm, Channel 5

Period mystery thriller, directed by Guy Ritchie, starring Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law. Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr John Watson think they have seen the back of serial killer Lord Blackwood. But when the evil occultist apparently comes back from the dead, they are once again drawn into a dangerous game. Read our full review

House of Gucci - 9pm, BBC Two

Biographical drama starring Lady Gaga and Adam Driver. Patrizia Reggiani comes from humble origins, but in the late 1970s, she marries fashion scion Maurizio Gucci. Over the next decade, Patrizia and Maurizio grow ever more ambitious while their marriage begins to fray. With the Gucci company's fortunes in the balance, events take a turn for the deadly. Read our full review

Alien - 11:30pm, BBC Two

Sci-fi horror thriller starring Sigourney Weaver. On its way back to Earth at the end of a routine voyage, the spacecraft Nostromo picks up signals from a nearby planet. When three of the crew go to investigate, one of them is attacked by a mysterious creature that emerges from a repository of eggs. Read our full review

If you have Netflix, we have rounded up the best movies on Netflix and the best series on Netflix to watch now - and Disney Plus viewers can check out our best movies on Disney Plus guide. Got Prime Video? We also have the best movies on Amazon Prime.

Wondering what to watch on TV? Visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide.

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