EV01: feel-good TV films from A December Bride, Christmas Under Wraps and Christmas at the Plaza to Beauty & the Briefcase, Sundays at Tiffany's and Barbarians at the Gate, and where to watch them

What EV01 is

EV01 is a guide rather than a channel. It tells you what each film is, who made it and who appears in it, and then hands you to the services that hold the rights. The catalogue was assembled by hand, one summary at a time, with a household audience in mind. Romantic comedy, family drama, light fantasy and a handful of prestige adaptations make up nearly all of it. Thrillers, crime stories, disaster films and stand-up specials, which share the television-film label, were set aside, so that the shelves hold exactly the kind of film the label promises to most viewers.

Eighty-five of the films date from 2015 to 2019, the years when the cable channels that specialise in them were commissioning dozens every season. Forty come from 2020 to 2023, thirty from 2010 to 2014 and twenty-five from before 2010. The oldest is Christmas in Connecticut, from 1992; the newest include A Royal Christmas Crush, Christmas in Notting Hill and A Pinch of Portugal, all from 2023.

The films come from a small number of busy producers. The names that appear most often in the credits are the Johnson Production Group and Hallmark Media, with thirteen titles each, followed by Hybrid, MarVista Entertainment and Brad Krevoy Television. A handful of the older and weightier films were made by HBO. Whoever made them, they share a look: bright daylight, tidy main streets, and winter landscapes that were very often filmed in British Columbia or Ontario in the middle of summer.

How the pages are arranged

The home page opens with a white bar holding the red and black EV01 mark and links to Movies, Christmas, All year, Weddings, Small towns, Top rated and the A to Z. Beneath it a dark band carries the name, a wide white search field and a red button that leads to the full list of films. On inner pages the band shrinks to a slim strip with the search field alone, so a new search is always one click away.

Below the band the page is pale grey, and the films are arranged in five rows under headings marked with a red bar: Top rated, Christmas, For the rest of the year, Weddings and Small towns. Each poster carries a small red tab, and beneath it are the title, the year and the rating from TMDB. Every row heading has a See all link showing how many films the full shelf contains. On a telephone the links fold into a menu opened by the button with three red lines.

A film page shows the poster, the title, the year and running time, the rating, the summary, the director and the cast, with the Watch now button and the country selector beside it.

The shape of a television romance

Part of the charm of these films is that they keep to a pattern, as a sonnet or a twelve-bar blues does. A capable woman, usually in her thirties, is good at her job and a little too busy for anything else. Something moves her out of her routine: a posting, an inheritance, a cancelled flight, a family duty. In the new place she meets a man who at first seems an obstacle, a rival for a contract or the owner of the thing she has been sent to buy. They are thrown together by a festival, a bake-off or a building that needs saving. A misunderstanding parts them twenty minutes before the end, and a public gesture brings them back.

Within the pattern there is a great deal of variety. Christmas Under Wraps, one of the films that established the modern formula in 2014, sends a surgeon played by Candace Cameron Bure to a tiny Alaskan town with a secret; it was the most-watched film its channel had shown up to that time. A December Bride, the highest-rated film in the collection at 7.1, begins with a pretend engagement at a cousin's wedding. Christmas at the Plaza sets a historian to work on an exhibition in the famous New York hotel, and The Christmas Contract sends two friends home to Louisiana with a written agreement to pose as a couple.

The reliability is the point. Viewers put these films on while wrapping presents, baking or recovering from a long week, and the genre has earned a loyal audience by always keeping that trust. The pages that follow sort the collection by the kinds of story it tells.

Going home for Christmas

The most common Christmas story of all is the journey home. In Christmas Wonderland, a painter who left Pleasant Valley for the city returns to look after her niece and nephew and is asked to decorate the school dance. In A Christmas Melody, Lacey Chabert plays a designer who has closed her Manhattan boutique and moved back to Ohio, where her daughter enters the school talent show; the film was directed by Mariah Carey, who also appears in it. The Christmas Cure brings a doctor back to find her father about to retire from the family practice, and Homegrown Christmas does the same for a chief executive who has stepped away from her company.

Just in Time for Christmas asks the question directly: should a young psychologist stay in her home town and marry, or take the post she has dreamed of across the country? A mysterious coachman gives her a glimpse of both futures. A Merry Christmas Wish, Hometown Christmas, set around a Louisiana town's nativity pageant, Christmas on Honeysuckle Lane and 'Tis the Season for Love all bring city professionals back to the streets where they grew up.

Sometimes the home town is someone else's. In Christmas Land, Nikki DeLoach inherits a Christmas-themed village and tree farm from her grandmother and must decide whether to sell it. In Christmas in Evergreen, Ashley Williams plays a veterinarian whose flight is cancelled, keeping her in the Vermont town where a snow globe in the diner is said to grant wishes; its sequel Christmas in Evergreen: Bells Are Ringing returns to the same streets. Christmas at the Drive-In, with Danica McKellar, is about a lawyer fighting to keep her town's outdoor cinema open.

A touch of magic

Christmas films are allowed a little enchantment, and many use it to ask what might have been. In Next Stop, Christmas, a commuter train carries a surgeon ten years into her own past, to the Christmas when she turned down a proposal; Christopher Lloyd and Lea Thompson, of a famous time-travel trilogy, play the conductor and the mother. Back to Christmas grants a lonely woman a second try at the previous December. A Tale of Two Christmases lets its heroine live the same holiday twice, once in the city and once at home.

A Snow Globe Christmas drops a cynical television producer, played by Alicia Witt, into the perfect snowy town inside the ornament on her desk. A Christmas Movie Christmas goes one better and wakes two sisters inside a holiday film, with all its rules in force. In Magical Christmas Ornaments, each decoration that arrives from a mother brings a small stroke of good fortune, and in My Christmas Love the gifts of the famous carol turn up one by one on a doorstep.

Father Christmas himself is seldom far away. Finding Mrs. Claus sends his wife, played by Mira Sorvino, to Las Vegas to answer a little girl's letter. Matchmaker Santa, Love Always, Santa, Desperately Seeking Santa, The Real St. Nick and Santa Baby 2 all give him a hand in the plot, and Every Time a Bell Rings sends three sisters on a scavenger hunt for their family's wishing bell.

Princes and palaces

The royal romance is a small but treasured corner of the genre, and nine films stand on its shelf. The formula asks for a kingdom missing from every atlas. In Christmas at the Palace it is San Senova, whose widowed king hires a former figure skater to stage an ice pageant with his daughter. In A Prince for Christmas, a European prince fleeing an arranged match takes a room in a small American town and falls for a waitress at the diner. Royal New Year's Eve pairs an aspiring fashion designer with Prince Jeffrey, played by Sam Page.

A Royal Christmas Ball, A Christmas in Royal Fashion and A Royal Christmas Crush, set in an ice hotel, carry the tradition up to 2023. Two films turn to the real House of Windsor: William & Catherine: A Royal Romance follows the couple from their university days at St Andrews, and Harry and Meghan: Escaping the Palace dramatises more recent events. As a curiosity, Dater's Handbook, a 2016 comedy about a woman who follows a dating manual, stars the future Duchess of Sussex herself.

The grandest royal story here is also the oldest. The Lion in Winter, made in 2003 from James Goldman's play, is set at the Christmas court of Henry II in 1183, with Patrick Stewart as the king and Glenn Close as Eleanor of Aquitaine, sparring over which of their sons shall inherit. The royal romances page lists all nine.

Weddings

Thirty-three films have a wedding in view. A Bride for Christmas begins with a bride calling off her third engagement at the altar and a bachelor who bets he can win her by Christmas. Married by Christmas hangs a family company on an old clause in a grandmother's will. A Wedding for Christmas and A Husband for Christmas, both with Vivica A. Fox, and We Wish You a Married Christmas, about a couple sent to a Vermont inn by their counsellor, round out the seasonal ceremonies.

Away from December, Perfect Match sets a wedding planner and an event planner, played by Danica McKellar and Paul Greene, to work on the same celebration with opposite ideas. Stop the Wedding has an aunt and a son, played by Rachel Boston and Niall Matter, united in the belief that their relatives are marrying in haste. So You Said Yes is about rival bridal shops in one town, June in January about a bride whose date is suddenly moved forward by months, and Road Trip Romance about the long journey to a sister's ceremony in the company of an old rival.

The Convenient Groom gives a relationship expert a stand-in fiancé on the day of her own publicised wedding, and Wedding of Dreams brings back the pop star Debbie Gibson as a singer turned music teacher. The weddings page sorts them by mood.

Small towns, inns and farms

Forty-eight films are set far from the city, and the small town is the true home of the genre. Its main street has a diner, a bookshop and a bakery; its square has a bandstand and a very large tree. My Christmas Inn sends an advertising executive, played by Tia Mowry, to the Alaskan guest house she has inherited from an aunt. Christmas at Holly Lodge stars Alison Sweeney as the owner of a ski lodge that a developer wants to buy, and B&B Merry brings a travel writer to a family bed and breakfast for the holidays.

Romance at Reindeer Lodge strands two people who have sworn off the season at a Christmas-themed ranch. Christmas Belle retells an old fairy tale at a mansion on the northern California coast, and Christmas at Pemberley Manor borrows its names from Jane Austen, with an event planner called Elizabeth Bennett and a brooding estate owner called Darcy. Merry Swissmas moves the inn to the Alps, Christmas in the Highlands and Christmas in Scotland to castles and glens, and Christmas in Notting Hill to London.

The land itself is often the prize. In Fir Crazy, a marketing executive rediscovers her family's Christmas tree lot. In Tulips in Spring, a designer returns to save her parents' flower farm. Sweet Home Carolina gives a single mother from Los Angeles a house she must live in for a year, and Nora Roberts' Montana Sky requires three half-sisters, strangers to one another, to share a ranch for twelve months to inherit it. The Story of Us defends a bookshop and its neighbours against a developer. The small towns page offers a tour.

Bakeries, kitchens and vineyards

Twenty-one films have something in the oven. Baking is the genre's favourite profession, since it combines craft, a shop window and a deadline. The Sweetest Christmas stars Lacey Chabert as a pastry chef who reaches the final of a national gingerbread competition just as her own oven fails. A Christmas Cookie Catastrophe, with Rachel Boston, turns on a stolen family recipe. Love on the Rise is about a baker who mistakes a wealthy bachelor for a waiter, and The Sweeter Side of Life sends a pampered Manhattan wife back to her father's bakery in New Jersey.

Professional kitchens appear in Ice Sculpture Christmas, where a young cook at a country club is entered in a carving contest against her own head chef; in Christmas on the Menu; in A Pinch of Portugal, where a prep cook must take over a travelling food programme when its star walks out; and in Pizza My Heart, a New Jersey Romeo and Juliet with two rival pizzerias. Candy Coated Christmas, set in a town called Peppermint Hollow, features the television cook Ree Drummond, and Christmas on Windmill Way builds to a Dutch bake-off.

Vineyards supply the summer equivalent. Love in the Vineyard, Love on the Vines and Summer in the Vineyard are all set among the rows at harvest time, with inheritances to settle and old rivals to work beside. The food and wine page lists the full menu.

For the rest of the year

Sixty-two films belong to the months outside December. The best known is Beauty & the Briefcase, a 2010 comedy with Hilary Duff as a fashion writer who goes undercover in a finance company to research an article on office romance; with more than four hundred votes it is the most widely seen film in the collection. Sundays at Tiffany's, from the novel by James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet, stars Alyssa Milano as a woman about to marry who is visited by the imaginary friend of her childhood, now grown up.

The seasons each have their films. Tulips in Spring and It Happened One Valentine's belong to the early months, Summer in the Vineyard to July, and Autumn in the City, in which a newcomer to New York tries a different temporary job every week, to October. Snowkissed sends a journalist who dislikes travel to the Canadian Rockies. From Italy with Amore, Just One Kiss, set around a Manhattan supper club, and Surprised by Love, in which a businesswoman brings an unsuitable boyfriend home to her parents, are romantic comedies in the classic style.

A number play with a premise. In Lucky in Love, a woman's April Fool's jokes begin to come true. In The Joneses Unplugged, a pair of newlyweds give up their telephones and screens for a month. The Reality of Love is set behind the scenes of a television dating contest, with Jason Priestley and a young Bradley Cooper. Love Unleashed is about a woman who runs puppy parties, Rescuing Madison about a singer and a firefighter, and Portrait of Love about a fashion photographer back in her home town. The all-year page sorts them by season.

The prestige television film

Before the romance channels made the label their own, the television film was a home for ambitious drama, and several examples are here. Barbarians at the Gate, made by HBO in 1993, tells the true story of the battle for control of the RJR Nabisco company in the 1980s as a sharp comedy of boardroom vanity, with James Garner as the chief executive F. Ross Johnson. It won the Emmy Award for the outstanding television film of its year and is rated 6.9 here.

Lackawanna Blues, from 2005, is drawn from Ruben Santiago-Hudson's memories of the boarding house in upstate New York where he was raised by the generous landlady he called Nanny, played by S. Epatha Merkerson in a much-honoured performance. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, from the bestselling book by Rebecca Skloot, stars Oprah Winfrey as the daughter of a woman whose cells, taken in 1951, changed medical research. In Pursuit of Honor is a western of the 1930s in which cavalry officers ride north to save their regiment's horses.

Literary adaptations sit beside them. The Great Gatsby of 2000 casts Toby Stephens as Gatsby, Mira Sorvino as Daisy and Paul Rudd as the narrator Nick Carraway. The Hunchback, from Victor Hugo's novel, stars Mandy Patinkin as Quasimodo, Salma Hayek as Esmeralda and Richard Harris as Frollo. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a 1997 version of Jules Verne's adventure, and Buffalo Girls, from the novel by Larry McMurtry, follows Calamity Jane, played by Anjelica Huston, through the last years of the Old West. The before 2010 page and the books page gather them.

Careers and second chances

The heroines of these films work hard, and their jobs are drawn with affection. There are doctors in Christmas Under Wraps and The Christmas Cure, a veterinarian in Christmas in Evergreen, and an optometrist in The Most Colorful Time of the Year, who helps a schoolteacher discover that he has been missing half the colours of the season. Designers and artists are everywhere: the aspiring interior designer of A December Bride, the shop-window dresser competing for a promotion in Window Wonderland, the painter of A Brush with Christmas and the installation artist who lights up a village in Christmas in Scotland.

The media supply a steady stream of plots. Broadcasting Christmas sets two former colleagues, played by Melissa Joan Hart and Dean Cain, to compete on air for a seat beside a famous talk-show host. Naughty & Nice exiles a cynical radio presenter to Colorado, where he is paired with a romantic co-host. In The Perfect Christmas Present, a man who has built a business on finding ideal gifts is hired by a friend to choose one for a girlfriend, and in Christmas Made to Order an architect brings in a professional holiday coordinator to rescue a family gathering.

Many stories begin with a setback. In Christmas Incorporated, a young woman at the end of her savings is hired as assistant to a wealthy heir through a mix-up over names, and ends by saving a toy factory and the town around it. Christmas List, with Alicia Witt, follows a woman carrying out her plan for a storybook holiday alone when her boyfriend is delayed. The Flight Before Christmas strands two strangers, played by Mayim Bialik and Ryan McPartlin, in the last room of a Montana bed and breakfast. The careers page groups the films by profession.

Christmas films of an earlier day

The Christmas shelf reaches back thirty years. Christmas in Connecticut, from 1992, is a remake of the Barbara Stanwyck comedy of 1945, with Dyan Cannon as a television cook who has yet to learn to cook and Kris Kristofferson as the forest ranger she must entertain on live television; it is the only film ever directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Christmas in Boston, from 2005, is a comedy of mistaken identity between two pen friends who have each sent the other a photograph of a better-looking friend.

A Grandpa for Christmas gave the veteran Ernest Borgnine, then ninety, a touching late role as a retired actor who finds himself looking after a granddaughter he has only just met. Santa Baby 2 continues the adventures of Father Christmas's businesslike daughter. The March Sisters at Christmas moves Louisa May Alcott's Little Women to the present day, with four sisters renovating the family house themselves, and A Christmas Story Live! is the 2017 live broadcast of the stage musical drawn from a much-loved film, with Maya Rudolph and Matthew Broderick.

Two films bring a little action to the season. Christmas Bounty stars Francia Raisa as a schoolteacher from a family of professional trackers, opposite the wrestler known as The Miz, and Operation Christmas follows a single mother whose new partner, a sergeant, is posted abroad just before the holidays.

Stars to follow

The genre has its own company of players, many of them remembered from the television of the 1990s. Lacey Chabert, once the youngest daughter in a famous family drama, is often called the queen of the Christmas film and appears four times here: A Christmas Melody, The Sweetest Christmas, Matchmaker Santa and Haul Out the Holly, in which a woman house-sitting for her parents is drafted into the street's fiercely organised festivities. Jonathan Bennett, her co-star in a well-known high-school comedy, has five films, among them Christmas Made to Order and A Dogwalker's Christmas Tale.

Rachel Boston and Ashley Williams have four films each. Danica McKellar, who grew up on screen in a celebrated series about the 1960s and later wrote mathematics books for girls, has three, as do Alicia Witt, Luke Macfarlane, Sam Page, Jen Lilley, Haylie Duff, Jessica Lowndes and Ryan McPartlin. Candace Cameron Bure, Tia Mowry, Melissa Joan Hart, Hilarie Burton Morgan and Mayim Bialik each bring an audience that has known them since childhood.

Established film actors appear too: Mira Sorvino, Glenn Close, Patrick Stewart, James Garner, Anjelica Huston, Oprah Winfrey and Rose Byrne among them. Typing any name into the search field gathers that performer's films, and the stars page suggests where to start.

How these films are made

It helps to know a little about how a television romance comes into being. Most are shot in about three weeks, on budgets a tiny fraction of a cinema film's, by crews who make several a year and know the form by heart. Because the channels want Christmas films ready by October, the snow scenes are usually filmed between spring and late summer, with blankets of white fabric on the lawns, foam drifting past the camera and actors in scarves and woollen coats under a hot sun.

The same handful of picturesque towns in British Columbia, Ontario, Utah and Connecticut stand in for Vermont, Alaska and imaginary kingdoms alike, and a sharp-eyed viewer will soon recognise a bandstand or a row of shopfronts from one film to the next. Writers work to an agreed structure, with the couple's first meeting, first quarrel and first near-kiss falling at regular points, and directors move between productions as actors do. That is why the 180 films here have 126 different directors and yet feel like the work of a single, very large family.

The economy of the form has its own rewards. Dialogue carries the story, supporting casts are full of experienced character actors, and the films give steady work to performers who might otherwise be seen only in guest parts. Many viewers come to follow particular actors from film to film as earlier generations followed the stars of the studio era.

Christmas traditions on screen

Taken together, the Christmas films form a kind of illustrated guide to the customs of a North American December, and it can be fun to choose by tradition. The tree comes first. Fir Crazy is set on a city tree lot, Christmas Land on a tree farm, and Haul Out the Holly on a street where every house must be dressed to a published standard. Decorations have their own films in Magical Christmas Ornaments and A Snow Globe Christmas, and shop windows in Window Wonderland, where two rivals at a department store compete to design the season's display.

Baking is honoured in The Sweetest Christmas, A Christmas Cookie Catastrophe and Candy Coated Christmas, and the festive table in Love at the Christmas Table, which follows two family friends, played by Danica McKellar and Dustin Milligan, from the children's table of their childhood to adulthood, one Christmas Eve at a time. The carol of the twelve days shapes My Christmas Love and The 12 Days of Christmas Eve, in which a businessman, played by Kelsey Grammer, is granted twelve attempts at the same day.

Public celebrations supply the grand finales. There is an ice-carving contest in Ice Sculpture Christmas, a festival of frozen sculpture in Christmas Festival of Ice, a town pageant in Hometown Christmas, a village light display in Christmas in Scotland and a great stage show in A Holiday Spectacular. The kiss beneath the mistletoe, the oldest custom of all, gives its name to The Mistletoe Promise, Maps and Mistletoe and Merry Kissmas, and midnight on the last day of the year belongs to A Midnight Kiss and Royal New Year's Eve.

Music, animals and other pleasures

Music runs through the collection. A Christmas Melody ends at a school concert with a song written for the film. Wedding of Dreams and Rescuing Madison both follow singers stepping back from fame, and It Happened One Valentine's sets a reporter to play matchmaker for two pop stars. Star, from the novel by Danielle Steel, follows a ranch girl with a remarkable voice, played by Jennie Garth, from a California valley to Hollywood. A Star for Christmas is about a cupcake baker and a film actor shooting in her town.

Animals are welcome guests. A Dogwalker's Christmas Tale is about a pampered student who takes a job walking dogs and ends by defending the park where they play. Love Unleashed revolves around puppy parties, Christmas in Evergreen around a veterinary practice, and Mystic Christmas around a rescue centre for seals. Horses carry the plot of In Pursuit of Honor, and a herd of buffalo that of Buffalo Dreams.

A few films stand a little apart and are worth knowing for that reason. Since You've Been Gone, directed by David Schwimmer in 1998, is an ensemble comedy set at a ten-year school reunion. Sea Change is a fantasy about a teenage girl on a New England island who learns of her link to a legendary people of the sea. Bad Date Chronicles pits two rival writers on dating against each other, and All Yours gives an overworked lawyer and mother a new nanny who turns out to be a man.

Places on screen

For all their invented towns, the films are fond of real places, and the collection can be toured like a map. New York is the favourite city: Christmas at the Plaza, Hotel for the Holidays, Autumn in the City, Just One Kiss and A Holiday Spectacular all make the most of its hotels, theatres and winter streets. Boston has Christmas in Boston, Louisiana has The Christmas Contract and Hometown Christmas, and Montana has Nora Roberts' Montana Sky and The Flight Before Christmas.

Alaska, the most romantic of American settings, appears in Christmas Under Wraps and My Christmas Inn, Vermont in Christmas in Evergreen and We Wish You a Married Christmas, Colorado in Naughty & Nice and Connecticut in Mystic Christmas. The wine country of California and the Pacific coast hosts the vineyard films, and the Canadian Rockies host Snowkissed.

Abroad, the films visit Scotland twice, in Christmas in the Highlands and Christmas in Scotland, England in Christmas in Notting Hill, Switzerland in Merry Swissmas, Italy in From Italy with Amore and Portugal in A Pinch of Portugal. The medieval France of The Lion in Winter and The Hunchback, and the Long Island of The Great Gatsby, are further afield still. Typing a place into the search field will usually find a film set there.

By period

Two links in the footer of every shelf page divide the collection by date. Before 2010 holds the twenty-five older films, from Christmas in Connecticut and Barbarians at the Gate to Santa Baby 2, and is the place to look for prestige drama, literary adaptation and the comedies of the cable channels of the 1990s. The 2020s shelf holds the forty newest.

Between them lie the 115 films of the 2010s, the decade in which the television romance became a seasonal institution. Thirty date from 2010 to 2014, when Beauty & the Briefcase, Sundays at Tiffany's, A Bride for Christmas and Christmas Under Wraps set the tone, and eighty-five from 2015 to 2019, the boom years of A December Bride, Christmas in Evergreen, Christmas at the Palace and Christmas at the Plaza. A viewer who works through the decade in order can watch the form settle, the budgets grow a little, the towns become prettier and the casts more varied, while the promise of a happy ending stays exactly where it was.

The search field accepts a year, so typing 2016 or 2018 is the quickest way to see a single season's films side by side, and the A to Z page shows the full sweep of three decades at once.

For younger viewers and families

Nearly everything in the collection can be watched by a mixed household, and a few films are aimed squarely at the young. Holiday Joy, with Bailee Madison, grants a shy schoolgirl her wish to belong to the perfect family next door, with results that surprise her. Buffalo Dreams, made for a children's channel, is about a boy who moves to New Mexico and finds friendship on a buffalo preserve. The New Swiss Family Robinson retells the island adventure with Jane Seymour.

For teenagers there are To Be Fat Like Me, in which a popular athlete, played by Kaley Cuoco, wears a disguise to learn how classmates treat a heavier girl; Totally Awesome, a broad spoof of the teen films of the 1980s; and Everything You Want, a gentle comedy about an art student and her imaginary boyfriend. The two films of The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! and The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning revisit a favourite series of fast cars and country cousins. The family page suggests titles for each age.

The 2020s

Forty films date from 2020 to 2023, and they show the genre widening its horizons. Settings have grown more adventurous: an ice hotel in A Royal Christmas Crush, the Alps in Merry Swissmas, London in Christmas in Notting Hill, where a schoolteacher falls for a footballer she fails to recognise, and Lisbon and the Algarve in A Pinch of Portugal. Hotel for the Holidays weaves together the stories of the staff and guests of a grand New York hotel on Christmas Eve.

The films have also grown more playful about their own conventions. Haul Out the Holly makes comedy of a neighbourhood association that fines residents for too few decorations. Sister Swap: A Hometown Holiday is one of a pair of films, made and shown together, that tell the same Christmas from the points of view of two sisters. A Holiday Spectacular takes a Philadelphia heiress of 1958 to New York to dance in a famous precision chorus line, and Mystic Christmas is set at a marine rescue centre in a Connecticut harbour town. The 2020s page lists them by year.

Top rated

The Top rated shelf holds the fifteen films with a TMDB rating of 6.3 or more from at least fifty votes. A December Bride leads at 7.1, followed by Barbarians at the Gate at 6.9 and Harry and Meghan: Escaping the Palace at 6.7. Sundays at Tiffany's and The Christmas Contract stand at 6.5, and Christmas at the Palace, Christmas at the Plaza, Christmas in Evergreen, Next Stop, Christmas and Surprised by Love at 6.4.

The Sweetest Christmas, A Bride for Christmas, Christmas Incorporated, The Mistletoe Promise, from the novel by Richard Paul Evans, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks complete the list. Ratings for television films are modest as a rule, since few people trouble to score a film they watched in comfort on a December afternoon, so a figure above six is a real recommendation.

A few words worth knowing

The genre has a vocabulary of its own. A meet-cute is the charming accident by which the couple first encounter each other: a spilled coffee, a shared taxi, a mistaken identity. The big-city boyfriend is the well-dressed, preoccupied partner the heroine has at the start, who will be gently set aside. A countdown is a channel's season of new holiday films, shown one after another from late October. A back-door pilot is a film made in the hope of becoming a series.

Fans speak of tropes, the familiar situations the films reuse: the fake engagement, the inherited inn, the snowed-in strangers, the prince in disguise, the bake-off, the town festival that must be saved. Half the enjoyment is in recognising them, and the search field on EV01 will find most of them by a single word.

Search and the A to Z

The search field looks through titles, actors, directors and summaries as you type, and shows results at once. Typing a name such as Chabert or McKellar brings up a performer's films. Typing a subject works just as well: bakery, prince, inn, vineyard, wedding or snow globe each gather a small shelf of their own. A year such as 2018 lists that season's releases. Common extra words such as "watch", "movie" or "streaming" are set aside. The finding titles page describes all four routes.

The A to Z page lists all 180 films in alphabetical order with a row of letters for jumping ahead. It is a helpful page for this genre in particular, where many titles begin with the same festive word, and where A Christmas this and Christmas at that are easy to confuse.

My List

My List is your own line-up for cosy evenings. Press Add to My List on any film page and it joins the line-up; the My List link in the white bar opens it, where each entry has its poster and a Remove button. The line-up lives in this browser on this device, so it is waiting on your next visit, and the list page can save a copy as a file to keep or to carry elsewhere. The My List page explains each step.

The list is especially handy in the weeks before Christmas. Many households like to plan a film for each Sunday of Advent, or one a night through the school holidays, and a saved line-up turns the nightly question of what to watch into a pleasant ritual.

How Watch now works

Each film page has a country selector and a Watch now button. Choose your country from the fifteen offered and press the button. JustWatch opens on the page for that film and shows which subscription services include it, where it can be rented or bought, and any free services with advertising that carry it. Television films move between services often, and many return to free channels each winter, which is why EV01 points to a live source.

A first fortnight

For a newcomer, here is one way to spend two weeks. Begin with the favourites: Christmas Under Wraps, A December Bride and Christmas at the Plaza. Add a little magic with Next Stop, Christmas and a crown with Christmas at the Palace. Bake along with The Sweetest Christmas.

In the second week, step outside the season with Beauty & the Briefcase and Sundays at Tiffany's, take a weekend for Barbarians at the Gate and Lackawanna Blues, laugh at the rules in A Christmas Movie Christmas, and finish with Christmas in Evergreen. By then you will know your favourite players and your favourite kind of town.

Questions and answers

The questions below are those most often asked about EV01, with short answers. Fuller help is on the help pages named throughout this guide, including the Christmas page.

Questions