Christmas TV 2024: What films are screening on free TV on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day?

• Not sure what to watch over the festive season on streaming services?
• We’ve taken a look over some of the main free-to-air TV channels and pulled the films they’re screening over the Christmas holiday
• So what’s on offer from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 while waiting for Christmas dinner?

If choice overload using one of the many streaming services available this festive season is causing choice paralysis, why not eschew Netflix for the good old Beeb?

We’ve taken a look over many of the major TV networks in the United Kingdom that also happen to be free-to-air, to bring to you some of the cinematic highlights on the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 over Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day and you are definitely spoiled for choice.

Channel 4 for example are reeling out some of the classic Indiana Jones movies while you digest your Christmas dinner, while alongside the hotly anticipated return of Wallace and Gromit, the BBC boasts “Toy Story 3,” “Paddington” and classics “Casablanca” and “North by Northwest.”

Other highlights on free TV include the musical reimagining of Roald Dahl’s “Matilda” with the original film also screening over the festive season, a Leonard DiCaprio double-header with “The Man in the Iron Mask” and “Catch Me If You Can” and for the late night owls - “Point Break” by Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow.

All information provided is correct as of writing, and the details have been taken from either Freeview’s programme guide or the Christmas issue of the Radio Times.

So what films are on free TV this season? Read on to find out!

What films are screening on free TV this Christmas?

Christmas Eve

• 5:50am: Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Road Chip (ITV 1)
• 10:35am: Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (Channel 5)
• 10:50am: It’s a Very Muppet Christmas (ITV 2)
• 11:15am: The Holiday (Channel 5)
• 11:25am: Close Encounters of a Third Kind (Channel 4)
• 2:00pm: The Man in the Iron Mask (Channel 5)
• 2:10pm: A Christmas Carol (1984) (Channel 4)
• 2:30pm: It’s A Wonderful Life (BBC Two)
• 4:35pm: Catch Me If You Can (Channel 5)
• 4:50pm: Deck the Halls (ITV 2)
• 5:50pm: Ghostbusters: Afterlife (BBC One)
• 6:45pm: Mama Mia! Here We Go Again (ITV 2)
• 9:00pm: Bridesmaids (ITV 2)

Christmas Day

• 8:10am: Monsters vs Aliens (Channel 4)
• 10:00am: Shrek Forever After (Channel 4)
• 10:50am: Peter Pan (ITV 2)
• 11:05am: High Society (BBC Two)
• 11:20am: Toy Story 3 (BBC One)
• 12:55pm: Minions: The Rise of Gru (BBC One)
• 2:05pm: How The Grinch Stole Christmas (ITV 2)
• 3:10pm: Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (ITV 1)
• 2:45pm: The Italian Job (1969) (Channel 4)
• 3:10pm: Some Like It Hot (BBC Two)
• 3:10: The Railway Children Return (Channel 5)
• 4:10pm: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (ITV 2)
• 5:00pm: Miracle of 34th Street (1994) (Channel 4)
• 5:05pm: North by Northwest (BBC Two)
• 6:10pm: Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (BBC One)
• 6:25pm: Jurassic World (ITV 2)
• 8:20pm: Raiders of the Lost Ark (Channel 4)
• 9:00pm: Downton Abbey: A New Era (ITV 1)
• 9:00pm: F9 - The Fast Saga (ITV 2)
• 10:20pm: The Lady in the Van (BBC 2)
• 10:35pm: Notting Hill (Channel 4)

Boxing Day

• 8:05am: Tad the Lost Explorer and the Secret Kingdom of Midas (Channel 4)
• 8:30am: Holiday Affair (BBC Two)
• 9:25am: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (ITV 1)
• 9:55am: Inside Out (BBC One)
• 10:15am: An American in Paris (Channel 5)
• 10:35am: Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (ITV 2)
• 10:55am: The Big Sleep (BBC Two)
• 11:20am: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (BBC One)
• 12:20pm: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (ITV 2)
• 12:35pm: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Channel 5)
• 12:45pm: Casablanca (BBC Two)
• 1:50pm: Paddington (BBC One)
• 2:00pm: Dad’s Army (1971) (Channel 4)
• 2:25pm: The Magnificent Seven (BBC Two)
• 2:30pm: Matilda (ITV 2)
• 2:50pm: The Glenn Miller Story (Channel 5)

• 3:00pm: Grease (ITV 1)
• 3:15pm: Beauty and The Beast (BBC One)
• 3:50pm: Zulu (Channel 4)
• 4:35pm: Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (ITV 2)
• 5:15pm: Crocodile Dundee (Channel 5)
• 5:40pm: Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical (BBC One)
• 6:25pm: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (ITV 2)
• 6:40pm: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Channel 4)
• 9:00pm: Gladiator (BBC Two)
• 9pm: Wonder Woman 1984 (ITV 2)
• 10:15pm: Live Free or Die Hard (ITV 1)
• 11:25pm: And Now For Something Completely Different (BBC Two)
• 12:10am: Point Break (BBC One)
• 12:10am: Boxing Day (Channel 4)

Looking for what special Christmas episodes are scheduled to be on TV this Christmas season? Why not check out Matt Mohan-Hickson’s articles on some of those highlights this year?