Get into the festive spirit with these Christmas films, from ‘My Secret Santa’ to ‘Jingle Bell Heist’

© Disney+

An exceptional cast, astonishing directing and the talent discovery of the decade – not to mention a plot so of-the-moment it was discussed in parliament. This may actually have been perfect TV

• The 50 best TV shows of 2025
• More on the best culture of 2025

How could it be anything else? Adolescence is the Guardian’s best television series of 2025. And you’d have to assume that we’re not the only ones who think so. In any available metric – story, theme, casting, performances, execution, impact – Adolescence has stood head and shoulders over everything else.

So ubiquitous was Adolescence upon release that it would be easy to assume that everyone in the world has watched it. But just in case, a recap. Adolescence is the story of a terrible crime, and how its shock waves ripple out across a community. In episode one, 13-year-old Jamie Miller is arrested on suspicion of murdering a female classmate. In episode two, we follow a pair of police officers through a school, and learn that Jamie was radicalised online. The third is a two-hander between Jamie and his psychologist, in which Jamie’s anger rushes to the surface. The fourth returns to Jamie’s parents, as they question what more they could have done to stop this from happening.

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© Photograph: Courtesy of Ben Blackall/Netflix

© Photograph: Courtesy of Ben Blackall/Netflix

© Photograph: Courtesy of Ben Blackall/Netflix

Several veteran correspondents questioned how Ms. Weiss, the new CBS News editor in chief, had handled the segment, after she defended her decision on a call with the newsroom.

© Lucia Vazquez for The New York Times

She’s such a great interviewer that this chat with Kenneth Branagh feels like it deserves an entire series. It’s relentlessly charming – and hugely moving when they talk about Dame Judi’s late husband

Cast your mind back to Christmas 2017, and you might remember a slightly wacky BBC documentary called Dame Judi Dench: My Passion for Trees. On the surface, it seemed like one of those god-awful shows put together by tombola; matching a celebrity with a random subject and hoping it would pass muster.

However, this was not the case. Dame Judi Dench, it turned out, really did have a passion for trees. An obsessive passion, one that manifested itself in a small woodland where she named trees after friends of hers who had died. The result was unexpectedly tender and gorgeous, and the show ended up being the best thing on TV that Christmas.

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© Photograph: Sky UK

© Photograph: Sky UK

© Photograph: Sky UK

Michelle Williams put in a stunning performance in this tale of a dying woman’s quest to have an orgasm. It’s not just clever, tender and blackly comic – it’s a beautiful meditation on what it means to live (and die) well

• The 50 best TV shows of 2025
• More on the best culture of 2025

Dying for Sex is about a fortysomething woman leaving her husband and having lots of experimental sex after she is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Except, of course, it’s not. It’s about so much more than that. By the end, the sex scenes – many and varied though they may be – are just a bagatelle.

Partly this is because there is no false hope offered here. None of the sexy set pieces are a full escape from reality. The series is based on a true story and the podcast made about Molly Kochan’s decision to cram years of sexual experience into the little time she was told she had left before metastasised breast cancer killed her. Whatever Molly does, whatever we see her do – enjoy or not enjoy – we know it will not change the ultimate outcome. This is the frame in which all the scenes of sex parties, age-gapped hookups, discovery of “pup play” and mastering the tricky latches on cock cages in Molly’s pursuit of her first partnered orgasm are set.

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© Photograph: Sarah Shatz/FX

© Photograph: Sarah Shatz/FX

© Photograph: Sarah Shatz/FX

From corny adverts to snowy murder plots, test your knowledge with these seasonal questions

• In the mood for more? For all our crosswords and sudoku, as well as our new football game, On the Ball, and film quiz, Film Reveal, download the Guardian app. Available in the Apple App Store and Google Play.

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© Composite: Phil Hackett; Getty Images; Alamy

© Composite: Phil Hackett; Getty Images; Alamy

© Composite: Phil Hackett; Getty Images; Alamy

Will Sharpe and Paul Bettany’s new TV drama is flat, airless and banal. It’s a crass affair with a thin, half-hearted performance from Sharpe

Here’s my position. If you are going to create a miniseries about the life, death and music of one of the defining geniuses of the last 1,000 years of western civilisation, and if you are going to use as your source material a script for a great play that was made into a near-perfect film beloved by almost everyone for its wit and immense, profound themes rendered accessible and moving, and for the fact that it had two of the most extraordinary performances ever committed to what may still then have been celluloid – well, you had better be pretty damn sure that you are bringing something new, exciting, different, richer, cleverer, even more illuminating to the table. Otherwise you are going to look like a bit of a berk.

And so, my friends, to the new six-part drama Amadeus, about the life, death and music of Wolfgang A Mozart, one of the defining geniuses of the last 1,000 years of western history. Co-creators Joe Barton and Julian Farino have retained parts of Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play and the 1984 film starring Tom Hulce as Mozart and F Murray Abraham as his rival composer Antonio Salieri, reworked them into lesser forms, and surrounded them with lesser – flat, airless, banal – scenes. Shaffer’s driving interests in the corrupting power of envy, the survival of religious faith under duress, the mystery of talent and what we expect to come from genius are mostly reduced to pale, petty versions of themselves. The performances – well, we’ll come to those.

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© Photograph: Adrienn Szabo/©Sky UK Ltd

© Photograph: Adrienn Szabo/©Sky UK Ltd

© Photograph: Adrienn Szabo/©Sky UK Ltd

LA medical examiner reports Ransone, who played Chester ‘Ziggy’ Sobotka in the HBO crime drama, died by suicide

James Ransone, the American actor best known for his work in 12 episodes of The Wire, has died in Los Angeles.

Information from the Los Angeles medical examiner indicated Ransone, 46, died on Friday from suicide.

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© Photograph: Eric Charbonneau/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Eric Charbonneau/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Eric Charbonneau/Shutterstock

The health and fitness coach on his difficult childhood, why he’s never been single – and doing his first YouTube workout with a broken hand

Born in Epsom in 1985, Joe Wicks is a health and fitness coach and author. He studied sports science at St Mary’s University and started posting recipes and workouts on social media in 2014, while working as a personal trainer. His Lean in 15 videos went viral, leading to a bestselling publishing career. During the pandemic, Wicks hosted daily livestreamed PE lessons, raised more than £1m for charity and earned an MBE. His 13th book, Protein In 15, is out now.

I was always covered in food as a kid – a real messy eater. This was probably readymade spaghetti from a tin. Our family didn’t have the greatest diet – we were on benefits, a lot of our money went on Dad’s heroin addiction, and Mum was young and didn’t know much about nutrition.

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© Photograph: Courtesy of Joe Wicks

© Photograph: Courtesy of Joe Wicks

© Photograph: Courtesy of Joe Wicks

The actor on impersonating Elvis, her stint as a magician’s assistant on a cruise ship, and having eyes like currants

Born in Hertfordshire, Sarah Hadland, 54, attended Laine Theatre Arts college in Surrey. From 2009 to 2015, she played Stevie in the Bafta-nominated sitcom Miranda, and her other television work includes Horrible Histories, Waterloo Road, W1A, The Job Lot and Daddy Issues. This Christmas, she appears on The Festive Pottery Throwdown and The Celebrity Apprentice, and stars as the Wicked Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the Marlowe theatre in Canterbury. She lives with her child in London.

What is your earliest memory?
I remember putting on my sister’s dungarees – they were purple and flared – to do an Elvis impression and my family laughing, and thinking: “Oh, this is good.”

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© Photograph: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock

Heather Hiscox woke up at 2:30 in the morning for 20 years to host CBC Morning Live on CBC News Network. Each weekday, from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. ET, she covered breaking news of national importance. The 2018 Humboldt Broncos bus crash. The 2017 Quebec City mosque attack. The weddings of Prince William and Prince Harry and the funeral for Queen Elizabeth. Ten Olympic Games. Read More

The new project from the creator of Pulling and Utopia is the real-life tale of a teacher whose life is upended by working with inmates. ‘It upends your prejudices,’ he says

Writer Dennis Kelly has a few mantras he’s always lived by. They’re all there, clearly defined in his very earliest interviews, right from the start of his career. Write like you mean it (perhaps that’s why his plays have so much heart and drive). Never write for money and never compromise (maybe that’s why two of the best TV shows he had a hand in, the controversial conspiracy drama Utopia and the Sharon Horgan comedy Pulling, were cancelled after two series). And finally: make sure your writing always contains a secret.

In the case of Matilda, the smash-hit stage adaptation he wrote alongside Tim Minchin, Kelly only figured out the secret hidden inside his writing long after the awards came flooding in. It turns out that Matilda, a show that glows with love but also aches with a sense of a loss, was all about Kelly’s longing to be a father – a longing that was met just a few years after the premiere with the birth of Kelly’s now six-year-old daughter, Kezia.

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© Photograph: PHOTOGRAPHER:/CREDIT LINE:BBC/Sister Pictures/Kerry Spicer

© Photograph: PHOTOGRAPHER:/CREDIT LINE:BBC/Sister Pictures/Kerry Spicer

© Photograph: PHOTOGRAPHER:/CREDIT LINE:BBC/Sister Pictures/Kerry Spicer

After a decade away, Tom Hiddleston is going undercover again as Jonathan Pine and this time he’s getting into an explosive, sexually fluid power threesome. It’s just what Le Carré would have wanted

For screenwriter David Farr, The Night Manager’s return is a dream come true. Literally. “Having not thought about the show for five years, a vivid image came to me in bed one night,” he says. “I saw a boy in a Colombian monastery, waiting for a black car to come over the hill. For some bizarre reason, I knew who those characters were. Suddenly, I was half-awake and the rest came flying out of me. I wrote it all down in case I forgot. In the morning, I looked at my notes and thought: ‘This is good, actually.’”

He’s not wrong. It’s a special drama that can leave a decade-long gap between series but still be welcomed back with widespread excitement. It’s testament to The Night Manager’s quality that its comeback is the first must-watch show of 2026.

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© Photograph: Des Willie/BBC/Ink Factory

© Photograph: Des Willie/BBC/Ink Factory

© Photograph: Des Willie/BBC/Ink Factory

Hollywood is betting big on vertical microdramas told in chunks under two minutes. Can a gimmick turn into a new form of entertainment?

If you have been anywhere close to the social media blast radius of The Summer I Turned Pretty, Amazon Prime’s breakout YA series on a tortuous teen love triangle, you may be familiar with the plight of Henley and Luca. The star-crossed lovers of a short-form video series called Loving My Brother’s Best Friend – plot self-explanatory – have made waves on TikTok with yearning stares and “I/we can’t do this” drama that echo the many fan edits of beloved TV couple Belly and Conrad. But whereas The Summer I Turned Pretty explored its central tension over 40-minute episodes on streaming, Loving My Brother’s Best Friend, produced by a short-form company called CandyJar, distilled its appeal to its barest essences: sexual tension hook, escalating line and cliffhanger sinker, all within two-minute “episodes” on your phone. Without even meaning to or really wanting to, I watched the first 10 chapters (of 44) in one 15-minute gulp – and I’m not the only one.

Hollywood is hoping that you, too, will be hooked. Though Loving My Brother’s Best Friend may not look like a typical Hollywood product – in fact, it resembles some mix of teen show, soap opera and amateur fan-cam edit – the industry is investing heavily in the future of series like it: low-budget, mobile-only “microdramas” with episodes between 60 and 90 seconds. These shows, also known as “verticals” for their phone orientation, have already become widely popular in China, where mobile screens dominate entertainment even more than in the US. In just three years, revenue for serialized short-form drama in China rose from $500m in 2021 to $7bn in 2024, and is projected to reach $16.2bn by 2030. The global microdrama market for 2025 is estimated at anywhere from $7bn to 15bn – and booming, with nearly triple revenue growth for microdrama companies outside China in the past year.

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© Photograph: YouTube

© Photograph: YouTube

© Photograph: YouTube

This twist-packed, star-strapped take on the reality juggernaut became the year’s most addictive show. It was a masterclass in suspense, camp and chaos

• The 50 best TV shows of 2025
• More on the best culture of 2025

For narrative twists, unforced comedy and high-profile casting, The Celebrity Traitors knocked most televised dramas into a cocked hat, or a fashion cape. We were all swept up, from teens to the retired, magistrates and retail workers, even non-gameshow fans. The show became the national conversation in a way TV pundits no longer thought possible. It was lightning in a bottle. Which would be a cool way of murdering someone.

Why was it perfect TV? On the face of it, it’s a simple format that balances banter and tension, fun games and insidious group dynamics. Bucking the streamer “dumping” model, the BBC drip-fed episodes until we were slavering. Their ace, of course, is Claudia Winkleman – impeccable outfits, iconic hair, sly presenting style. I saw so many Winklemen at Halloween parties this October it was like Being John Malkovich with bangs. But this year the show surpassed even its own standards.

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© Photograph: Euan Cherry/BBC/Studio Lambert

© Photograph: Euan Cherry/BBC/Studio Lambert

© Photograph: Euan Cherry/BBC/Studio Lambert

The book adaptation has impressed critics

© Disney

The singer has filmed a docuseries and a movie-length concert film

© Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

This year saw everyone from Alan Carr to demon sheep run riot on our screens – but there could only be one winner. Here’s our full countdown of the very best television of 2025
• More on the best culture of 2025

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© Composite: Guardian Design/Netflix

© Composite: Guardian Design/Netflix

© Composite: Guardian Design/Netflix

Late-night hosts recapped Trump’s national address and further insights from chief of staff Susie Wiles’s interview

Late-night hosts discussed – or ignored – Donald Trump’s surprise primetime address and dug further into the explosive new interview the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles.

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© Photograph: Youtube

© Photograph: Youtube

© Photograph: Youtube

Equity says vote signals strong opposition to AI use and readiness to disrupt productions unless protections are secured

Actors have voted to refuse digital scanning to prevent their likeness being used by artificial intelligence in a pushback against AI in the arts.

Members of the performing arts union Equity were asked if they would refuse to be scanned while on set, a common practice in which actors’ likeness is captured for future use – with 99% voting in favour of the move.

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© Photograph: Mark Thomas/Equity/PA

© Photograph: Mark Thomas/Equity/PA

© Photograph: Mark Thomas/Equity/PA