From the Editors

Christmas films can mean many things to many people. For some, it’s shorthand for a Christmas classic, of which there will be no shortage on television this year, with the guarantee of It’s a Wonderful Life and Love Actually appearing somewhere in the schedules. For others, it means the opportunity to head to the cinema. The release, after a 13-year wait, of the sequel to Avatar falls into the latter category.

Millions saw the original when it was first released in 2009 and it made a barely believable $2.9 billion at the box office. But a lot has changed since then. As the director James Cameron tells us in this issue, his sequel represents something of a gamble.

He could be right, not just because the first film is a distant memory, but also because our cinema-going habits are no longer the same. In 2009 Netflix was still sending out DVDs in the post; now it and other streaming services like Disney+ have changed for ever the way we watch film and television.

In 2022, research shows that only 63% of all television viewed in the UK was shown on traditional TV. The rest comes via streaming/ video services, which routinely include films among their offerings. Indeed, of the eight new films released for Christmas that we feature in this issue, six are available on Netflix, Disney+ or Apple TV+, or they will be soon. And the two that aren’t – the Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody and Avatar: the Way of Water – will surely make it to a streaming service at some point.

What this means for television is that the line between film and TV is increasingly blurred. And as our habits continue to change, the difference between the two will disappear. Which means, of course, that whatever your definition of a Christmas film, soon they will all end up being on television. Whether or not you think that is a good thing, the reality is that TV viewers will be the winners.