
Spirit of Christmas Past
6.4While settling his father’s estate, Finn Conrad becomes suspicious as to why the man left a nurse $100,000. His dad knew her for less than two months before he died. Just before Christmas, Finn wants what to reclaim what he considers his family’s money, going undercover to investigate the bed and breakfast the nurse has recently taken over. When Finn meets Willa, he discovers she’s not a conniving gold digger at all, but a woman in need who put the money to good use. When she discovers his true identity, will it keep Willa from ever trusting him again?
6.1It's Christmas and Miranda leaves Seattle with a suitcase full of presents to join her long- lost family in Carlton Heath, where she will experience the joyful traditions she missed as a child. Last Christmas, Miranda fell in love with Ian, a local man who helped her as she searched for her father, James Whitcomb, a famous theatre actor she believed had a connection to the town. At his widow Margaret’s request, Miranda agrees to keep it a secret to protect the family from scandal.
6.3Pop superstar Adelaide Kay is so fed up with her controlling manager that she sneaks off the tour bus after their latest squabble. Though exhilarated to be free, she finds herself stranded in the freezing cold of a Pennsylvania winter, with no money and no plan. A local family, the Lapps, take her in. They know the true meaning of the season, even if they’re close to losing their tree farm. No one in the family recognizes Adelaide except Dillon, the oldest son.
6.8A military widow, whose faith in Christmas has lapsed, rents an apartment to a handsome Army Captain, recovering from an injury in battle, and whose faith in Christmas is inspirational. As they team up to save the town’s military museum with a Christmas fundraising event, these two ‘wounded birds’ find themselves falling in love — and being healed by the magic of Christmas.
6.1In early 20th century New York City, an impoverished socialite desperately seeks a suitable husband as she gradually finds herself betrayed by her friends and exiled from high society.
7.9Each member of a family in Taipei asks hard questions about life's meaning as they live through everyday quandaries. NJ is morose: his brother owes him money, his mother-in-law is in a coma, his wife suffers a spiritual crisis when she finds her life a blank and his business partners make bad decisions.
6.6A band of mercenaries led by Captain Curry travel through war-torn Congo across deadly terrain, battling rival armies, to steal $50 million in uncut diamonds. But infighting, sadistic rebels and a time lock jeopardize everything.
5.0Prague in the 1870s. Work in Smolík's sulphur factory is hard and dangerous to health. The poorly paid workers resemble torches because their clothes are soaked with poisonous phosphorus. Young Josef Rezler also works in the sulphur factory and uses his earnings to feed his mother and little sisters. He throws his perpetually drunken father out of the house. The older worker Brož forces Josef to learn to read and write. A cholera epidemic breaks out in Prague and Josef is the only one of his family to survive the disease...
3.5A small town comes under the thumb of Martha, a ghost who returns to haunt the children who witnessed her death during a "game" of Ghost in the Graveyard as young children.
6.5Lasse Pöysti's directorial debut film. And Helena Plays On (1951) is based on Aino Räsänen's second novel of the same name in the Helena series. When the Winter War breaks out, Arttu (Jussi Jurkka), the son of Helena (Irma Seikkula) and Jari Junkkeri (Erkki Viljos), go to the front. Arttu proposes to his girlfriend Elina (Leena Häkinen), but the world events come in between. When he is not heard of at the end of the war, the relatives begin to believe that Arttu is dead - everybody else but not Helena.
6.0Irma has been sent to the front immediately after her marriage to Erik Vuori. Irma and her new "Lotta" companions find themselves in many dangerous situations during the fighting of the Continuation War. Irma is also concerned about Erik's loyalty.
5.5Grandmother Helena Junkkeri is working on a farm that her widowed son Arttu is unable to take on. Taina Raitalo who arrives at the house as a childminder makes the grieving man smile again, and Artu's little sister Päivi in turn delights the entire Junkkeri family with her achievements.
6.0Jussi Koskela clears a plot of land for his family in the village of Pentinkulma in southern Häme. His son Akseli joins the Red Guard and takes part in the Civil War of 1918, at the end of which he is imprisoned. After his release, Akseli returns to Pentinkulma and tries to raise his family with his wife Elina, as well as acquire more land for his croft in a politically hostile environment. The Winter War and Continuation War take a heavy toll on the Koskela family, but despite this, life goes on.
10.0While stranded at a diner on Christmas Eve, Rose finds personal redemption in protecting a young baby from an abusive father on her way to reconciling with the child she had to give up for adoption in her youth.
6.2Chinatown, San Francisco, 1928. Former private detective Dashiell Hammett, a compulsive drinker with tuberculosis who writes pulp fiction for a living, receives an unexpected visit from an old friend asking for help.
6.5Khaila Richards, a crack-addicted single mother, accidentally leaves her baby in a dumpster while high and returns the next day in a panic to find he is missing. In reality, the baby has been adopted by a warm-hearted social worker, Margaret Lewin, and her husband, Charles. Years later, Khaila has gone through rehab and holds a steady job. After learning that her child is still alive, she challenges Margaret for the custody.
6.8A musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic ghost tale starring Albert Finney.
7.6In this Oscar-winning short film, Norman McLaren employs the principles normally used to put drawings or puppets into motion to animate live actors. The story is a parable about two people who come to blows over the possession of a flower.
6.8A young Englishman dreams of escaping from his working class family and dead-end job as an undertaker's assistant. A number of indiscretions cause him to lie in order to avoid the penalties. His life turns into a mess and he has an opportunity to run away and leave it all behind.
7.5In Brooklyn circa 1900, the Nolans manage to enjoy life on pennies despite great poverty and Papa's alcoholism. We come to know these people well through big and little troubles: Aunt Sissy's scandalous succession of "husbands"; the removal of the one tree visible from their tenement; and young Francie's desire to transfer to a better school...if irresponsible Papa can get his act together.
7.1An upper-crust family dinner is interrupted by a police inspector who brings news that a girl known to everyone present has died in suspicious circumstances. It seems that any or all of them could have had a hand in her death. But who is the mysterious Inspector and what can he want of them?
5.9Ebenezer Scrooge, the ultimate Victorian miser, hasn't a good word for Christmas, though his impoverished clerk Cratchit and nephew Fred are full of holiday spirit. In the night, Scrooge is visited by spirits of the past, present, and future.
6.9Unknown to everyone but his shady Middle Eastern bosses, watchmaker Hawkins is actually a professional hired assassin with a predilection for killing his targets with bombs. After disposing of a dictator and millionaire, Hawkins is assigned to kill a politician who is heading to a remote hotel, The Green Man, for a secret tryst with his secretary. There, however, Hawkins' plot is discovered by vacuum salesman William Blake, who determines to stop him.
5.9College prof Peter Boyd tries to salvage his professional and personal reputation by using a lab chimp to prove that environment trumps heredity in behavioral development.
8.4Another version of the Dickens classic. Originally an episode of Fredric March Presents Tales from Dickens. Later released on home video on it's own.
6.4Sometimes, life just seems to hand you exactly what you need – particularly at Christmastime. Riley is scraping bottom when she miraculously lands a job with a wealthy New York City entrepreneur. He’s a bad-boy socialite type who is poised to play Scrooge by closing one of his factories just before Christmas, which would devastate an entire town. It’s left to Riley to talk him out of it and turn him into a man of virtue rather than shame.
7.7Walter Lee Younger is a young man struggling with his station in life. Sharing a tiny apartment with his wife, son, sister and mother, he seems like an imprisoned man. Until, that is, the family gets an unexpected financial windfall.
5.4The events of a crisis hotline business on one crazy night during the Christmas holidays.
5.3Ernest, a lovable loser who works as a summer camp handyman and dreams of becoming a guidance counselor, must find a way to inspire a group of juvenile delinquents while stopping a shady strip mining company from closing the camp as well.
7.5In 1900, a clan attempts to strike a deal with a Chicago industrialist to get him to build cotton mills in their Deep South town.
7.2Hundreds of years ago in Lapland, a little boy named Nikolas loses his family in an accident. The villagers decide to look after the orphaned boy together. Once a year - at Christmas - Nikolas moves to a new home. To show his gratitude, Nikolas decides to make toys for the children of the families as good-bye presents. Over the years, Nikolas's former adoptive families become many, and soon almost every house has presents on its doorstep on Christmas morning. At thirteen, Nikolas is sent to live and work with Iisakki, a grumpy old carpenter, who forbids Nikolas to continue making presents for Christmas. Gradually, however, Nikolas wins Iisakki's trust. Together they begin to look after the Christmas traditional that Nikolas has begun. When the aged Iisakki has to leave Nikolas and move away, the tradition of Christmas presents is once again at risk. Thankfully, Nikolas comes up with a solution that brings children joy every Christmas, even continuing to today.
7.2The comic mishaps and adventures of a young boy named Ralph, trying to convince his parents, teachers, and Santa that a Red Ryder B.B. gun really is the perfect Christmas gift for the 1940s.
6.1Dorothy Gale, a shy kindergarten teacher, is swept away to the magic land of Oz where she embarks on a quest to return home.
7.5Alice, the only relatively normal member of the eccentric Sycamore family, falls in love with Tony Kirby, but his wealthy banker father and snobbish mother strongly disapprove of the match. When the Kirbys are invited to dinner to become better acquainted with their future in-laws, things don't turn out the way Alice had hoped.
6.2A swinging, hypocritical college student cat raises hell in a satirical vision of the 1960s.
7.4A young rabbit embarks on a journey to dig the burrow of her dreams, despite not having a clue what she's doing. Rather than reveal to her neighbors her imperfections, she digs herself deeper and deeper into trouble. After hitting (bed)rock bottom, she learns there is no shame in asking for help.