With Christmas just the other side of the Mayan end of the world, a trip to the DVD store must be in order. And if those cunning South Americans are right you won't even have to return the movies.

I'm not a big fan of traditional Christmas fare. My tastes tend towards the older classics, those nostalgic treats that cropped up on the small back and white television set that was the height of luxury when I was but a wee Watusi. Even now if you sit me down in front of It's A Wonderful Life or Miracle On 34 Street I'll be happy for a couple of hours.

But black ‘n' white ain't for everyone, so I asked the good folk at Brookfield Video Ezy - who so kindly supply DVDs for review each week - for their favourite Christmas movies. And these are the ones they picked...

And, I must confess, I've never seen any of them. How the Grinch Stole Christmas was the unanimous choice. It's about some big green creature – played by Jim Carrey – who apparently, and I'm only going by the title here, steals Christmas. I suspect it all ends happily.

The Santa Claus, starring Tim Allen as a bloke who accidentally kills Santa and thus has to look after all that pesky present delivering, is also a favourite, though the sequels are best avoided.

And 'for adults” there's Four Holidays (called Four Christmases everywhere in the world except New Zealand and Australia – go figure) wherein Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughan attempt to visit all four of their divorced parents in a single day. Vince is always fun so it might be OK.

But my taste in Christmas movies runs a little more laterally than literally. Here are some of my Christmas-time treats. Christmas itself might not be the main order of the day but serves as a backdrop to all of them, which is good enough for an old Grinch like me.

Top pick this year (last time it was LA Confidential – watch Russell Crowe tear Christmas decoration off a roof as he beats up an abusive husband!) is Terry Gilliam's completely wonderful Brazil. As it opens a family are sitting watching Tiny Tim's Christmas story on television. Then storm troopers burst in and perform an extraordinary rendition on the (innocent, it transpires) husband. Scenes of Christmas shopping add consumer satire to the nightmarishly funny futuristic vision.

Or take a trip back to a more innocent time, when Batman still looked like Val Kilmer and The Penguin was training an army of killer birds in the sewers of Gotham. Yep, Batman Returns was a Christmas movie, with Christopher Walken going reliably crazy and Michelle Pfeiffer donning an apparently vacuum-sealed PVC cat-suit.

If your tastes run to the truly perverse, then how about a double bill? Start with American Psycho wherein a pre-Batman Christian Bale celebrates the time of giving with an axe. Then move on, for light relief, to Bad Santa and Billy Bob Thornton as the most foul-mouthed department store Santa to ever disgrace a kid's grotto.

If you're still up for 'Christmas cheer” after those two, move on with David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises. It's basically the story of a lost child at Christmas and the nurse trying to find her a home. But it does include Russian Mafia and Viggio Mortensen wrestling in the nude. And while Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket = isn't immediately obvious Christmas fare it does include a scene where the marines sing 'Happy Birthday” to baby Jesus.

And here's a few more with Christmas scenes, just so your movie watching can be seasonally correct: Das Boot, Donnie Brasko, The Boat That Rocked, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, and, more recently, Prometheus.
Have fun...