The Snowman

Raymond Briggs doesn't do Disney-style crowd-pleasers - so it seems to perplex him that the film of his book The Snowman has become a beloved festive staple and merchandise-monster over the last 25 years. Given the subject - a magical snowman and a night-time flight to meet Father Christmas - avoiding schmaltz must have been hard. But the speckled pencil drawings, the simple, silent storyline, Howard Blake's immortal music and that heart-breaking ending make for an achingly beautiful and wholly sugar-free masterpiece of old-school animation. A more sophisticated tale of friendship and loss than any wordy, plastic-looking CGI cartoon could muster nowadays, The Snowman is an inevitable Christmas classic - whether its creator likes it or not.
Holly Kyte