Cinegram

What Cinegram offers

Cinegram is a viewing guide. Each of its 165 film pages carries a poster, a still, the story in a paragraph, the year, the running time, the director and the principal cast. Beneath them sits one button, Watch now, which opens JustWatch for the country you select and shows the subscription, rental, purchase and free services that carry the film there. The guide itself holds pages of information, and the playing of every film happens on those official services.

By kind, 131 of the films are romances, ninety-seven are comedies or have comedy in them, and fifty-four are dramas. Eighteen are true stories and sixteen come from novels, plays and poems. Sixteen were made in the United Kingdom. Twenty-four of the romances are set abroad, twenty-nine involve a wedding, sixteen revolve around food, twenty-nine take place outdoors on ranches, lakes and mountains, twenty-six concern writers and broadcasters, and nineteen have music or dance at their centre.

By year, twenty-three films date from 2000 to 2012, twenty-one from 2013 to 2019, forty-seven from 2020 to 2022, and seventy-four from 2023 onwards, so the catalogue leans towards the recent. Most of the romances run eighty-four to ninety minutes; the British dramas are often a little longer.

The home page opens on a mosaic of stills with the name of the guide across it and a button to the full list of films. Three cards beneath explain the idea in a line each. Rows of seven posters follow: the top rated films, romance abroad, true stories, films from page and stage, weddings, and the great outdoors. A bar of tabs stays at the bottom of the screen on every page, so Home, Films, Romance, Travel, True stories and the A to Z are always one press away.

A first evening

Three films make good first choices, one from each side of the catalogue and one between them. The British drama is Miss Austen Regrets, from 2008. Jane Austen, played by Olivia Williams, is approaching forty, the author of four novels, living quietly with her mother and sister. Her niece Fanny, young and romantic, asks her advice about a suitor, and the question sends Jane back over her own choices: the proposal she accepted for one night and declined in the morning, the money she has earned, the freedom she has kept. Greta Scacchi plays her sister Cassandra and Hugh Bonneville a clergyman who once hoped. It is witty, sad and wise, and it sends viewers straight back to the novels.

The romance is Hidden Gems, from 2022. Addie is in Hawaii for her sister's wedding when her grandmother's ring slips from her finger into the sea. She hires Jack, a dive instructor who would rather be left alone, to help her find it, and the search takes the two of them along the coast, into the water and, by degrees, into each other's confidence. The film was shot on location on Oahu, and the underwater photography is as much a pleasure as the story.

The true story is The Rosa Parks Story, from 2002, directed by Julie Dash. Angela Bassett plays the seamstress and long-time worker for civil rights whose refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus in December 1955 began a boycott that lasted more than a year. The film takes care to show her whole life, her schooling, her marriage, her years of patient organising, so that the famous afternoon is seen as the considered act of a thoughtful woman. It pairs naturally with Boycott, which tells the same year from the side of the young Martin Luther King.

Each of the three leads onward: Jane Austen to the Brontës in To Walk Invisible, Hawaii to two dozen other destinations, and Montgomery to the rest of the true stories.

True stories from Britain

Eighteen films are drawn from real lives, and the true stories guide lists them. British television has made a speciality of the ninety-minute portrait, and several of the best are here. To Walk Invisible, written and directed by Sally Wainwright in 2016, covers the three years in which Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, daughters of a Yorkshire parson, wrote the novels that made them famous while keeping house for their father and worrying over their brother Branwell. It was filmed on the moors above Haworth, in a full-size copy of the parsonage, and it gives each sister a distinct voice and temper.

Enid, from 2009, stars Helena Bonham Carter as Enid Blyton, who wrote more than seven hundred books for children and presented to the world a sunny picture of her own family life. The film is frank about the distance between the picture and the truth, and Bonham Carter makes the author both formidable and fragile. She appears again in Burton and Taylor, from 2013, as Elizabeth Taylor, with Dominic West as Richard Burton. It is 1983; the two most famous film stars in the world, twice married to each other and twice divorced, agree to appear together on Broadway in a comedy about a divorced couple, and the rehearsal room becomes the last chapter of their long story.

Churchill's Secret, from 2016, is set in the summer of 1953, when the Prime Minister, then seventy-eight, suffered a serious stroke that his family and colleagues kept from the public. Michael Gambon plays him, Lindsay Duncan plays Clementine, and Romola Garai the young nurse who helps him fight his way back to the dispatch box. SOS: The Titanic Inquiry reconstructs the British hearings of 1912 from the official record, and asks whether another ship, stopped among the ice that night, might have reached the passengers in time.

Four films celebrate entertainers. Eric & Ernie, from 2011, tells how two boys from the north of England, Eric Bartholomew and Ernest Wiseman, met as child performers and became Morecambe and Wise; Victoria Wood, who conceived the film, plays Eric's determined mother. Babs follows Barbara Windsor from the East End to the stage and screen, with the actress herself appearing briefly. Torvill & Dean, from 2018, traces the ice dancers from a Nottingham rink to Sarajevo in 1984 and the performance to Ravel's Boléro that earned a row of perfect scores. And That Day We Sang, Victoria Wood's musical of 2014, starts from a real event, the recording made by a Manchester children's choir in 1929, and imagines two of its members, played by Imelda Staunton and Michael Ball, meeting again forty years on.

True stories from America

The American films are just as strong. Boycott, from 2001, has Jeffrey Wright as Martin Luther King, twenty-six years old and newly arrived in Montgomery, finding himself at the head of a movement; the film mixes its drama with the look of period newsreel. Brian's Song, also from 2001, is a new version of the celebrated story of two Chicago Bears, Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo, team-mates and rivals for the same position, whose friendship became a model of its time; Mekhi Phifer and Sean Maher play them. The Junction Boys, from 2002, stars Tom Berenger as the coach Paul Bryant, who took his first Texas A&M squad to a camp in the heat of 1954 and learned something about leadership from the players who stayed. Monday Night Mayhem is the lively story of how a television network put football on in prime time, with John Turturro uncanny as the commentator Howard Cosell.

Music supplies two more. For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story, from 2000, stars Andy Garcia as the great Cuban trumpeter, torn between the music he wishes to play and the country he loves, and encouraged by his hero Dizzy Gillespie; Sandoval himself plays on the soundtrack. Daydream Believers: The Monkees' Story follows four young men hired to play a pop group in a television comedy who set about becoming a real band. And Marco Polo, from 2007, with Ian Somerhalder as the Venetian traveller and Brian Dennehy as Kublai Khan, takes the long road east.

From page and stage

Sixteen films began as books, plays or poems, and the page and stage guide introduces them. The most unusual is The Song of Lunch, from 2010, a dramatisation of a narrative poem by Christopher Reid. A London book editor, played by Alan Rickman, leaves his desk to meet a former love, played by Emma Thompson, at the Italian restaurant in Soho where they used to go fifteen years before. The restaurant has changed, she has changed, and as the wine goes down he fails to notice how much. The poem is spoken almost entire in Rickman's voice, and the two actors have seldom been better.

The Go-Between, from 2015, is L.P. Hartley's novel of the hot summer of 1900, when a boy of twelve staying at a Norfolk country house carries letters between the daughter of the family and a tenant farmer, and understands too late what he has been part of; Jim Broadbent plays the boy as an old man looking back. Skellig, from 2009, from David Almond's prize-winning book, is about a boy who finds a strange, ragged figure living in the garage of his family's new house, with Tim Roth as the creature who seems to have wings beneath his coat. Don Quixote, from 2000, gives John Lithgow the Knight of the Sad Countenance and Bob Hoskins his Sancho Panza. David Copperfield is a two-part version with Hugh Dancy as the grown David and Sally Field as Aunt Betsey.

The plays are distinguished. A Raisin in the Sun, from 2008, brings the Broadway revival of Lorraine Hansberry's drama to the screen with its cast intact: Sean Combs as Walter Lee Younger, a Chicago chauffeur with a plan for the insurance money his mother is about to receive, Phylicia Rashad as the mother, and Audra McDonald and Sanaa Lathan as his wife and sister. The Trip to Bountiful, from 2014, stars Cicely Tyson as an elderly woman who slips away from her son's cramped city flat to see once more the small Texas town where she grew up. Driving Miss Daisy, recorded on stage in 2015, has Angela Lansbury as the Atlanta widow and James Earl Jones as the chauffeur whose company she resists for twenty-five years. And King Lear, from 2008, preserves Ian McKellen's performance for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Two American novels complete the shelf. The Memory Keeper's Daughter, from Kim Edwards's bestseller, begins on a snowy night in 1964 when a doctor makes a decision about one of his newborn twins that shapes two families for a generation. The Wool Cap, from 2004, stars William H. Macy as the silent caretaker of a run-down New York apartment building who finds himself looking after a small girl. Devotees of Jane Austen will also enjoy Paging Mr. Darcy, a comedy set at a convention of her admirers.

Romance abroad

Twenty-four romances are set far from home, and the travel guide maps them. Paris comes first. In Savoring Paris, from 2024, Ella leaves a job that has gone stale and takes a room above a cheese shop, where she learns the trade, the language and a new way of spending an afternoon. Marry Go Round has a woman on the point of moving to Paris with her fiancé discover that her brief first marriage is still legally in force. Moriah's Lighthouse is set in a seaside town in Brittany, where a woodworker dreams of restoring the old light.

Spain has two linked films. In To Barcelona, with Love, an American translator who has quietly improved the novel she was given to translate is alarmed when a bookseller invites the real author to the city; in To Barcelona, Forever the two women return. Greece appears in A Greek Recipe for Romance, where a daughter visiting her mother ends up opening a restaurant, and in The Greek Aisle, set on Corfu. Mix Up in the Mediterranean sends a small-town cook to Malta to take his twin brother's place in a culinary contest. The Danube carries two river-cruise romances, Love on the Danube: Love Song and Love on the Danube: Kissing Stars, and Lost in Love leaves two tourists behind at the ruins of Ephesus.

The British Isles are a favourite. A Scottish Love Scheme takes Lily and her mother to the Highlands, where two old friends have plans for their grown children. Love of the Irish gives Fiona, who feels her luck has run out, a holiday in Ireland with her mother. In Royal Rendezvous a chef from East Los Angeles is invited to cook a banquet at an Irish manor, and in English Estate an American designer inherits a country house and its opinionated manager.

Warm seas account for the rest. Besides Hidden Gems there are Love in the Maldives, in which a travel writer staying at an underwater resort hears of a legendary wreck; Love in Tahiti, with a diver who believes the sea floor is full of treasure; Love in Aruba; Cinderella in the Caribbean; and Harmony in Paradise, in which a wildlife journalist goes to Puerto Rico to report on young manatees being returned to the wild. Further afield still are A Safari Romance, set in South Africa, Love in Bloom, in a small Australian town famous for its gardens, My Argentine Heart, on a family ranch in the pampas, Journey of My Heart, in Alaska, and Polar Opposites, aboard a ship bound for Antarctica.

Weddings

Twenty-nine films turn on a wedding, and the weddings guide sorts them. Wedding Every Weekend, from 2020, has the neatest idea: Nate and Brooke discover that they are invited to the same four weddings on four weekends running and agree to go together, purely as friends, to escape the singles table. The Professional Bridesmaid follows a woman hired to pose as an old friend of the bride at a mayor's daughter's wedding, under the eye of a curious reporter. Team Bride is the story of a seamstress who makes bespoke gowns in her spare hours. In In the Key of Love, with the Broadway singer Laura Osnes, a wedding photographer finds that the groom's cousin is her former singing partner.

Planners have a hard time of it. Zoe, in A Romance Wedding, comes home to help at her father's café and is asked to organise a ceremony in a week. Darcy, in A Whirlwind Wedding, must plan her own mother's marriage to a man she has barely met. Meg, in Save the Wedding, is put in charge of her best friend's big day, and the sisters of Dream Wedding win a complete wedding package in a draw when neither has a groom in view. I Married Who? wakes a careful bride-to-be in Las Vegas to the news that she has already married a film star, and Wedding Cake Dreams begins with a girl who slips a slice of cake under her pillow to dream of her future husband.

Kitchens and restaurants

Sixteen films are set around food, and the food guide lists them. Catch of the Day, from 2025, calls a rising Manhattan chef home to the coast, where her family's seafood restaurant needs her more than the city does. Roadhouse Romance, with the country singer Lauren Alaina, brings a young woman back from the army to find the family barbecue restaurant struggling and a television director stranded in town. South Beach Love sets two Miami families, and two rival chefs, to outdo each other with celebrations for their daughters' fifteenth birthdays, amid a great deal of Cuban cooking. All Summer Long puts a new ship's captain and her former boyfriend, now the chef, aboard the same dining cruise.

Hint of Love pairs a literary agent who trained as a cook with a television personality famous for shortcuts. Love on Fire gives a newcomer to a lakeside neighbourhood a firefighter next door and a talent for chilli. Smart Cookies, from 2012, is the family comedy of the list: a polished estate agent, ordered to do community service, must lead a troop of unpromising girl scouts through the regional cookie drive, with the young Bailee Madison among them.

The great outdoors

Twenty-nine films breathe fresh air, and the outdoors guide gathers them. Wildlife is a recurring cause. In Love in Wolf Creek, a biologist fights to protect a pack of wild wolves and the refuge that shelters them. In A Tail of Love, the owner of a dog rescue centre that has lost its funding turns to a soldier who has grown attached to one of her German shepherds. Guiding Emily tells two stories side by side, a woman adjusting to the loss of her sight and a young guide dog struggling through training, until they meet. Love Is a Dog's Best Friend and Paws in the City keep the dogs in the foreground.

Ranches and farms are everywhere. Romance on the Ranch follows Sara, who sells her house, buys a camper and heads west. Romance at Hope Ranch, with Alison Sweeney, is set in the mountain town of Ruidoso, New Mexico. Flowers & Honey brings a city florist to the farmland she has inherited, next to a beekeeper. The Heiress and the Handyman moves a woman who has lost her fortune to a rural farm, where she mistakes her neighbour for the hired help. The Happy Camper restores a vintage caravan on a Colorado farm, and Kentucky Roses, from 2026, is set among the greenhouses of Churchill Downs, where a gardener dreams of designing the garland of roses for the Derby winner.

Lakes, forests and mountains supply the rest. Love Upstream sends a Chicago author to the Minnesota lakes to write a book on wilderness survival. Retreat to You reunites two former best friends at a wilderness retreat. Love in the Great Smoky Mountains: A National Park Romance sets two former sweethearts to work at the same archaeological dig. Two for the Win is a skiing romance, Amazing Winter Romance is built around a giant maze made of snow, An Ice Palace Romance returns a journalist to her hometown rink, and The Winter Palace lends a novelist an empty chateau whose owner, a prince, turns up with his staff.

Writers and broadcasters

Twenty-six films are about people who work with words, and the writers and broadcasters guide lists them. Notes of Autumn, from 2023, has two friends, a blocked novelist and a pianist who has stopped playing, swap homes for a season and find that a change of rooms changes everything. A Bestselling Kind of Love gives a first-time author with stage fright a coach in public speaking. Mr. Write sets a junior editor to rescue a romance writer's next book, Key to Love hides an antique key in a hollow book at a bookshop, and Luckless in Love follows a dating columnist whose anonymous account of a disastrous evening spreads around the city.

Radio and television have their films. Love on the Air makes two rival radio hosts share a programme. Three Dates to Forever pairs a hard-working presenter with a carefree entrepreneur. The Baby Proposal hands two morning-show hosts a baby to look after on air. Reality television is gently teased in Farmer Seeking Love, whose heroine produces a dating show, and in The Engagement Plot, Love, For Real and Just for Showmance. Passport to Love, The Single's Guidebook and Love on Retreat concern the newer trades of travel blogging and making content for the internet.

Music and dance

Nineteen films have music in them, and the music and dance guide covers them. Making Waves sends a record executive to a festival on the Outer Banks, where the band everyone wants to sign is led by a boy she knew one summer long ago. A Nashville Legacy follows a researcher to Tennessee on the trail of a forgotten vocal group. Country Hearts is about two sisters, daughters of a country star, deciding between the stage and the family farm. Swing Into Romance, with Danica McKellar, enters a former dancer in her hometown's swing contest to save the family shop, and Perfect Harmony makes a pop singer and a professor the maid of honour and best man at the same wedding. Three films in the Love Club series, among them The Love Club: Tara’s Tune, follow a circle of friends who made a pact to help one another in matters of the heart.

Comedy

Ninety-seven films have comedy in them, and the comedy guide points to the lightest. Mistaken identity is the oldest device and still the best. In A Winter Getaway, an ordinary man given a luxury holiday is taken for a millionaire by everyone at the resort, the concierge included. In The Boyfriend Trap, identical twins are confused with each other on a retreat in Trinidad and Tobago. In Mix Up in the Mediterranean, the woman running the contest believes the cook she is falling for is his married brother. Out of Office, with Ken Jeong, is a workplace comedy for the age of working from home, in which a young woman finds that keeping her job depends on helping her employer mend his marriage.

Others begin with a prediction. A fortune teller informs the heroine of My One True Love that she will marry a man named John, and her friends introduce her to every John they know. Another tells Gemma, in Second Guessing Fate, that she is one dreadful date away from true love. Betty, in Betty's Bad Luck In Love, believes she was cursed in childhood. Game of Love sets a board-game designer and a marketing consultant to invent a game about romance in a few weeks, and Sealed with a List sends a woman back through last year's abandoned resolutions with a colleague to keep her honest. Falling Together has a newcomer trying to make friends of the feuding neighbours in her building, with the caretaker as a reluctant ally.

Drama

The drama guide lists the fifty-four films with more at stake. Several are about families taking shape. A Season for Family concerns two boys, brothers adopted into different homes, and the parents who must decide whether to let them meet. Color My World with Love follows a mother learning to step back when her daughter, a young woman with Down syndrome, becomes engaged; the lead is played by Lily D. Moore, who has the condition herself. Signs of Your Heart centres on a single mother and her lively son, who is deaf. Junebug, from 2024, is a gentle fantasy in which a book editor begins to be visited by herself at the age of eight, who has questions about what became of their plans.

A Family Thanksgiving gives a driven lawyer a glimpse of another life as a wife and mother. The More Love Grows follows a woman whose husband asks for a separation the day their daughter leaves for college, and who rebuilds her days with the help of a stray dog. Back to the Goode Life returns a New York banker to her small Georgia hometown and her eccentric relations. Home Turf moves half a college football team into the house of the college president. For Love and Honor is set at a military academy, and Forever, with Taye Diggs and Meagan Good, in a small town to which a veteran comes home.

The British single drama

Sixteen films come from the United Kingdom, and the British guide lists them together. The single drama is a tradition with deep roots there: one writer, one story, one evening, often on a subject from the national album. The films on Cinegram show its range, from the poetry of The Song of Lunch to the sequins of Torvill & Dean, and its habit of giving great actors parts worthy of them. Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Gambon, Ian McKellen, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Imelda Staunton and Jim Broadbent all appear, and so, at the start of their careers, do several younger players now well known.

What unites these films is a liking for the moment just off the main stage of history. Churchill's Secret is about a summer the public knew little of. Burton and Taylor is about a theatrical production that the critics dismissed and that mattered deeply to the two people in it. Eric & Ernie ends before its heroes are famous. Miss Austen Regrets is set in the years after the great novels were written. The approach suits the small screen, which is good at faces and conversation, and it rewards an attentive evening.

How the romances are made

The North American romances come from a different workshop. Most were produced for cable channels and streaming services that offer a new love story most weekends of the year. They are filmed in about three weeks, often in Canada, and increasingly on location abroad, which is why recent titles can show the real Barcelona, the real Corfu and the real Scottish Highlands. Their stories follow a pattern that audiences enjoy for its reliability: two people with a reason to work side by side, a misunderstanding about twenty minutes from the end, and a reconciliation in the last scene.

Because Cinegram leaves the Christmas titles aside, its selection shows how varied the form has become in the rest of the year. There are films for Valentine's Day, such as Very, Very, Valentine, in which a shy florist searches for the man she met at a masquerade ball, and The Perfect Setting, about a jewellery contest in Belgium. There are films for spring and for autumn, among them A Harvest Homecoming, in which a supply teacher takes a lonely pupil under his wing. There are films about new kinds of work and new kinds of household. And the leading players, who return from film to film, Danica McKellar, Alison Sweeney, Ashley Williams, Ashley Newbrough, Corey Sevier, Jesse Hutch, Trevor Donovan and Andrew W. Walker among them, give the whole shelf the feeling of a repertory company.

More to discover

Some films sit between the shelves and are easy to pass over. Love, Once and Always, from 2018, is a romance with a cause: Lucy learns that the grand Gilded Age house where she spent her childhood summers is to make way for a golf course, and that the man with the plans is the boy she once loved there. Heart of the Manor tells a similar story with a nod to Pride and Prejudice, since its heroine is an estate agent named Liz Bennet. Legend of the Lost Locket sends an antiques expert after a piece of jewellery said to bring its wearer true love, and The Love Hunt makes an inheritance depend on finding the one treasure an archaeologist father left unfound.

Work brings people together in a dozen ways. In Butlers in Love, two students at a prestigious academy for butlers compete for a place in a royal household. In Feeling Butterflies, a woman who supplies live butterflies for celebrations is hired for a child's birthday by a single father. Fashionably Yours trades a stylist's skill at organising wardrobes for a removal man's knowledge of Seattle. Inspiring Love begins when a shy painter's canvas is sold by mistake, Art of Falling in Love when a muralist is commissioned to brighten a hospital wing, and Love at Sky Gardens when a rooftop gardener spills coffee on an event planner. Baby Bootcamp and A Match in Manhattan both turn nannies into members of the family, and Falling for the Manny reverses the usual arrangement.

Sport and politics get a look in. Romance in the Outfield: Double Play sets two former sweethearts to coach rival softball teams. Vote One for Love sends a Washington strategist back to Wyoming to run a small-town mayoral campaign against her oldest friend. Coins for Love follows a single mother through the trial period of a new job in publishing, and Love at the Bootcamp asks a scatterbrained marketing executive to improve the image of a very strict fitness camp. Been There All Along, 10 Steps to Love and Right in Front of Me share a moral that the titles give away, and they are just as enjoyable for it.

And a few are worth seeking out for a single reason. Hearts Around the Table: Jenna's First Love opens a series about four foster siblings who meet for Sunday dinner. Retreat to Paradise is a quiet story of a physiotherapist and a difficult patient. Lost & Found in Rome is a holiday in itself. Romance in the Wilds sends a ranger and a geologist through the Rocky Mountains on foot. Reading, Writing & Romance makes an out-of-work actor a surprisingly good teacher of Shakespeare. Each has a page of its own, and each can be reached through the search field in a few letters.

Why the television film endures

It is worth asking why this modest form has lasted while so much else on television has changed. One reason is length. A series asks for weeks of loyalty; a television film asks for a single evening and repays it with a complete story, which suits households where time together is short. Another is scale. With smaller budgets than the cinema, these films depend on writing and acting, and they have long given good parts to performers whom the big screen underuses, especially women past forty. Cicely Tyson was eighty-nine when she filmed The Trip to Bountiful, and Angela Lansbury the same age for Driving Miss Daisy.

A third reason is trust. The audience for a romance knows that the last scene will be a happy one, and that knowledge is a comfort, since it frees the attention for scenery, for company and for the small differences between one story and the next. The audience for a British single drama trusts the form in another way, to treat a real life or a great book with seriousness and a degree of affection. Cinegram keeps both kinds side by side because, on different evenings, the same viewer is likely to want each.

There is, finally, the simple matter of discovery. Television films are seldom advertised after their first showing and can be hard to find again. A guide that gives each one a page, a paragraph and a button to the services that carry it restores them to view, and makes it possible to follow an actor, a writer or a subject from one film to the next. That is the whole purpose of the lists that follow from here.

One practical note belongs here. Because these films were made for many different channels in several countries, they are spread across many services, and a title that is free to watch in one country may be a rental in the next. The country selector on each film page exists for that reason, and it is worth setting it once and letting the site remember it.

Then and now

The years guide sets the catalogue along a timeline, and the contrast between its ends is instructive. The films of 2000 to 2012 are mostly prestige pieces: literary adaptations, biographies and filmed plays made for networks that wanted awards. Don Quixote, Boycott, The Rosa Parks Story, A Raisin in the Sun and Miss Austen Regrets all belong to those years, and all were honoured in their season. The middle period, 2013 to 2019, belongs largely to Britain, with Burton and Taylor, That Day We Sang, The Go-Between and To Walk Invisible.

From 2020 the balance shifts. Forty-seven films date from 2020 to 2022 and seventy-four from 2023 onwards, and nearly all are romances. They are brighter, quicker and more widely travelled than their predecessors, and they are made in far greater numbers. A viewer can use the two ends of the list for two kinds of evening: the earlier films when there is time to give full attention, the later ones when the day has been long and something kind and easy is wanted.

Choosing well

A few habits make choosing easier. Read the paragraph on the film page; it is short and tells the premise plainly. Check the running time, since the British dramas and the two-part adaptations can be longer than the romances. Notice the cast, because a favourite actor is the most reliable guide of all. And use the lists in combination: a romance that is also in Travel and in Food, such as A Greek Recipe for Romance, promises scenery and a good dinner; a drama that is also in True stories and British films promises fine acting.

For a household of mixed ages, the comedies and the outdoor romances are the safest ground, and Smart Cookies, Guiding Emily and Skellig have particular appeal for older children. The true stories of Montgomery make a strong evening for teenagers studying the period. The Memory Keeper's Daughter, The Wool Cap and Churchill's Secret are for adults and thoughtful older viewers, and each rewards the conversation that follows.

Search, tabs and My List

The search field in the top bar answers as you type and sets aside filler words such as watch, online and free, so a few letters of a title are enough. The bar of tabs along the bottom of the screen opens Home, Films, Romance, Travel, True stories and the A to Z from any page, which is especially handy on a telephone, where it sits under the thumb. The finding titles page describes the search, the tabs and the A to Z, which sets out all 165 films in alphabetical order.

Eighteen lists divide the catalogue. Four follow the years. Twelve follow kind or setting: romance, comedy, drama, travel, true stories, page and stage, British films, weddings, food, the great outdoors, writers and broadcasters, and music and dance. Top rated holds the forty films that viewers have scored highest, and All titles holds everything. A film may sit in several lists at once, so That Day We Sang is found under true stories, British films, music and dance, drama and 2013 to 2019 alike.

My List is your set of bookmarks. Each film page carries an Add to My List button, and the red My List button in the top bar opens the bookmarks as a grid of posters. They are written to the browser on your own device and are still there the next time you open the site, and the list page can download them as a file to upload elsewhere. The My List page gives the steps, and the how to watch page explains the path from a title to a service.

A film page on Cinegram is laid out for a quick decision: the still and poster first, then the year, running time and genres, the story in a paragraph, the director and cast, and finally the country selector with its Watch now button. Fifteen countries are offered, and the choice is remembered for the next film.

Four evenings with Cinegram

A simple plan shows the range of these television films. On the first evening, take a British portrait: Miss Austen Regrets or To Walk Invisible. On the second, travel: Hidden Gems or Savoring Paris. On the third, a true story from America: The Rosa Parks Story, followed on another night by Boycott. On the fourth, a play: The Trip to Bountiful or A Raisin in the Sun. After that the tabs will carry you on, and a hundred and thirty romances are waiting for the evenings when only a happy ending will do.

Questions and answers

Questions