Agatha Christie adaptations have become a yearly tradition on British television. This month, a version of the Queen of Crime’s 1944 novel appears on BBC One with a top-tier cast including Anjelica Huston, Matthew Rhys and Mimi Keene.

Yet it is saddled with the same issues so many of these modern Christie re-imaginings face. A reverence for the interwar setting is coupled with inattention to period detail, and the author’s signature combination of whimsy and piercing satire is bulldozed in favour of portentous nonsense.

So, as a corrective, here are some adaptations of the great Christie’s work which avoid these pitfalls and might offer a guide for how to bring the golden age of detective fiction to our screens. “In the midst of life, we are in death,” Christie wrote, and in the midst of innumerable duds, there are a few gems:

One Christie adaptation looms large over all the others: Sidney Lumet’s version of Murder on the Orient Express. Albert Finney’s Poirot is too sniffly and prone to explosive outbursts, but the pacing and production of the film – set on a beautiful, snowbound train from Istanbul to Paris – not to mention its fundamentally cinematic quality, make it irresistible.

Murder on the Orient Express is one of the great crime novels, and deserves an adaptation like this, complete with (no exaggeration) one of the greatest casts ever assembled in cinema history. Ingrid Bergman, who won an Oscar for her role, leads the suspects on the Calais Coach, but she is ably supported by Sean Connery, Lauren Bacall, John Gielgud, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Jaqueline Bisset and more. The film is so good that I sometimes argue it’s a Christmas film, just to squeeze in an extra viewing over the festive season.