Check Out AMC’s John Candy Marathon Full Schedule

PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES, John Candy, Steve Martin, 1987, — Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection

What To Know

AMC will honor John Candy with a Christmas Candy Marathon on December 9, 2025, featuring Spaceballs, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, and The Great Outdoors, plus an encore of Planes, Trains & Automobiles.
The marathon highlights Candy’s iconic comedic roles and collaborations, including his memorable performances alongside Bill Pullman, Steve Martin, and Dan Aykroyd.
John Candy, who died in 1994 at age 43, is also celebrated in the 2025 documentary John Candy: I Like Me, now streaming on Amazon Prime.

This holiday season, AMC salutes legendary funnyman John Candy — who would have turned 75 this year — with an evening-long marathon of the actor’s most hilarious films. The “Christmas Candy Marathon,” which begins at 4pm EST on Tuesday, December 9, 2025, on AMC, serves up three Candy classics: Spaceballs, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, and The Great Outdoors. The marathon will end with an encore presentation of Planes, Trains & Automobiles.

December 9, 2025

4pm: Spaceballs

Spaceballs, John Candy, Rick Moranis, Mel Brooks, 1987,

MGM/Everett Collection

In this 1987 Mel Brooks parody of Star Wars, Candy played Barf, the Chewbacca-like sidekick to Bill Pullman‘s Lone Starr. Candy’s “mawg” character (that’s half man, half dog) required about three hours in the makeup chair each day, and the costume involved a 30 pound battery pack for the technology used to control the character’s tail and ears.

8pm: Planes, Trains & Automobiles

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This 1987 John Hughes film — his first for an adult audience, following teen classics like Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club — followed two very different men forced to team up to get back home for Thanksgiving. It’s considered a Thanksgiving classic — perhaps the only true Thanksgiving classic film — and Candy’s winning chemistry with costar Steve Martin is very real; “We really loved each other,” Martin said in the 2024 film STEVE! (Martin): A Documentary in 2 Pieces.

10pm: The Great Outdoors

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Dan Aykroyd and John Candy seem like they should have had numerous big-time collaborations under their belts — after all, they were both Canada-born comedy stars who first came to prominence on sketch TV shows in the 1970s, before achieving big screen stardom in the ’80s. But actually, the pair only showed up together in a few films, including The Blues Brothers, Aykroyd’s 1991 directorial debut Nothing But Trouble, and this 1988 John Hughes-penned film, about a man whose idyllic vacation is ruined when his annoying brother-in-law shows up.

12am: Planes, Trains & Automobiles

If you missed the 8pm showing (or just really, really like this one movie), tune in for this midnight encore airing.

Candy died in 1994, at only 43 years old, due to a heart attack he experienced while filming the movie Wagons East. His life and work were the subject of the 2025 documentary John Candy: I Like Me, which features interviews with costars including Martin, Brooks, Aykroyd, Catherine O’Hara, Bill Murray, Eugene Levy, Macaulay Culkin, and many more. The film is available to stream on Amazon Prime.