\n<\/p>\n
Does a Christmas movie have to be about Christmas? If it merely takes place around<\/em> Christmas, how prominently does the holiday have to feature for it to qualify? And really, must it be a merry Christmas? The Grinches and Scrooges of the world have streaming subscriptions, too.<\/p>\n With a more elastic conception of the holiday in mind, we picked 15 Christmas movies of a broad variety, from warm Old Hollywood favorites to family-friendly modern comedies to the sort of boozy, vulgar entertainments that parents can watch after putting the kids to bed. (And yes, the oft-debated \u201cDie Hard\u201d did make the list. When is it ever a bad time to watch \u201cDie Hard\u201d?) These films are either on streaming services or available to rent on major platforms. Also, \u201cDie Hard\u201d returns to theaters Dec. 8.<\/p>\n Stream it on Max<\/a>. Rent it on Amazon<\/a>, Apple TV<\/a>, Google Play<\/a>, Vudu<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n Having established herself as a master of melodrama in \u201cStella Dallas,\u201d a closet romantic in \u201cThe Lady Eve\u201d and a duplicitous femme fatale in \u201cDouble Indemnity,\u201d Barbara Stanwyck combines all three qualities into a winning performance in \u201cChristmas in Connecticut,\u201d a screwball holiday comedy with heart. Stanwyck plays a single New Yorker who\u2019s been posing as a wife and mother from rural Connecticut to make her food column more appealing to American housewives. When asked to host Christmas dinner for a dashing war hero (Dennis Morgan), she scrambles desperately to sell her made-up persona, but amid the confusion over her fake husband and baby, she winds up falling for her guest.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Stream it on Amazon Prime Video<\/a>. Rent it on Apple TV<\/a>, Google Play<\/a>, Vudu<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n Released to mixed reviews and disappointing box office \u2014 particularly by the standards of the director Frank Capra, who was seen as a hitmaker after films like \u201cIt Happened One Night\u201d and \u201cMr. Smith Goes to Washington\u201d \u2014 \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Life\u201d has become the undisputed star atop the holiday-movie tree. But what makes it so enduring ties into why it took a while to catch on: The joyful, tear-jerking ending is exceptionally hard-won, following a Christmas Eve that\u2019s a dark night of the soul for George Bailey (James Stewart), a man whose despair nearly drives him to the brink. It\u2019s only after meeting his guardian angel that George sees his value to his family and community.<\/p>\n Stream it on Max<\/a>. Rent it on Amazon<\/a>, Apple TV<\/a>, Google Play<\/a>, Vudu<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n As if to compensate for making the holiday-themed slasher classic \u201cBlack Christmas\u201d nine years earlier, the director Bob Clark turned to this nostalgia-soaked comedy, which has become a seasonal favorite, though it\u2019s not without its horrors. The Parkers are the most disaster-prone family in their 1940s Midwestern town, and embarrassment is always around the corner for poor Ralphie (Peter Billingsley), who wants nothing more than a Red Ryder air rifle for Christmas, but is constantly told, \u201cYou\u2019ll shoot your eye out.\u201d In the lead-up to his big gift, Ralphie has an awful encounter with a mall Santa, decodes a disappointing secret message from Ovaltine and is forced to wear the pink bunny onesie his Aunt Clara got him. But Ralphie won\u2019t be a put-upon kid forever.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Rent it on Amazon<\/a>, Apple TV+<\/a>, Google Play<\/a>, Vudu<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n An ideal double feature with \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Life,\u201d Joe Dante\u2019s mischievous comedy throws a Capraesque small town into chaos when an exotic Christmas present spawns the green marauders of the title. While in Chinatown on business, an eccentric inventor discovers a cute little animal called a mogwai and sneaks it back home to his family. But the new caretakers don\u2019t follow important instructions, like keeping the mogwai away from water and not feeding it after midnight. It mutates into the innumerable creatures of the title, who take a juvenile delight in creating mayhem. Part monster movie, part live-action Looney Tunes, \u201cGremlins\u201d leaves a trail of destruction through its snow-capped holiday idyll.<\/p>\n Stream it on Hulu<\/a>. Rent it on Amazon<\/a>, Apple TV<\/a>, Google Play<\/a>, Vudu<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n There should be no argument over whether \u201cDie Hard\u201d is a true Christmas movie, given that John McClane (Bruce Willis) flies out to Los Angeles to spend the holiday with his estranged wife (Bonnie Bedelia), battles an armed band of European thieves who have taken over an office party and even dresses one unfortunate henchman in a Santa suit. Plus it\u2019s a useful excuse to rewatch this impeccably crafted and influential action movie, which emphasizes McClane\u2019s vulnerability as much as his resourcefulness and guile in outwitting a criminal mastermind (Alan Rickman) and perhaps saving his marriage in the process.<\/p>\n Stream it on Disney+<\/a> and Hulu<\/a>. Rent it on Amazon<\/a>, Apple TV<\/a>, Google Play<\/a>, Vudu<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He may be surrounded by singing, dancing, mischief-making Muppets, but Michael Caine gives the role of Ebenezer Scrooge, the heartless miser of Charles Dickens\u2019s \u201cA Christmas Carol,\u201d every bit the gravity of screen antecedents like Alastair Sim, Basil Rathbone and Albert Finney. This allows \u201cThe Muppet Christmas Carol\u201d to position him as the ideal straight man, a grouchy counterpoint to the silliness of Kermit the Frog\u2019s earnest Bob Cratchit, Miss Piggy as a typically brassy Emily Cratchit and the three offbeat ghosts who show Scrooge the path to redemption. The film proves it\u2019s possible to honor Dickens while paying a visit to Fozzie Bear\u2019s rubber chicken factory.<\/p>\n Stream it on Disney+<\/a>. Rent it on Amazon<\/a>, Apple TV<\/a>, Google Play<\/a>, Vudu<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n On paper, \u201cThe Nightmare Before Christmas\u201d sounds like a cynical proposition, an animated studio musical with a plot that covers both Halloween and Christmas, giving it a solid three-month window where it\u2019s seasonally appropriate viewing. Yet Henry Selick\u2019s stop-motion fantasy, made in collaboration with one of its producers, Tim Burton, has a dark, personal, idiosyncratic style that dispels any thought of commercial calculation. It has earned a legitimate cult following over the years. As the Pumpkin King of Skeleton Town, Jack Skellington (voiced by Chris Sarandon) inadvertently discovers the joys of Christmas Town and tries to bring the magic back home, with predictably demented and chaotic results.<\/p>\n Rent it on Amazon<\/a>, Google Play<\/a>, Vudu<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n The premise of this dark comedy sounds a little like the Humphrey Bogart noir \u201cThe Desperate Hours,\u201d in which escaped felons hole up in a suburban home and take a family hostage. Only the twist of \u201cThe Ref\u201d is that the crook, a cat burglar (Denis Leary) abandoned by his partner in the middle of a job, winds up captive himself to his hostages, a Connecticut couple (Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis) who cannot stop arguing. It becomes a Christmas Eve to survive when other members of the family turn up and the would-be felon takes on the role of reluctant counselor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The marital odyssey in Stanley Kubrick\u2019s dreamlike final film is book ended by Christmas backdrops that underline the state of a bourgeois marriage that threatens to collapse. After a fashionable party where his wife (Nicole Kidman) flirts shamelessly with a well-heeled Hungarian, a doctor (Tom Cruise) starts a fight with her about jealousy and temptation. From there, he embarks on a nocturnal adventure that leads to several frustrating encounters with other women, culminating in an exclusive sex party that he tries to attend without an invitation. Given the threat to this superficially stable and happy family, the holiday setting, rendered in warm lights and festive colors, stands out in sharp relief.<\/p>\n Stream it on Hulu<\/a> and Max<\/a>. Rent it on Amazon<\/a>, Apple TV<\/a>, Google Play<\/a>, Vudu<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n There was no more ideal choice to play an orphan raised by North Pole elves than Will Ferrell, whose ungainly, up-for-anything rambunctiousness had made him a breakout star on \u201cSaturday Night Live.\u201d \u201cElf\u201d has the quality of an extended sketch, as Ferrell\u2019s overgrown Buddy leaves Santa\u2019s Workshop for New York City to find his real father (James Caan), an ornery children\u2019s book publisher who works in the Empire State Building. His comic na\u00efvet\u00e9 and relentless good cheer turn \u201cElf\u201d into a fish-out-of-water comedy of disarming warmth, thanks largely to an ace supporting cast that includes Zooey Deschanel, Ed Asner, Mary Steenburgen and Bob Newhart.<\/p>\n Stream it on Paramount+<\/a>. Rent it on Amazon<\/a>, Apple TV<\/a>, Google Play<\/a>, Vudu<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For those who greet the holidays with dread \u2014 or simply like their eggnog extra-spiked \u2014 Terry Zwigoff\u2019s dark comedy is the ultimate in Christmas counterprogramming, a relentlessly vulgar provocation that does have a heart if you squint hard enough to see it. Billy Bob Thornton stars as an alcoholic mall Santa who uses his access to rob department stores at the peak of the shopping season, provided he can stay sober long enough to crack the safe. His latest job is complicated by a sweet, outcast boy whose belief in Santa is unshakable, even when his hero is a grump with conspicuously foul breath.<\/p>\n Rent it on Amazon<\/a>, Apple TV<\/a>, Google Play<\/a>, Vudu<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Since breaking into Hollywood with his script for \u201cLethal Weapon,\u201d the writer Shane Black has set six of his films during Christmas in Los Angeles, where it\u2019s too temperate to find obvious evidence of the season. His directing debut, the spiky neo-noir buddy-action comedy \u201cKiss Kiss Bang Bang,\u201d loads up the soundtrack with a mix of traditional and irreverent Christmas songs. Its murder mystery starts at a fancy party where the most intriguing guest, an aspiring actress (Michelle Monaghan), appears in a deconstructed Santa outfit. Robert Downey Jr. plays a hilariously snarky thief who stumbles into an audition for a detective role, gets the part and then shadows a real-life private eye (Val Kilmer) on a case.<\/p>\n Stream it on Mubi<\/a>. Rent it on Amazon<\/a> and Apple TV<\/a>.<\/p>\n The premise for this French ensemble piece sounds like a heartwarming holiday treacle: Playing the matriarch of a large family, the screen legend Catherine Deneuve gathers her three adult-age children and their significant others to announce that she has leukemia and needs a bone-marrow transplant. But the director, Arnaud Desplechin, who broke through with a three-hour film titled \u201cMy Sex Life (Or How I Got Into an Argument),\u201d isn\u2019t the sentimental type. \u201cA Christmas Tale\u201d exposes the many fault lines in this wildly dysfunctional family but it\u2019s a disarmingly affectionate film, too, with a first-rate cast that includes Mathieu Amalric, Anne Consigny, Melvil Poupaud and Emmanuelle Devos.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n During the Christmas rush at Frankenberg\u2019s department store in 1952 Manhattan, a moment is shared by two women \u2014 one an aspiring young photographer (Rooney Mara) logging time as a clerk in a Santa hat, the other a wealthy married woman (Cate Blanchett) in a glamorous mink. What follows is a forbidden affair that bridges a chasm in age and class. The morality clause in the older woman\u2019s marital contract threatens her financial security and her status as a mother. Yet \u201cCarol\u201d has a powerful romantic spirit all the same, buoyed by a wintry holiday backdrop that\u2019s suggestive of a new home these women seek to find in each other.<\/p>\n\u2018Christmas in Connecticut\u2019 (1945)<\/h2>\n
\u2018It\u2019s a Wonderful Life\u2019 (1946)<\/h2>\n
\u2018A Christmas Story\u2019 (1983)<\/h2>\n
\u2018Gremlins\u2019 (1984)<\/h2>\n
\u2018Die Hard\u2019 (1988)<\/h2>\n
\u2018The Muppet Christmas Carol\u2019 (1992)<\/h2>\n
\u2018Tim Burton\u2019s the Nightmare Before Christmas\u2019 (1993)<\/h2>\n
\u2018The Ref\u2019 (1994)<\/h2>\n
\u2018Elf\u2019 (2003)<\/h2>\n
\u2018Bad Santa\u2019 (2003)<\/h2>\n
\u2018Kiss Kiss Bang Bang\u2019 (2005)<\/h2>\n
\u2018A Christmas Tale\u2019 (2008)<\/h2>\n
\u2018Le Pupille\u2019 (2022)<\/h2>\n