With the holidays arriving, it’s time to look at the 20 classic films you can watch with your family this holiday season.
As Andy Williams croons ad nauseam once November starts, “it’s the most wonderful time of the year.” The holidays are inescapable. We love them and loathe them in fairly equal measure. But amidst the consumerism, the holiday deals, and the mad scrabble to hit the mall before the crowds do, there’s something special about the holidays in December. We get to spend time with loved ones, eat good food, and celebrate surviving a year that many have said signifies the releasing of Cthulhu. It’s a time to celebrate, is what I’m saying.
And when you think of the holidays you also start thinking of the movies you can watch with your family to hopefully drown them out. I mean, to enjoy with them! The 20 films included here are a grab-bag of some of the best holiday content, combining films from the studio era to modern-day. Most of these are expressly Christmas themed while others are secular and just happen to be shown during the holiday (for reasons I’ve never fully discerned).
Each is a heartwarming tale of love, family, sacrifice, and more. Some star titans of acting like Jimmy Stewart and Judy Garland, while others have more broadly comedic performances, like Will Ferrell. Some of these movies I don’t actually love (I’ll leave you to decide which ones), but have to be included because they’ve defined so many others holiday viewing. The point is that each of the twenty movies included here all mean something and during the holidays that’s what matters.