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    15 Classic Christmas Movies to Stream over the Holidays

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    Our list of classics is broad, from warm Old Hollywood favorites to the sort of boozy, vulgar entertainments that parents can watch after putting the kids to bed.Does a Christmas movie have to be about Christmas? If it merely takes place around 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.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 “Die Hard” did make the list. When is it ever a bad time to watch “Die Hard”?) These films are either on streaming services or available to rent on major platforms. Also, “Die Hard” returns to theaters Dec. 8.‘Christmas in Connecticut’ (1945)Stream it on Max. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Having established herself as a master of melodrama in “Stella Dallas,” a closet romantic in “The Lady Eve” and a duplicitous femme fatale in “Double Indemnity,” Barbara Stanwyck combines all three qualities into a winning performance in “Christmas in Connecticut,” a screwball holiday comedy with heart. Stanwyck plays a single New Yorker who’s 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.‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ (1946)Stream it on Amazon Prime Video. Rent it on Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Released to mixed reviews and disappointing box office — particularly by the standards of the director Frank Capra, who was seen as a hitmaker after films like “It Happened One Night” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” — “It’s a Wonderful Life” 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’s a dark night of the soul for George Bailey (James Stewart), a man whose despair nearly drives him to the brink. It’s only after meeting his guardian angel that George sees his value to his family and community.‘A Christmas Story’ (1983)Stream it on Max. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Jeff Gillen, left, and Peter Billingsley in “A Christmas Story.”Warner Bros.As if to compensate for making the holiday-themed slasher classic “Black Christmas” nine years earlier, the director Bob Clark turned to this nostalgia-soaked comedy, which has become a seasonal favorite, though it’s 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, “You’ll shoot your eye out.” 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’t be a put-upon kid forever.‘Gremlins’ (1984)Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV+, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.An ideal double feature with “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Joe Dante’s 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’t 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, “Gremlins” leaves a trail of destruction through its snow-capped holiday idyll.‘Die Hard’ (1988)Stream it on Hulu. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Bruce Willis and Bonnie Bedelia in a scene from “Die Hard.”20th Century Fox, via Getty ImagesThere should be no argument over whether “Die Hard” 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’s a useful excuse to rewatch this impeccably crafted and influential action movie, which emphasizes McClane’s vulnerability as much as his resourcefulness and guile in outwitting a criminal mastermind (Alan Rickman) and perhaps saving his marriage in the process.‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’ (1992)Stream it on Disney+ and Hulu. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.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’s “A Christmas Carol,” every bit the gravity of screen antecedents like Alastair Sim, Basil Rathbone and Albert Finney. This allows “The Muppet Christmas Carol” to position him as the ideal straight man, a grouchy counterpoint to the silliness of Kermit the Frog’s 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’s possible to honor Dickens while paying a visit to Fozzie Bear’s rubber chicken factory.‘Tim Burton’s the Nightmare Before Christmas’ (1993)Stream it on Disney+. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Jack Skellington (voiced by Chris Sarandon) in “Tim Burton’s the Nightmare Before Christmas.”Touchstone PicturesOn paper, “The Nightmare Before Christmas” 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’s seasonally appropriate viewing. Yet Henry Selick’s 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.‘The Ref’ (1994)Rent it on Amazon, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.The premise of this dark comedy sounds a little like the Humphrey Bogart noir “The Desperate Hours,” in which escaped felons hole up in a suburban home and take a family hostage. Only the twist of “The Ref” 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.‘Eyes Wide Shut’ (1999)Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in “Eyes Wide Shut.”Warner BrothersThe marital odyssey in Stanley Kubrick’s 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.‘Elf’ (2003)Stream it on Hulu and Max. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.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 “Saturday Night Live.” “Elf” has the quality of an extended sketch, as Ferrell’s overgrown Buddy leaves Santa’s Workshop for New York City to find his real father (James Caan), an ornery children’s book publisher who works in the Empire State Building. His comic naïveté and relentless good cheer turn “Elf” into a fish-out-of-water comedy of disarming warmth, thanks largely to an ace supporting cast that includes Emily Deschanel, Ed Asner, Mary Steenburgen and Bob Newhart.‘Bad Santa’ (2003)Stream it on Paramount+. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.For those who greet the holidays with dread — or simply like their eggnog extra-spiked — Terry Zwigoff’s 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.‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ (2005)Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Robert Downey Jr., left, and Val Kilmer in “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.”Warner Bros.Since breaking into Hollywood with his script for “Lethal Weapon,” the writer Shane Black has set six of his films during Christmas in Los Angeles, where it’s too temperate to find obvious evidence of the season. His directing debut, the spiky neo-noir buddy-action comedy “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” 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.‘A Christmas Tale’ (2008)Stream it on Mubi. Rent it on Amazon and Apple TV.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 “My Sex Life (Or How I Got Into an Argument),” isn’t the sentimental type. “A Christmas Tale” exposes the many fault lines in this wildly dysfunctional family but it’s a disarmingly affectionate film, too, with a first-rate cast that includes Mathieu Amalric, Anne Consigny, Melvil Poupaud and Emmanuelle Devos.‘Carol’ (2015)Stream it on Netflix. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett in “Carol.”Wilson Webb/The Weinstein CompanyDuring the Christmas rush at Frankenberg’s department store in 1952 Manhattan, a moment is shared by two women — 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’s marital contract threatens her financial security and her status as a mother. Yet “Carol” has a powerful romantic spirit all the same, buoyed by a wintry holiday backdrop that’s suggestive of a new home these women seek to find in each other.‘Le Pupille’ (2022)Stream it on Disney+.A deserving nominee for best live action short at the 2023 Oscars, Alice Rohrwacher’s charming and evocative 37-minute film takes place at an all-girls Catholic boarding school over Christmas during World War II. As the head nun keeps strict watch over these adorable, mischievous kids — they get their mouths soaped for grooving to a pop song on the radio — a young woman arrives with a scrumptious red custard cake, asking them to pray for her unfaithful boyfriend. The nun presents the kids with a cruel challenge: Can they prove their devotion to Jesus by resisting the temptation of this Christmas Day treat? More

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      in Theater

      ‘Die Hard’ Comes to the Christmas Stage in London

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      The poet Richard Marsh is winning praise in London for a one-man theatrical version of the action movie.LONDON — Every year in the run-up to Christmas, Richard Marsh wraps presents while watching “Die Hard,” the 1980s action movie in which Bruce Willis, playing the cop John McClane, single-handedly takes down a terrorist group in a Los Angeles tower block on Christmas Eve.But this year, Marsh said, he might have to give the ritual a miss. Since the end of November, the poet and playwright has been the star of “Yippee Ki Yay,” a one-man retelling of “Die Hard” at the King’s Head Theater in London.Over 75 minutes, Marsh recreates the film, with the help of just a few props. Speaking mainly in verse, he embodies all the movie’s major characters including McClane and the evil Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman). He has had to rewatch the movie to perfect his accents, he said, and so watching it in his free time might be a little much.“But who knows,” Marsh said in a recent interview: “I haven’t started wrapping my presents yet.”“Die Hard” has been a contentious holiday movie ever since it was released in July 1988. Early reviewers focused on its action credentials, and made little reference to the film’s Christmas Eve setting, or McClane’s desire to reunite with his children and partner for the holidays. In 2018, Willis declared that “Die Hard” wasn’t a Christmas movie, it was a “Bruce Willis movie!”Yet, on both sides of the Atlantic, “Die Hard” regularly appears on polls of the greatest holiday movies. And theater has started to embrace this popularity, too.In the show, Marsh recreates specific scenes, including dramatic moments starring, top left, Bruce Willis and, bottom right, Alan Rickman.20th Century Fox; Rod PennMarsh, 48, is not the first performer to adapt the hit, with “Die Hard” having long been staged as a comedic Christmas musical in Chicago and Minneapolis, and as a comedy in Seattle. Jeff Schell, part of the team behind “A Very Die Hard Christmas,” which ran at the Seattle Public Theater through Dec. 20, said in a telephone interview that he felt these theatrical versions were appearing because people “who remember seeing it in junior high” were getting to an age where they could stage shows.Michael Shepherd Jordan, who wrote the book for “Yippee Ki-Yay Merry Christmas: A Die Hard Musical Parody,” which debuted in Chicago in 2014, said in a telephone interview that “Die Hard” worked so well onstage because of the absurdity of trying to act out a “big, bloody action movie” with a tiny budget. In his show, a police car that is central to the movie has to be recreated with a remote-controlled toy. Explosions are similarly silly.That absurdity is fun to watch, Marsh said, but he felt the movie was also relatable in ways that worked well onstage. “Die Hard” is ultimately about a couple, McClane and his wife Holly, arguing under the pressure of Christmas Eve and struggling to apologize to each other, Marsh said. That was a scenario that anyone could identify with, he added, even if “unusually, John and Holly cannot apologize to each other because of terrorist action.”Over the past decade, Marsh has had several fringe hits in Britain with stories told through poetry, including “Dirty Great Love Story,” written with Katie Bonna, which started at the Edinburgh festivals before heading to the West End. Marsh said he got the idea for “Yippee Ki Yay” — named after one of Willis’s most memorable lines in the movie — so long ago that he couldn’t remember the date. “My plays often start as jokes,” he said, “and the idea of doing ‘Die Hard’ as an epic poem was this delightful contrast.”Last year, as British theaters were reopening following the coronavirus pandemic, Marsh said the idea popped back into his head. He had been working on a play about grief but decided audiences would prefer to see “something that is joyful and hilarious and warm and enlivening.” Soon, he had written a draft, and then was working with the director Hal Chambers and the movement director Emma Webb to turn the movie’s main scenes into low-budget reality.“For all the Hans Gruber-ish terrorist action,” Marsh said, “there’s an emotional truth at the center of ‘Die Hard.’”Tom Jamieson for The New York TimesOnstage, Marsh recreates “Die Hard” often just using sound effects and the audience’s imagination. Early on, he stages a fight with a teddy bear that is meant to be a gun-toting terrorist. Afterward, he dabs himself with fake blood to give the impression of injuries. Later, Marsh, using a stool, recreates a scene in which McClane throws a chair loaded with explosives down an elevator shaft. He then covers himself with cocoa powder to look like soot.The only thing Marsh doesn’t do is take off his shoes. Early in the movie, Willis removes his own and is left to chase terrorists barefoot, cutting his feet on broken glass. In the play, Marsh tells his audience there’s a simple reason he’ll be keeping his on: “Have you seen this floor?” he says.The experience of developing “Yippee Ki Yay” — which is running in London until Dec. 30 before going on a British tour — wasn’t entirely easy, Marsh said. After he performed its first preview, a friend said the show was really funny but didn’t have much emotional impact.“It was a brutal note, but extremely useful,” Marsh said. Afterward, he changed the play so it didn’t just tell the story of “Die Hard,” but also interlaced it with the tale of a romance between two “Die Hard” fanatics who meet on an internet forum.That emotional arc has won praise from reviewers. Dominic Maxwell, writing in The Times of London, said that it was “one thing” to have the idea of turning “Die Hard” into an epic poem. “It’s quite another to deliver on it with this level of panache, wit, insight and — unexpectedly — tenderness,” he wrote.Marsh said the final play drew out what “Die Hard” meant to him today. When he first watched it as a teenager, he simply enjoyed it as a full-throttle action film in which a wisecracking hero overcomes preposterous odds to beat up bad guys, Marsh said. “But it’s different watching it now. I’m a dad, I’m in midlife.”Today, he sees the movie as much about how children can be a “colossal hand grenade” in any relationship, he said, and how families try to connect — a message at the heart of most successful Christmas movies including “Home Alone” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.”“For all the Hans Gruber-ish terrorist action,” Marsh said, “there’s an emotional truth at the center of ‘Die Hard.’”That, he added, “is probably the reason why it’s lasted as long as it has.” More

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      in Movies

      Bruce Willis Has Aphasia and Is ‘Stepping Away’ From His Career

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      The news of his diagnosis, initially announced by his ex-wife, Demi Moore, prompted an outpouring of support and appreciation for Willis from fans, stars and other notable figures.Bruce Willis, the prolific action-movie star, has been diagnosed with aphasia — a disorder that affects the brain’s language center and a person’s ability to understand or express speech — and will step away from acting, his ex-wife, Demi Moore, announced in an Instagram post on Wednesday.“To Bruce’s amazing supporters, as a family we wanted to share that our beloved Bruce has been experiencing some health issues and has recently been diagnosed with aphasia, which is impacting his cognitive abilities,” Moore’s post reads. “As a result of this and with much consideration Bruce is stepping away from the career that has meant so much to him.”“We are moving through this as a strong family unit, and wanted to bring his fans in because we know how much he means to you, as you do to him,” it continued. “As Bruce always says, ‘Live it up,’ and together we plan to do just that.”The post is signed “Emma, Demi, Rumer, Scout, Tallulah, Mabel & Evelyn” — referring to Emma Heming Willis, Willis’s wife, and his children. Moore is the mother of Rumer, Scout and Tallulah, and Heming Willis is mother to Mabel and Evelyn.The post was accompanied by a comical photo of a younger, smirking Willis wearing a bathrobe, sunglasses, a gold chain with a cross, and a towel around his head.His wife, and Rumer, Scout and Tallulah all posted the same message and image on their Instagram pages.Representatives for Willis did not respond to a request for comment.Willis, who turned 67 this month, is most famous for his role as the rough-around-the-edges, yet clever, New York City cop John McClane in the highly successful “Die Hard” movie series, made up of five films from 1988 to 2013.He has also starred in critically acclaimed films like “Pulp Fiction” (1994), “The Sixth Sense” (1999) and “Moonrise Kingdom” (2012).M. Night Shyamalan, the director of “The Sixth Sense,” has said that it was Willis’s admirably level performance in “Die Hard” that showed him that Willis could pull off the subdued child psychiatrist Malcolm Crowe in his horror-thriller, which would go on to be nominated for six Oscars, including best picture. And when Shyamalan wrote the screenplay for 2000’s “Unbreakable,” he said he did so with Willis in mind.In her New York Times review of “Pulp Fiction,” Janet Maslin said that Willis and his co-stars John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson “may all sound like known quantities, but none of them have ever had quite the opportunities this material offers.” Willis “displays a tough, agile energy when placed in the most mind-boggling situation,” she wrote.In 1997, during the last days of filming the action-thriller “Mercury Rising,” Willis told The New York Times that he was, in a way, surprised to have found success on the big screen. “When I was coming up, there were guys like Robert Redford and Paul Newman and Warren Beatty — those were movie stars,” he said. “It all got handed to me pretty quickly.” Just days later, he would begin working on the highest-grossing film of 1998, “Armageddon,” from the director Michael Bay.In 2013, when asked by GQ magazine to complete the sentence: “If I live long enough, I —,” Willis said: “should approach a bigger task than I approach now.”When asked if he has a motto, he said: “‘Live and let live’ is the closest I have. It works for pretty much everything. It has comic aspects to it and it has the real-deal aspects to it.”On Wednesday, there was an outpouring of appreciation for Willis and support for his family on social media from fans, stars and other notable figures.In response to Rumer Willis’s Instagram post, Sarah Paulson, who worked with Bruce Willis in “Glass,” Shyamalan’s 2019 sci-fi thriller, said: “He was such an incredible acting partner to me, and is the loveliest, most gentle & hilarious man. He reigns supreme in my book.” (In her Times review of “Glass,” Manohla Dargis wrote, “[Samuel L.] Jackson and especially Willis remind you again of how fine they can be when asked for more than booming shtick and smirk.”)In response to Moore’s Instagram post, Jamie Lee Curtis wrote: “Grace and guts! Love to you all!”; and Rita Wilson wrote: “My heart goes out to Bruce, and all of the family. So thankful you shared this with us. Keeping you all in our prayers.”On Twitter, Gabrielle Giffords, a gun control advocate and former congresswoman, wrote: “I’m thinking of Bruce Willis and his family today. Aphasia makes it hard for me to find the right words. It can be lonely and isolating.”The actor Seth Green tweeted, “I have so much love for Bruce Willis, and am grateful for every character he’s given us.”And the actor-director Kevin Smith wrote, “Long before any of the ‘Cop Out’ stuff, I was a big Bruce Willis fan — so this is really heartbreaking to read,” referring to his 2010 movie that Willis starred in. “He loved to act and sing and the loss of that has to be devastating for him,” Smith said. He said he felt badly about his “petty complaints from 2010.” In 2011, on the Marc Maron podcast, Smith had complained openly about working with Willis, saying that working with the action star was “soul crushing.”Thought of primarily as a movie star, Willis has received more accolades for his work on television: For his role as the private detective David Addison (played opposite Cybill Shepherd) in “Moonlighting” — an ABC comedy-drama-romance that ran from 1985 to 1989 — he earned three Golden Globe nominations, winning one, and two lead actor Emmy nominations, winning one.In a 1985 Times review of “Moonlighting,” John J. O’Connor wrote of Willis: “In repose, the actor is not your average leading-man type. He could easily be mistaken for the quiet guy down the street.”Confronted with Shepherd’s “flamboyantly insinuating” character, though, Willis “becomes almost debonair,” O’Connor wrote. “He appears to be constantly bemused, complete with twinkling eyes.”In 2000, Willis also won a guest actor in a comedy Emmy for his role as Paul Stevens, the father of Ross Geller’s much-younger girlfriend, on the NBC series “Friends.”Since 2015, his filmography has mostly been an onslaught of B-movie action productions, including “Breach,” in 2020, and “Fortress,” in 2021. According to his IMDb page, Willis currently has nearly 10 movies in postproduction. More