30 Movies to Get You Through the Holidays

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30 Movies to Get You Through the Holidays copyright © 2012 by Roger Ebert. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

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Contents

Introduction

Key to Symbols

Bad Santa

Bridget Jones’s Diary

Christmas in the Clouds

A Christmas Story

A Christmas Tale

Comfort and Joy

The Dead

Disney’s A Christmas Carol

Elf

Fanny and Alexander

Gremlins

Hannah and Her Sisters

Home for the Holidays

The Ice Harvest

It’s a Wonderful Life

Joyeux Noel

Little Women

Love Actually

The Muppet Christmas Carol

Nothing Like the Holidays

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

The Polar Express

Prancer

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

The Ref

Scrooge

The Thin Man

This Christmas

Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas

What’s Cooking?

Introduction

The notion of movies to “get you through the holidays” sounds rather dour, especially since some of my choices are about people who are having problems getting through the holidays.

Many of these films have one thing in common: The holidays represent the only time of the year when families, especially those with buried issues, get together at all. A typical family film in the genre airs all the dirty laundry and opens all the old wounds.

One curiosity I’ve noticed is that Thanksgiving films are more likely to tilt toward the emotionally fraught, and Christmas films are more likely to be comedies and heart-warmers.

Setting that aside, some of these titles are just plain great films, no matter what. For example, What’s Cooking?; The Thin Man; Planes, Trains and Automobiles; and John Huston’s heartbreaking final film, The Dead.

One of these is just plain bizarre—Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. Bad Santa pushes right through the boundaries of good taste.

The real sleeper here is Nothing Like the Holidays, about a Hispanic family in Chicago.

And the gob-smacker is The Polar Express, with Robert Zemeckis showing a virtuoso command of motion-capture animation. Yes, there’s a reason so many characters look like Tom Hanks.

ROGER EBERT

Key to Symbols

A great film

G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17

: Ratings of the Motion Picture Association of America

G

Indicates that the movie is suitable for general audiences

PG

Suitable for general audiences but parental guidance is suggested

PG-13

Recommended for viewers 13 years or above; may contain material inappropriate for younger children

R

Recommended for viewers 17 or older

NC-17

Intended for adults only

141 m.

Running time

2011

Year of theatrical release

Bad Santa ½

R, 93 m., 2003

Billy Bob Thornton (Willie T. Soke), Tony Cox (Marcus), Bernie Mac (Gin Slagel), Lauren Graham (Sue), John Ritter (Mall Manager), Brett Kelly (The Kid), Cloris Leachman (Grandma). Directed by Terry Zwigoff and produced by Sarah Aubrey, John Cameron, and Bob Weinstein. Screenplay by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra.

The kid gives Santa a carved wooden pickle as a Christmas present.