When the songs are on repeat, the stores are overcrowded, and if you can’t pull off green and red, this time of year can be a real drag. Do you find yourself dreading the holidays? Or maybe just feeling cheer-weary from all the merriment? Would you describe yourself as emotionally snowed-in? You’re in good company.
There’s no rule that everyone needs to love tinsel, Christmas carols, baking cookies, or buying presents. Seasonal burnout is all too real. Maybe it’s the alone time you love, or the excuse to buy yourself a nice present, or maybe you even like this time of year but prefer to take a more measured approach. Whatever the case, there are plenty of holiday (and holiday-ish) movies and shows made just for you.
Press on if you want to watch nontraditional viewpoints on the season, revel in someone else’s family drama, see coldhearted people find the holiday spirit, or enjoy a story with only a touch of Christmas in the background.
How about a holiday rom-com that’s a bit sour? Thea (Ida Ursin-Holm) and her fiancé, Jashan (Kanan Gill), go to Thea’s hometown in Norway for Christmas so her mother can meet Jashan and Thea can break the news that they’re getting married. Immediately, Thea’s mother, Anne-Lise (Marit Adeleide Andreassen), has trouble remembering Jashan’s name, let alone how to pronounce it. From there, the cultural differences between Jashan’s Indian upbringing and Thea’s Norwegian one only get more pronounced. Add in that Thea’s ex, Jørgen (Mads Sjøgård Pettersen), lives right next door, and her mom still thinks they should be together, making this a rough holiday — and a rocky start to spending their lives together.
If you’ve ever considered the cost of the holidays and what else you could do with that money, this movie is for you. Luther and Nora Krank (Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis) decide that if their only daughter can’t join them for Christmas this year, they’ll skip the decorations, the presents, the tree, the charity donations, the parties, and all the other expensive aspects of the holidays and take a cruise instead. Staying strong among friends and neighbors who expect the Kranks to showcase their usual seasonal flair isn’t easy. But things take a dramatic turn when their daughter announces the day before Christmas that she’s coming home after all.
Christmas with the family is considerably less glamorous when there’s that one person who just can’t seem to get it together. Jenny (Anna Kendrick), an aimless twentysomething, moves in with her brother Jeff (Joe Swanberg) and his novelist wife, Kelly (Melanie Lynskey), around the holidays. Jeff and Kelly hope Jenny can help with their two-year-old, but it becomes clear that Jenny is prone to making bad decisions. Despite her skepticism, Kelly works with Jenny on an idea for a book and finds that her sister-in-law may be a train wreck, but she’s not a bad person. With a bit of grace and patience, they might even be capable of being a decent little family.
Some of us hope the holidays will go by quickly and cause as little damage as possible, but this movie asks, what if it’s the rest of the year that flies by? Chuy (Mauricio Ochmann), a selfish father and husband, hates Christmas because his birthday is on Christmas Eve. Grumpy and fed up with his family’s complaints and demands, he leaves Christmas Eve dinner and goes to a bar, where the bartender (Manu Nna) claims to be his “diva godmother,” telling Chuy he’s on the naughty list. He casts a spell, and when Chuy wakes, it’s still Christmas Eve, but a whole year has gone by. Thus begins a loop of Christmas Eves, and it’s up to Chuy to break the curse by not being so incessantly negative. If you like this one, check out the original Brazilian film, Just Another Christmas.
Raúl (Tamar Novas) is an auditor, and for multiple reasons, he hates Christmas. Each year, he plans a beach getaway to avoid the festivities. His boss asks him to do one last job before leaving for his latest trip, sending him to Valverde, Spain, a town known for its over-the-top Christmas celebration. The townspeople are abundantly kind to Raúl, and when he audits their turrón factory and finds some discrepancies, he gives them a chance to fix their mistakes. He’s most charmed by a teacher (and giant Nativity scene enthusiast) named Paula (Andrea Ros). His tough exterior starts to melt, but not everyone wants him to stay in town longer than he has to.
Dickens coined the exclamation “bah, humbug” and introduced us to Christmas’s biggest hater, and here we get his Christmas Carol in vivid animation. The grumpy miser Ebenezer Scrooge (Luke Evans) spends a Christmas Eve with the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, who show him who he used to be and where his current attitude will lead him — a sad, lonely grave without a friend to call his own. With its lovely musical numbers and creative animation, this version of the classic makes for easy viewing.
Netflix’s first holiday special was this 2015 Christmas flick, directed by Sofia Coppola and starring Bill Murray as himself — an entertainer trying to put on a Christmas special at the Carlyle Hotel amid a snowstorm. Depressed and with no enthusiasm for performing, he tries all he can to get out of the broadcast. Throughout the night of mishaps, he runs into celebrity guests who perform with him, including Chris Rock, Jenny Lewis, and Maya Rudolph. There’s even a dream sequence with George Clooney and Miley Cyrus.
This thrilling spy series has just enough Christmas to contrast well with its story of cold-blooded murderers and ruthless assassins. Keira Knightley is Helen Webb, the wife of the Secretary of State for Defence of the United Kingdom and a “black dove” — an undercover spy planted among people of power to pass on valuable information. Helen learns that the man she loves and has been having an affair with has been murdered, possibly because of his association with her. Calling on an old spy friend, Sam (Ben Whishaw), Helen is determined to track down his killers and get revenge.
As Die Hard has taught us, an action film set at Christmas can qualify as a Christmas movie if you want it to. Ethan Kopek (Taron Egerton) decides to assert himself at his job as a TSA security officer at LAX airport. His girlfriend, Nora (Sofia Carson), is pregnant, and he’s feeling the pressure to provide. Ethan is assigned to a baggage-scanning machine in the midst of the Christmas Eve rush, where he finds a lone earpiece in a bin. He gets a text message to put it in his ear, and a man called the Traveler (Jason Bateman) explains that Ethan needs to let a particular bag get through security — or Nora will die. Ethan has to follow the Traveler’s orders and keep Nora safe while also working to prevent a deadly attack. There’s more than just holiday travel pressure ramping up the anxiety in this one.
This series falls in that delightful subgenre of Christmas horror. Jose Svane is a young girl on a family Christmas trip to the remote island of Aarmandsø. When they arrive, Jose’s father hits something in the road, but they can’t find any sign of it. Concerned, Jose goes back and comes across a baby elf that she keeps a secret and names Kee-ko. The longer they stay on the island, the more they see just how odd the locals are, and when people start dying, they realize that elves exist — and they aren’t friendly.
Obviously, a depressed, self-loathing alcoholic like BoJack Horseman isn’t going to be a fan of Christmas. In this special released after the show’s first season, BoJack (Will Arnett) is content to spend the holiday in bed. But his roommate, Todd (Aaron Paul), insists they watch a Christmas special from BoJack’s old sitcom Horsin’ Around. It’s a particularly somber episode in which one of the kids BoJack’s character adopted writes to Santa, wishing her parents were alive again. BoJack’s cold, cynical heart thaws somewhat as he watches himself play the compassionate creature he used to be.
