Christmas movies are hard to define yet easy to recognize. If you were to draw a Venn diagram of the genre, with one circle labeled “takes place during the holidays” and the other “themes of hope and redemption,” you might find Miracle on 34th Street at the very center. It’s a Wonderful Life would also live in the overlapping area, along with A Christmas Story—which still plays for 24 consecutive hours on TBS and TNT every year—and perhaps a Dickens adaptation or two.
Discovering a new classic is a tall order. (If it’s already a classic, why would it need to be discovered?) But if you’re willing to stretch the definition of “Christmas movie” just a little bit, possibilities begin to unfold. Keep the holiday milieu and the redemptive theme, but allow for a little melancholy amid the magic, and you’ve got plenty of alternatives to the familiar, comforting formula of a Hallmark special or a Christmas pageant.
To that end, here are 12 movies just outside the canon that beg for inclusion in this year’s holiday watch list. They vary enough in tone and subject to appeal to almost every mood and whim. Though none of them directly dramatize the birth of Christ, they are yoked together by a common yearning for salvation.
When her trial is postponed until after the holidays, a petty larcenist (Barbara Stanwyck) spends Christmas with the lawyer (Fred MacMurray) assigned to prosecute her. The setup sounds perfectly contrived, but screenwriter Preston Sturges spins it into a scenario with surprising emotional punch. The movie’s beating heart is an extended visit to a family farm in which the woman confronts everything that’s been missing from her life. The irresistible warmth of this passage, which includes a rendition of a parlor song crooned by Sterling Holloway (the voice of Winnie the Pooh), could melt the hardest ice. | Watch on Prime Video.
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1941)
Hospitality is a key theme among Christmas movies for its connection to the Nativity story. If the innkeeper hadn’t offered Mary and Joseph the stable, where would our Savior have been born? This virtue is put to the test in this spirited farce, in which a self-centered, razor-tongued radio celebrity (memorably played by Monty Woolley, repeating his Broadway role) is forced to spend Christmas in the home of a Midwestern family after sustaining a hip injury. Hilarity ensues, romance blossoms, and justice prevails in an ironic ending that forces everybody to learn their lesson. | Watch on Tubi.
Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
A lifestyle columnist (Barbara Stanwyck again) who has constructed a persona as the ideal housewife despite knowing next to nothing about keeping house must fake her way through a Christmas dinner when a GI (Dennis Morgan) visits her house. (The premise could easily work today if you swapped columnist for influencer.) What makes the film rise above its cute conceit is its poignant but understated glimpse into American life during World War II, with its unspoken longing for comfort and connection. | Watch on Prime Video.
Come to the Stable (1949)
Though it may be a stretch to label this one a Christmas movie, this postwar drama about two French nuns who enlist the residents of a small New England town to build a children’s hospital deserves closer consideration. The film begins magically with the two sisters (Loretta Young and Celeste Holm) emerging from the snowy plains on a moonlit night and contains enough peace and good will toward men to fill a dozen pictures. Also, the New England town is called Bethlehem. | Watch on Prime Video.
The Holly and the Ivy (1952)
Family reunions are an unavoidable motif of the holiday genre, but few movies capture the complex feelings that can attend such gatherings. This finely wrought British drama, in which an aging clergyman (Ralph Richardson) contends with a series of revelations concerning his three grown children during a Christmas visit, demonstrates the need for repentance as well as forgiveness. It uses the titular folk carol to demonstrate the power of the holiday to cut as well as to heal: “The holly bears a prickle, as sharp as any thorn …” | Watch on Prime Video.
Shower of Stars: “A Christmas Carol” (1954)
No Dickens adaptation can hold a candle to the 1951 Scrooge starring Alastair Sim (sorry, Kermit!) but here’s one worth rescuing from obscurity: an hourlong episode of the variety series Shower of Stars starring Fredric March as Scrooge and Basil Rathbone as Marley’s ghost. Those unfamiliar with the glory of live television may balk at the black-and-white kinescope presentation, but the drama survives intact. Its greatest strength is its music: a score by the great Bernard Herrmann and lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, who also wrote the teleplay. The result is a production whose soundtrack can be enjoyed independently of the visuals. | Watch on Prime Video.
Pocketful of Miracles (1961)
While it doesn’t match the emotional wonder of the original Lady for a Day, Frank Capra’s color remake is far more Christmasy. An elderly fruit peddler (Bette Davis) enlists the help of a local gangster (Glenn Ford) to transform her into an elegant society lady so her daughter won’t be ashamed of her when she visits with her rich fiancé. It’s a rare Hollywood film in which duplicity is presented as a virtue, and while it falls short of the magisterial It’s a Wonderful Life (Capra’s masterpiece), it has gained a small cult following. | Watch on Prime Video and Pluto.
ABC Stage 67: “A Christmas Memory” (1966)
Truman Capote narrates this adaptation of his own novella, a nostalgic, autobiographical account of his childhood relationship with a distant and eccentric relative. Most of the narrative revolves around the quest to make the perfect fruitcake, but there are emotional depths to the deceptively simple story. There is a remake in the 1990s starring Patty Duke, but the one with Geraldine Page, who won an Emmy, is the true classic. | Watch on YouTube.
Comfort and Joy (1984)
This sly Scottish dramedy, written and directed by the inimitable Bill Forsyth, is an offbeat holiday treat that connoisseurs seem to be keeping to themselves. Set in the days leading up to Christmas, the story involves a Glasgow radio deejay (Bill Paterson) who finds himself caught in the middle of a turf war between competing ice cream franchises. The themes here are reconciliation and renewal; the comedy is understated but richly quirky. | Watch on Hoopla.
The Dead (1987)
A Christmas party in Dublin at the turn of the 20th century is the backdrop for John Huston’s final film, a brilliant adaptation of James Joyce’s celebrated short story. The dinner gathering is rendered in warm, dusky tones and garlanded with a variety of sharply etched characterizations by some of Ireland’s finest actors. The film gracefully transitions into a profound meditation on the transience of life and the precious gift of memory. It may prove a bit melancholy for some tastes, but the rewards are ample. | Watch on Prime Video and Tubi.
Joyeux Noel (2005)
The 1914 Christmas truce is the subject of this Oscar-nominated French drama in which French, British, and German soldiers spontaneously lay down their arms to exchange carols instead of artillery shells. The fact-based story is a moving reminder that Christmas is about the promise of peace on earth, inaugurated by the arrival of Jesus. When Diane Kruger sings to her lover in the trenches, the voice belongs to French soprano Natalie Dessay, and the result is transcendent. | Watch on Netflix, Prime Video, and Tubi.
Christmas, Again (2014)
This low-key, low-budget, low-stakes indie drama captures the isolation that many people feel during the holidays. The center of attention is a lonely 30-something (Kentucker Audley) in New York City whose seasonal job as a Christmas tree retailer keeps him teetering on the edge of a breakdown. Modest and observational, the film unfolds with a series of encounters with a variety of colorful shoppers, one of which becomes a catalyst for renewal. The pleasure of this virtually plotless character study is in waiting to see the needle move—ever so slightly—away from despair and toward hope. | Watch on Prime Video.
Nathaniel Bell manages the internship program and teaches film history for the Snyder School of Cinema & Media Arts at Biola University. He lives in Whittier, California, with his wife and three sons.
