The Best Movies That Are Sure To Get You In The Holiday Spirit

Best medicine to avoid being a Scrooge.

The holiday season is finally here!

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And there's no better way to get in the spirit than watching Christmas movies.

The love and joy, and melancholy that make the season are all abound.

It's a Wonderful Life

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This movie initially bombed at the box office. It was a bomb so bad that the studio didn't renew their copyright of it so it entered the public domain. And since tv networks didn't have to buy the rights to it, they aired it every year, and thus a tradition was born.

Little Women (2019)

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Little Women is meant for Christmastime. The story of the four March sisters in their youth and as they grow up is a timeless and classic tale. There have been four film adaptations of Louisa May Alcott's groundbreaking novel, and every one of them is a classic in it's own right. But for my money, the best is the most recent adaptation, Greta Gerwig's from 2019.

Meet Me in St. Louis

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This film is about a year in the life of the Smith family in turn of the century St. Louis, as Mr. Smith contemplates moving the family to New York for work. And it has some of Judy Garland's best numbers, like "The Boy Next Door", "The Trolley Song", and, the now Christmas standard, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". That's right! This is the origin of one of the best Christmas songs of all time.

The Shop Around the Corner

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If you love You've Got Mail, then you should watch the original story. Two shop workers in Budapest hate each other, but are secretly pen pals, complete with the Lubitsch touch.

Holiday Affair

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Love triangles! Janet Leigh and Robert Mitchum are charming in this holiday rom com as a war widow single mom who is a secret shopper and a veteran as a new shop clerk who catches her. She has to decide if she wants to stay with her safe lawyer boyfriend, or take a risk on the hardened Mitchum.

Elf

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Elf is a modern Christmas classic. Just a great comedy with a soul, which is what Christmas movies need to make it sing. Will Ferrell has never been better, and James Caan is wonderful as his long lost dad.

The Muppet Christmas Carol

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One of the best adaptations of the classic Charles Dickens tale. The way Muppet movies succeed is how well the cast around them treats them like real people. And boy does Michael Caine nail it. He is giving it everything and it makes the movie soar.

White Christmas

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Now, this film isn't where the song "White Christmas" comes from. That honor goes to another Bing Crosby movie called Holiday Inn. But, since that song is one of the most popular songs of all time, some people got together and decided to make a movie based on it. And thus White Christmas, the movie, was born.

The Holdovers

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I know this movie just came out, but I think it deserves the honor. It's set at Christmas but not really about Christmas. And it has that bittersweet quality that makes some of the best Christmas movies, because the holidays can be a bittersweet time for a lot of people.

A Christmas Story

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No holiday feels complete if you don't at least tune into this marathon for a little bit. We want to see the moments that are now so iconic. The leg lamp, the kid sticking his tongue to the telephone pole, every time Ralphie begs for the bb gun and someone says, "you'll shoot your eye out".

What are your favorite Christmas movies?