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10 Christmas movies you need to watch this holiday

Lily Murphy on April 10, 2023

Image source: British GQ

Christmas movies: As Christmas draws near, many return home to spend the holiday season with their families and loved ones.

What better way to unwind after a long day of activities than by watching Christmas movies?

Here, we examine some of the best Christmas movies to watch with loved ones.

In no particular order

Klaus (2019)

One of the more recent Christmas movies on Netflix is Klaus, an animated film exploring Santa Claus’s origins.

Oscar-winning actor JK Simmons portrays the cheerful, toy-making titular character.

However, he is uninterested in children.

Jason Schwartzman voices a postal worker, and Rashida Jones voices a cynical teacher.

Klaus received a nomination for Best Animated Feature because it has one of the most impressive animations.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)

The third Vacation film from the National Lampoon magazine, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, honors the holiday season.

The legendary comedian Chevy Chase finally returns to the role of Clark Griswold, who wants to spend the perfect Christmas with his wife and children.

When Clark’s expected holiday bonus from his job wasn’t given to him, his cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) and his family decided to crash the celebration.

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

If it excludes this Muppets film, is it still a selection of Christmas movies?

In The Muppet Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge is portrayed by legendary actor Michael Caine.

Charles Dickens is portrayed by Gonzo the Great, and Bob Cratchit is portrayed by Kermit the Frog.

This creative retelling of a well-known Christmas tale is one of the most faithful to the original, despite the presence of Muppets.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Kris Kringle plays Santa Claus in a parade on Thanksgiving in the 1947 holiday movie “Miracle on 34th Street,” which stars Edmund Gwenn.

Kringle successfully takes on the cheery holiday persona and keeps visiting Macy’s while wearing the Santa Claus costume.

He startles many by claiming to be Santa.

The next stage is for Kris Kringle to appear in court so his authenticity and mental state may be assessed.

A Christmas Story (1983)

A Christmas Story, a movie about the holiday, gained surprising popularity.

The film’s main character, little Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley), spends his holiday avoiding a bully (Zack Ward) and yearning to obtain a Red Ryer air rifle.

A sequence of vignettes from Parker’s daydreams in A Christmas Story revolves around the Parker family.

Bad Santa (2003)

In the adult comedy Bad Santa, Billy Bob Thornton and Tony Cox portray two con artists.

They loot stores on Christmas Eve while pretending to be a mall Santa and his elf as part of their most recent ploy.

Security suspects Thornton because he exhibits erratic behavior and is a depressed alcoholic.

However, after becoming friends with a little child, Thornton starts to wonder if there is still hope.

Die Hard (1988)

It would be wrong to include Die Hard from a list of Christmas movies despite being an action film.

NYC police officer John McClane (Bruce Willis) has one of the worst Christmas Eves ever when terrorists take over a skyscraper he is in.

Especially considering that this occurred right after his reconciliation with his estranged wife.

Home Alone (1990)

In a movie that many millennials certainly dreamed about, Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister gets into trouble the night before a family trip to Paris.

His mother has him spend the night in the attic as a kind of punishment.

However, after waking up, Kevin makes the most of his solitude because he believes his wish to be home alone has been granted.

When con artists (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern) plan to rob the McCallister home, Kevin’s party turns upside down.

Kevin needs to protect his home and keep the intruders out.

Elf (2003)

Elf, one of the popular Christmas movies, helped launch Will Ferrell’s career as a comic during the early 2000s.

He plays Buddy, an infant human who unintentionally ends up at the North Pole, growing up with the elves.

Buddy, who is alienated, travels to New York in search of Walter Hobbs, his cynical biological father (James Caan).

After discovering they are related, thanks to a DNA test, Walter seeks to get in touch with his long-lost son.

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Anyone looking for moving Christmas movies has to look no further than It’s a Wonderful Life.

Because the film was produced immediately following World War II, James Stewart, who played George Bailey in the drama, had a unique connection to the character.

The main character of the movie, Bailey, is so stressed out by his problems that he considers killing himself on Christmas.

Guardian angels respond to prayers for Bailey by sending Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers) to take care of him.

George is shown in the movie as someone who constantly puts the needs of others above his own.

As a result, Clarence also offers George a peek into the possible world that existed without him.

It’s a Wonderful Life is one of those classic movies that never fails to bring viewers to tears.

Reference:

The 50 best Christmas movies of all time

The Sister Swap movies, Hallmark’s most confusing Christmas flicks

Alicia Cross on December 23, 2022

Image source: TV Insider

In a more subtle way, Hallmark has earned a reputation for being as formulaic as the MCU.

Online jokes claim that the main character in Hallmark movies is usually a career-driven person who visits an old town for the holidays, runs into an old flame, and finds themselves torn between their profession and their newfound love for the simple life.

In the end, they embrace the Christmas spirit and give up their jobs.

Two Hallmark movies were recently singled out for having nearly identical stories.

The Sister Swap movies

Sister Swap: A Hometown Holiday and Sister Swap: Christmas in the City were two movies released by Hallmark last year.

Kimberly Williams-Paisley and Ashley Williams, real-life sisters, played the same characters in both movies, which were set in Christmas-themed plots.

The same editor, Kristi Shimek, also worked on the Sister Swap films, which had some of the same speech and scenes but were filmed from different perspectives.

Summaries

Some people can find it confusing when searching for the plot summaries of the Hallmark Christmas movies.

The synopsis of Sister Swap: A Hometown Holiday reads:

“Jennifer and Meg Swift are two sisters wanting to find a new sense of purpose.”

“During the Christmas holidays, they decide to swap homes and end up discovering what they both truly need in life.”

The same summary will appear if you open a different tab and search for Sister Swap: Christmas in the City.

Discovery

Dan Harmon, the creator of Community and Rick and Morty, found the identical Hallmark movies.

On Instagram, he posted about his discovery and wrote:

“Okay. I don’t know how to start or finish discussing this so we should start discussing now and take our time,” wrote Harmon.

“There are two Hallmark movies called “Sister Swap.” One is called Sister Swap: Christmas in the City, the other is Sister Swap: Hometown Holiday.”

“So we thought oh cool it’s a franchise and there’s a sequel, which Sister Swap do we watch first? Well HERE’S THE THING. Both Sister Swaps are released in 2021.”

“They are not sequels.”

“Both Sister Swaps are the same story, about sisters – played by real sisters, who have to swap… cities.”

“It should be noted that the sisters AND the cities AND the MOVIES are, so far, indistinguishable. It’s not like one is a hillbilly and the other is a millionaire, that doesn’t matter, we don’t go to Hallmark for conflict.”

“The crazy thing is that we also don’t go to Hallmark for experimentation on this level. Nothing in the description of the movie says “here’s the thing everybody.””

“The descriptions of each movie are honestly mostly excited that two real life sisters are playing sisters.”

“We found an article called “how to watch the Sister Swap movies” and got so excited and then it turned out to be instructions on how to find Hallmark on your streaming service.”

“I can’t keep talking about this, we just started watching, I can’t spend all night posting about it.”

“We keep going back and forth between the movies.”

“The same conversations are happening in each one but there’s no “Rashomon” or “Peep Show” angle, the dialogue in each version is identical but the scenes are cut differently because I assume they just had different editors.”

“In one of the movies, one of the sisters has a full flashback about her relationship with the other sister.”

“In the other sister’s movie, you don’t get a different version of the same flashback. You just don’t get a fucking flashback in that one.”

“In both movies, they spend 1 minute trying on hats but in ONE of the movies, they also try on glasses.”

“We’re freaking out and I can’t keep typing about it I will come back later i fucking love Christmas though.”

An explanation

More than 33,700 people liked Dan Harmon’s post, and in the comments, fans discussed the movie and provided their own theories.

Others were inspired to watch the movies from his post, and one commenter said that she and her boyfriend had gone all the way down the rabbit hole.

Kimberly Williams-Paisley, the star of the movie, also noticed Harmon’s post and commented, “HERE for this,” with laughing emojis.

Williams-Paisley explained:

“We wanted to do something outside the box for the genre but also stay in the genre, and my sister came up with this brilliant idea of two films that take place in the same time frame and sometimes overlap.”

“[And] it took us years to figure out the puzzle, and then, Hallmark finally let us DO IT.”

The justification offers a distinctive perspective on the direction, and the Sister Swap films’ distinctive strategy is likely to help them develop a sizable cult following.

Reference:

Hallmark is being mocked for releasing two nearly identical Christmas movies