List: My Favorite Holiday Movies
There’s nothing I love better during the holiday season than wrapping up in a warm blanket beside the glistening tree with a cuppa in my hand, and watching a great film. There are several (um, make that 15) movies that are Christmas staples for me. Not all are technically “Christmas” films, but each feature Christmas in some way or another.
Love Actually has got to be my all-time favorite romantic comedy. It follows the slightly interwoven lives of eight Londoners. I laugh, I cry, and I feel all warm and fuzzy but also sad at the same time: this movie is perfection (as is the cast–Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Laura Linney, Kiera Knightley and more). The British not only do television amazingly, their films are fantastic as well.
Kate Winslet makes everything better, but this film is just so … *sighs longingly* The Holiday follows the lives of two very different women in two countries: England and America. Deciding that they’ve had enough of their lives and want something different for the holiday season, they decide to swap houses for two weeks. Iris (Kate Winslet) leaves snowy rural Surrey and travels to sunny Los Angeles, while Amanda (Cameron Diaz) vacates Beverly Hills for a tiny English cottage. Iris is running from Jasper (Rufus Sewell) a man she has desperately loved for years but has just announced his engagement to another woman. Amanda is running from her cheating boyfriend (Ed Burns). But then Amanda meets Iris’ older brother Graham (Jude Law) and Iris meets Amanda’s colleague Miles (Jack Black) and things take an unexpected turn. I really, really, really want Kate and Jack to do another film together. Their chemistry is right up there with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in my book.
Serendipity is not really a Christmas movie per se, but our couple meet while Christmas shopping and the movie ends around the same time of year so to me it’s perfect for the holiday season. In the course of one magical evening, Jonathan (Cusack) and Sara (Beckinsale) meet unexpectedly … then part without expectation when she decides they must let fate determine if they are meant to be together. Years later, they are both engaged to others but cannot give up the dream that — despite time, distance, and the obstacles that conspire to keep them apart — they will one day meet again.
I love musicals, and Irving Berlin’s White Christmas gives us one of the most-loved Christmas songs (though truth be told, Holiday Inn first featured the tune White Christmas). Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye are song-and-dance men who hook up, romantically and professionally, with a “sister” act (Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen) to put on a Big Show to benefit the struggling ski-resort lodge run by the beloved old retired general (Dean Jagger) of their WWII Army outfit. This film really doesn’t have a great deal of plot, but the music alone makes it wonderful.
Even More!
What are you favorite films of the holiday season?
