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XMAS MOVIES
Arthur Christmas (2011)
It’s Christmas every day for Arthur, son of Sant. Sarah Smith’s humorous animation sees the clumsy kid leaving the North Pole on a mission, complete with reindeer and comedy elves. James McAvoy and Jim Broadbent provide voices.
XMAS MOVIES
A Christmas Carol (1938)
This early version of Charles Dickens’s much-told story remains one of the finest, with Reginald Owen as Ebenezer Scrooge and Gene Lockhart as Bob Cratchit. There’s something oddly comforting about watching snow fall in black and white.
XMAS MOVIES
Holiday Inn (1942)
This musical is the ultimate ’40s cheerer as Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby sing and dance their way into the ladies’ hearts. The set up is pure Broadway: they’re a musical troupe who only perform on holidays, from Easter to Christmas. The film scored an Oscar for the now iconic song ‘White Christmas’.
XMAS MOVIES
Die Hard 2 (1990)
‘How could the same shit happen to the same guy twice?’ Sure, it’s bigger, pricier and more bloated than the one that came before it – but that’s what Christmas is all about! Once again, Bruce takes down a terror gang to the tune of twinkly seasonal carols, this time in an airport.
XMAS MOVIES
While You Were Sleeping (1995)
Sandra Bullock is at her most loveable in this smart, thoughtful romcom about a lonely Chicago subway worker who rescues the man of her dreams from an oncoming train only to fall in love with his bad-tempered brother. Witty, sweet and festive – if a little stalker-y – it’s the kind of movie Hollywood has always excelled at.
XMAS MOVIES
Christmas Evil (1980)
Before Silent Night, Deadly Night, there was another horror movie about a psychopath donning a Santa costume and going on a killing spree. This is that movie. John Waters is such a megafan, he even recorded a feature-length commentary for the movie’s Blu-ray re-release in 2014.
XMAS MOVIES
About a Boy (2002)
At a glance, this Nick Hornby adaptation sounds as saccharine as Love Actually, and even shares a plot point: Hugh Grant is a louche playboy living off the money his late songwriter father made off a novelty Christmas single who eventually he learns the value of love and family through his friendship with a young boy (Nicholas Hoult). Slough it off at your peril, though – it’s sharp, spiky, funny and full of genuine heart.
XMAS MOVIES
Meet Me in St Louis (1944)
‘Have yourself a merry little Christmas,’ sang Judy Garland in this cockle-warming musical set against the backdrop of the 1904 World Fair. The breakout song wasn’t originally so cheery, but Garland and her co-stars objected to the cynical tone in lyrics such as: ‘Have yourself a merry little Christmas / It may be your last / Next year we may all be living in the past.’ Cheery.
XMAS MOVIES
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
Bad Santa is raunchier, but Christmas Vacation is possibly the most madcap Christmas comedy ever. The title is a bit of a misnomer, though: in this instalment of the Vacation franchise, the Griswold clan opts to stay at home in suburban Chicago for the holidays. But that doesn’t mean Chevy Chase, as overly ambitious patriarch Clark Griswold, can’t find a way to snatch disaster from the jaws of tranquillity. Several ways, in fact.
XMAS MOVIES
Babes in Toyland (1934)
Laurel and Hardy go family-friendly in this fairytale mash-up featuring characters from the stories of Mother Goose, Little Bo Peep and others. The duo play the Toymaker’s Apprentices in this slapstick heartwarmer, which was a Christmas TV favourite throughout the ’60s and ’70s. Just be wary of the horrifying 1986 version starring young Keanu Reeves and Drew Barrymore.
XMAS MOVIES
Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983)
This Oscar-nominated Disney short film casts Mickey as Bob Cratchit and Scrooge McDuck as his selfish boss, while Goofy, Jiminy Cricket and other familiar characters morph into the various ghosts. A nifty blending of Disney favourites with the Dickens classic.
XMAS MOVIES
A Christmas Tale (2008)
Seething with long-held resentments, an extended French family gathers for the holiday and, as the booze starts to flow, out come the knives. Don’t expect figgy pudding and sentiment: Director Arnaud Desplechin is more interested in open wounds. Paradoxically, this is a great film to watch with your clan, who are undoubtedly in a better place.
XMAS MOVIES
White Christmas (1954)
Christmas may have been white, but this time Irving Berlin’s musical was in Technicolor. Inspired by Holiday Inn, this follow-up could not be more Christmassy if it tried (and try it probably did). Snow, shows and romance all added up to a massive festive box office hit that would run and run on TV. When Clark Griswold famously promised the ‘hap-hap-happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny (expletive deleted) Kaye,’ he was talking about this gloriously old-fashioned musical
XMAS MOVIES
Klaus (2019)
This oddball origin story of Santa is the first animated feature from Netflix, and it's a doozy. Featuring Oscar winner JK Simmons as a grizzled proto-Fat Man who loves toymaking but isn't interested in children, Jason Schwartzman as an incompetent postal carrier and Rashida Jones as a cynical teacher, the film’s eye-popping art direction scored the streamer a Best Animated Feature nomination. And if the set-up sounds cynical, worry not: Icy hearts melt, fast.
XMAS MOVIES
Krampus (2015)
The closest any horror-comedy has gotten to the yuletide mania of Gremlins, Mike Dougherty’s Krampus pits a squabbling family led by Toni Collette and Adam Scott against the Scandinavian anti-Santa: A deranged goat-like demon who devours kids (and adults) on the naughty list. And while it doesn’t reach the derange heights of Joe Dante’s classic, it does include a particularly toothy killer clown sure to keep the kiddies awake well into Christmas morning.
XMAS MOVIES
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)
Scandinavia does Christmas a little differently, what with all the demons running about devouring the naughty. This overlooked horror-comedy finds a lovably Amblinesque group of kids and misfits unearthing a massive ancient monster… and an army of feral, marauding Fathers Christmas. It’s a worthy successor to Gremlins, minus the slime and with much, much more full-frontal elderly nudity. Yet for all the horrific imagery and snarling Santas, it’s a wildly inventive, even heartwarming affair from the Finnish wilderness.
XMAS MOVIES
Lethal Weapon (1987)
All hail Shane Black, the king of the fast-quipping buddy comedy-thriller, and a man who seems incapable of writing a screenplay without somehow involving Christmas. We’ll meet him again later in our list, but this is where it all started: with two bickering cops on a mission to take down drug dealers. At Christmas.
XMAS MOVIES
The Family Stone (2005)
It’s never easy going to someone else’s home for the holidays, especially when their family is abnormally close and unbearably kooky. In this fluffily entertaining dramedy, Sarah Jessica Parker is the girlfriend meeting her partner’s parents and siblings for the first time. Initially uptight and anxious, she grows more sympathetic the more you learn about the situation she’s been thrust into. Despite the Hallmark-y plotting, the movie contains some sharp observations about family dynamics and charming performances from Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams and Diane Keaton.
XMAS MOVIES
Love Actually (2003)
The film that single handedly turned Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas is You’ into a cultural juggernaut, Richard Curtis’s sprawling London ensemble piece is so sticky sweet that it’s easy to forget that each bit of holiday cheer is counterbalanced with characters destined for the naughty list. From Alan Rickman’s philandering editor to Hugh Grant’s assistant-seducing Prime Minister and Andrew Lincoln’s borderline stalker, most vignettes balance the sugar with some truly bitter spice. No matter. Like Bill Nighy’s ageing rocker says: Christmas is all around it. And it takes a bit of naughtiness to make the nice shine through anyway.
XMAS MOVIES
Black Christmas (1974)
Bob Clark’s other Christmas story might not get played on an endless loop on cable every December, but it did basically invent the modern slasher four whole years before that other holiday-themed thriller got all the credit for it. A group of college girls stay behind at the sorority house over winter break and find themselves stalked by an unseen killer – it doesn’t sound like much, but that’s only because decades of copycats turned its plot points into clichés. Trust us: it’s still genuinely unnerving.
XMAS MOVIES
Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
Loved for her columns about her wholesome husband and family in Connecticut, Elizabeth (Barbara Stanwyck) is actually a single New Yorker. When asked to host a Christmas dinner by her boss, she must head to Connecticut and keep up the pretence. Romantic complications follow.
XMAS MOVIES
The Polar Express (2004)
Robert Zemeckis sprinkled his family-friendly magic on this performance-capture animation starring Tom Hanks in multiple roles, including narrator, train conductor and Santa Claus. This one ticks a lot of boxes for Christmas fanatics, including reindeer, elves and a whole heap of snow. Zemeckis would later revisit the uncanny valley of the holidays with the Jim Carrey-starring Disney’s a Christmas Carol, but for our money this first crack at mo-cap holiday cheer is the perfect holiday heartwarmer.
XMAS MOVIES
The Holiday (2006)
Everything about this Christmas movie in which Jude Law romances Cameron Diaz in a cutesy country cottage shouldn’t work. And yet there’s something deeply charming about this festive romantic comedy. Perhaps it’s because we’ve been bullied into submission by numerous viewings; or perhaps it’s the secondary LA-set plot, which features Kate Winslet on peak form as a scorned British reporter who flirts with Jack Black and befriends a forgotten but famous screenwriter from the Golden Age of Hollywood (played by the late Eli Wallach). Either way, like a tub of Quality Street, it’s irresistible.
XMAS MOVIES
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)
Rankin and Bass’s stop-motion perennial drips with nostalgia, so much so that it’s easy to forget the cynical streak coursing through its short runtime: This is a North Pole where even Santa gets in on bullying Rudolph for his bright-red nose and a legion of elves displays a toxic amount of, um, dental-phobia toward a flamboyant would-be dentist. Throw in peppermint addict Yukon Cornelius, a whole island of misfit toys and a gnashing abominable snowman and it’s a wonder this hasn’t been revisited by Tim Burton.
XMAS MOVIES
The Santa Clause (1994)
It could have been a Cronenbergian body-horror nightmare to stand alongside The Fly: Tim Allen, having accidentally caused the death of Santa, finds his body swelling and hair growing as he involuntarily becomes Santa’s successor. Yet this schmaltzy ‘90s kid classic is far from a reverse Thinner: It’s a warmhearted tale of an overworked dad rekindling his relationship with his family in the classic Disney mode – dead Santa notwithstanding.
XMAS MOVIES
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001)
Christmas is a time for magic, and what could be more magical than Hogwarts? While some of the acting in the first of the Harry Potter adaptations leaves something to be desired, the genuine wonder of Harry and Ron at Christmas is enough to give you a frisson of festive excitement. Now, who's up for a game of Wizard’s Chess?
YouTube isn't exactly creator friendly at times, and the recent ad-related changes have pissed off many. But, still, most of us use YouTube on a daily basis. Let us look at some YouTube facts now.
YOUTUBE FACTS
In 2023, YouTube has over 2.5 billion monthly active users.
YOUTUBE FACTS
Every day, people watch over a billion hours of video on YouTube.
YOUTUBE FACTS
The average viewing session on YouTube is 40 minutes.