With the holidays in full swing, our levels of snark, cynicism, and jadedness—typically off the charts—are mellowing with each successive cup of hot cocoas and new listen of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
Now that we’re fully embracing our freshly earnest selves, The Daily Beast’s Obsessed staff is sharing the spirit. After dashing through the snow and into pure nostalgia, we decided to offer our list of the best family-friendly holiday movies you can stream right now. Here’s our favorites:
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Streaming on Apple TV+
There’s something about the vibes of A Charlie Brown Christmas that are just perfect. It projects nostalgia for when you were young and the holidays were all about joy and play, while also harnessing extremely grown-up and difficult feelings of melancholy and loneliness that can be emblematic of this time of year. Key to that, of course, is Vince Guaraldi’s indelible music, which moves nimbly between bouncy and jaunty, and the stirring profundity of “Christmas Time Is Here.” Whether or not you’re religious, Linus’ speech is an incredible reminder of the reason for the season that I return to each year. —Kevin Fallon
Dashing Through the Snow
Streaming on Disney+
Introduce the kids to Ludacris with his most family friendly work to date: Dashing Through the Snow, a brand new Christmas romp from Disney. Ludacris stars as Eddie, a grumpy man who has a lot of baggage surrounding the winter holiday season. He hates celebrating Christmas. Eddie’s daughter, however, is a big fan—and her love swells when the real Santa Claus (Lil Rel Howery) arrives in their chimney on Christmas Eve. Dashing Through the Snow somehow blends a political thriller into the mix of its comedic storyline. If you’re in need of a new holiday film this year to freshen up the pot, look no further than Dashing Through the Snow—just don’t let the kiddos search for any of Ludacris’ music. —Fletcher Peters
Elf
Streaming on Max
It’s amazing that, despite an absolute glut of recent holiday movies, almost none of them have become legitimate classics—save, that is, for Elf, director Jon Favreau’s 2003 Christmas fable. Elf is about a human orphan named Buddy (Will Ferrell) who’s raised at the North Pole alongside Santa’s elves, and embarks upon a fish-out-of-water odyssey in Manhattan to find, and develop a relationship with, the tough publishing-industry biological dad (James Caan) he never knew. Ferrell’s absurdist childlike humor, his combative and sweet chemistry with, respectively, Caan and love interest Zooey Deschanel, and a New York City-style Yuletide-spirit finale that always brings a tear to the eye all help make the film required end-of-year viewing. —Nick Schager
Frozen
Streaming on Disney+
Frozen isn’t technically a Christmas movie, but let’s not pretend we’re all watching this classic Disney animated movie in the middle of the year. Frozen was made for the holiday season. This year is actually the best time to catch up with Anna (Kristen Bell) and Elsa (Idina Menzel), seeing as the movie turns 10 years old in 2023. Okay, that just made me feel old. There are reindeers, ice sculptures, holly jolly songs, and plenty of blizzards. Maybe there’s no Santa and no other indication of holiday festivities, but isn’t the cozy winter landscape enough? —FP
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966)
Streaming on Peacock
How anyone could go even one year without re-watching this holiday classic is beyond me.
Director Chuck Jones hit every note right with this one, especially by casting the great Boris Karloff as both the cheeky narrator and our titular green grumpus. Beyond Karloff’s growling performance, there’s also the animation, which evokes the spirit of Dr. Seuss with its expressive playfulness and brilliant flashes of color. (Who could forget the Grinch’s menacing grin as he first hatches his “wonderful, AWFUL idea” to ruin the Whos’ festivities, which stretches all the way across his head and even into the tufts on the top of his head?) But most importantly, there’s the indomitable, hopeful spirit of the Whos themselves, who respond to the Grinch’s meddling by doubling down on cheer, a message many of us could use each and every year. —Laura Bradley
Jingle All the Way
Streaming on Disney+
Maybe it’s because I’m a 1994 baby with an affinity for things that are nostalgically ’90s, or maybe it’s because I’m a Midwesterner who loves a Minnesota Christmas, but I love the absolutely absurd Jingle All the Way. (It is probably for those aforementioned reasons and because Arnold Schwarzenegger was a gay awakening, I won’t deny it.) Schwarzenegger stars as a beleaguered Minneapolis mattress salesman named Howard who has been working so hard that he forgot it’s almost Christmas. Whoops! The stores have been cleaned out, and now his son won’t have the Turbo Man action figure he’s been dying to get all year. Somehow, this bonkers movie takes place over the course of one morning where Howard runs all over the Twin Cities, getting into a wealth of hijinks alongside costar Sinbad, trying to find a genuine Turbo Man before Christmas. The movie is definitely silly, but its jokes are still (mostly) funny, and the physical comedy really holds up. A perfect choice for kids and adults, and one that’s not overly familiar for either party. —Coleman Spilde
Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas
Streaming on Disney+
I’m not much of a holiday person, let alone a holiday movie person—blame it on being the agnostic daughter of an interfaith, divorced couple, with a December birthday that more easily took precedence. I think that’s why I’m drawn to movies imbued with the same sense of melancholy I tend to feel throughout the season. Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas, a 1999 anthology film, has always resonated with me for its reflections of the frustration and disappointment that often accompanies the holidays. (A movie that adapts “The Gift of the Magi” is, unsurprisingly, not one filled with unfettered cheer.) While the three separate stories of Donald, Goofy, and Mickey’s Christmases don’t end in abject disaster—this is a Disney joint, after all—each character’s road toward achieving a happy holiday is paved with realistic amounts of gray. Watching this beautiful Mickey Mouse movie is a valuable, grounded, touching experience that the family can appreciate together. —Allegra Frank
A Smoky Mountain Christmas
Streaming on YouTube
Dolly Parton has become somewhat known for her love of Christmas, particularly little, efficient holiday celebrations in the form of television specials and streaming movies like Christmas on the Square and Dolly Parton’s Christmas of Many Colors. But it’s her 1986 TV movie A Smoky Mountain Christmas that really stands out from all of the other joyful jubilations she’s put her two big baubles into. The film, which was directed by Henry Winkler, stars Dolly as a version of herself: a country music star named Lorna Davis who is so worn down by tabloid rags and commercialized music video shoots that she runs off to a friend’s cabin in the Smoky Mountains for the holidays. It’s there that she discovers seven orphans squatting in the place, and Lorna’s got to figure out why the orphans have run away from their orphanage, all while avoiding a sleazy paparazzo and a mountain witch—literally named Jezebel—who wants Lorna gone for attracting the men in town. A Smoky Mountain Christmas is a heartwarming hoot from start to finish. —C.S.
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