The 50th Anniversary HD Blu-ray edition of My Fair Lady.
Most favorite is White Christmas–my Ds started lip-syncing the “Sisters” song since they were little kids. It is now a tradition in our family–we watch on Christmas Eve afternoon.
The original Miracle on 34th Street. When Santa speaks Dutch to the adopted girl I cry with absolute predictability. White Christmas is a close 2nd and I cry on cue in that one, too. The tears start when they have the celebration for the General.
We also have Christmas on Sesame Street…and it is wonderful, we watch it almost every year,
Was just going to mention miracle on 34th st. With Natalie Wood. Love that movie.
My favorite is The Sound of Music, which really isn’t a Christmas movie, but I guess because of the song “My Favorite Things” it gets put in the category and played every Christmas. I just have to watch it if it is on!
Muppets Christmas Carol is remarkably faithful to Dickens, because it uses Gonzo as a narrator, playing Dickens. Plus, Michael Caine is a great Scrooge.
On the flip side, Jim Carrie’s version of the Grinch just hasn’t aged well in my opinion. Elf, OTOH, which came out around the same time, has become a classic—maybe it’s the Christmas in NYC angle.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (Thanksgiving)
Love Actually, A Christmas Story, Scrooge (Albert Finney musical version), The Nativity, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas (Christmas)
Avatar (New Year’s Eve)
Trading Places (New Year’s Day)
We always watch Home Alone and Sleepless in Seattle (the latter is not a Christmas movie, but somehow it became our tradition).
Raising Arizona became our New Years movie.
My kids (22 and 25) would disagree. They insist on watching this every year. I like it, but prefer the original cartoon version.
But they do also LOVE Elf.
My kids hate It’s a Wonderful Life, but I love it. I also love the musical version of A Christmas Carol, which is called Scrooge!, starring Albert Finney. “Thank you very much, thank you very much, that’s the nicest thing that anyone’s ever done for me!”
We all love Rudolph for various reasons. We can quote lines from it so easily, and it’s quite amusing.
Love Charlie Brown, especially for the music.
Also loved The Holiday, but only the Jack Black/Kate Winslet/Eli Wallach story line.
I also loved the claymation version of The Little Drummer Boy, but I haven’t seen that version in the past several years.
I think my very favorite is Scrooged, starring Bill Murray. My DH always dies laughing whenever the Ghost of Christmas Present, Karol Kane, appears with her sadist tendencies.
I usually like to watch old westerns. Favorites are probably “A few dollars more” and “once upon a time in the west”.
Two of my personal favorites are films of the short Christmas opera Amahl and the Night Visitors and The Nutcracker ballet.
When I was a kid, we had a phonograph recording of Amahl. My sister and I used to sing some of the songs from it in the car.
Love Actually, White Christmas, The Holiday, While you were sleeping, Harry Potter (I guess 'cause they mostly came out at Christmas), Christmas Story
nrdsb4—my kids, 27,24,22 hate the new Grinch–that’s why there is variety, I guess. But we all agree on Elf. Will Ferell’s over-the-top acting style is not my favorite, but it works here because he is playing a total innocent.
It’s a wonderful life is on!
My personal favorite is Miracle on 34th street. We used to watch Rudolph and Frosty most every year, but havent lately.
We like both versions of Miracle on 34th St. We also like, Unlikely Angel, with Dolly Parton…it’s a little corny, but we like watching it every year. It was on last night.
White Christmas! yes!
We also like those movies where Peter Falk plays an angel. I think there are three of them. Our fave of the three is, Finding John Christmas.
My fave is “Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol” – from Wikipedia: " a musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’s famous short story A Christmas Carol starring the character Mr. Magoo. Aside from the 1950 marionette special The Spirit of Christmas, it was the first animated holiday program ever produced specifically for television, originally airing in December 1962. …scenes are remarkably faithful to the original, with characters often speaking the lines as Dickens wrote them, and little or no simplification of the language to suit a younger or less literate audience living over a century later."
There are several lovely songs, particularly the poignant “I’m All Alone in the World”
Again from Wiki: In the Christmas Past sequence, Backus/Magoo as Scrooge sings in poignant duet with Scrooge’s younger self (sung by Marie Matthews),[7] left behind in boarding school after all the other children have gone home for Christmas. “In perhaps the most touching moment… Magoo is transported back to his childhood, where he stands side-by-side with his youthful self. He watches his ‘child’ self sing Alone in the World, tracing his hand on the blackboard, hoping to find a hand of his own to hold… the quavering elderly voice blending with the clear, sweet youthful one, the invisible Magoo putting a transparent arm around his ‘child’ [self].” [11]
A hand for each hand was planned for the world
Why don't my fingers reach?
Millions of grains of sand in the world
Why such a lonely beach? "
Another Mupets Christmas Carol fan here, except not the edited version that is out in wide screen. One of the great scenes is cut in that verison with the song When Love is Gone edited out. Just found that out last night when we got it online. Also love Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol from my childhood.