From the lengthy list of unenviable tasks that Christmas brings, “choosing what to watch” is hardly the most labour-intensive, though it is quietly high-stakes. Finding a film that all factions of the family can enjoy – or at least endure – is a thankless task; choose a dud and you’ll be reminded of your error every Christmas for the rest of your life. (As the film critic in the family, I accept this burden.)
Small wonder, then, that many simply settle for rewatching It’s a Wonderful Life or Bridget Jones’s Diary year after year. But for those seeking to switch things up, a number of recent streamable crowdpleasers should fit the bill for families of various descriptions. Anecdotally, I already know a few people who have pencilled in the year’s biggest film, Top Gun: Maverick, for Christmas Day viewing, which makes sense. Tom Cruise’s slick flyboy reboot is new and sexy enough for teens, nostalgic enough for their parents, and undemanding enough to watch on a full stomach in a sherry-induced fog.
If you prefer your seasonal viewing just as shiny but a little less loud and brawny, Netflix’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is another safe bet for adolescent-to-adult groups. Director Rian Johnson essentially repeats the updated Agatha Christie formula of 2020’s Knives Out, with Daniel Craig ripely anchoring a glitzy cast. The whodunnit isn’t quite as cleverly mapped out this time, but nobody’s going to mind. Prefer your all-star, older-skewing Christmas watch with even more razzle-dazzle? Baz Luhrmann’s rollicking, near-blinding Elvis pulls off a tricky balance. Grandparents who grew up on Presley will find it duly respectful, but it’s sufficiently amped-up and immersive that Harry Styles devotees won’t be bored stiff.
For families with young children, finding something friendly to them that won’t seem impossibly juvenile to their elders is always tricky, but Netflix has the fix this year with Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. With its Mussolini-era setting, the Mexican auteur’s richly imaginative stop-motion animation offers a darker, more macabre take on the Carlo Collodi tale than Disney’s, but isn’t too mature for most tots. Any kids who find it too imposing have the balm of last year’s drolly seasonal Aardman short, Shaun the Sheep: The Flight Before Christmas, now also on Netflix – or the surprisingly winsome musical rompery of Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, though that’s more for keeping small fry occupied while you attend to the turkey.
Don’t have kids to contend with but fancy some musical spectacle on Christmas Day? Why not fill that slot a bit differently with RRR? Available on Netflix, SS Rajamouli’s barnstorming Bollywood action extravaganza has something for everyone, from kicky song-and-dance numbers to tooth-and-nail tiger fights. OK, it doesn’t have Lesley Manville carousing around the City of Light spreading goodness and cheer wherever she goes, but that’s where the sweetly edgeless Mrs Harris Goes to Paris comes in: not a Christmas film but made festive by its dual fixations on dressing up and gift-giving, it’s best earmarked for hungover Boxing Day viewing.
If you need a bit more dramatic heft, Martin McDonagh’s exquisite The Banshees of Inisherin hits Disney+ a few days before Christmas, and while its sometimes visceral study of a friendship curdled isn’t an obviously jolly watch, there’s something in its study of community and companionship that’s suited to viewing with loved ones once the children are in bed. For more straightforward uplift, Ron Howard’s Thirteen Lives – a sturdily rousing dramatised account of the Tham Luang cave rescue in Thailand – will get you all sobbing in unison.
Just the two of you for Christmas? Then your options broaden considerably – from Park Chan-wook’s vertiginously romantic, snow-dusted noir Decision to Leave on Mubi, to the peppier romcom chemistry of Julia Roberts and George Clooney in Ticket to Paradise. And if you’re somehow on your own, or Scrooging it through the season, perhaps allow yourself one older favourite: the ever-gladdening The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), now in a newly extended version on Disney+, guaranteed to please a crowd of 20 or one.
Also new to streaming this week
Nanny
(Amazon Prime)
Festive it is not, but Nikyatu Jusu’s intriguing debut feature is at least suitably frosty. The top prize winner at Sundance 2022, this story of a Senegalese immigrant nanny unravelling under the employment of wealthy white Manhattanites joins the growing ranks of American horror films processing racial trauma through genre tropes. Produced by mainstream horror factory Blumhouse, its mix of jump scares and subtler psychological malaise isn’t quite fluent, but atmosphere is the selling point here.
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
(BFI Player)
Earlier this month, Chantal Akerman’s serenely radical 1975 study of feminine domestic routine and rebellion surprised many by topping Sight & Sound magazine’s decennial 100 greatest films of all time list. Some were delighted; others cried perverse elitism. With the film now available to stream for the first time in the UK, you can decide for yourself — and if it’s not your cup of tea, over 50 classics from the list are now on the BFI Player, from the unbridled joy of Singin’ in the Rain to the majestic spectacle of Barry Lyndon.
Beautiful Beings
(Mubi)
A ruthlessly bullied teenage boy accepts a peer’s protective gesture of friendship, only to find himself enmeshed in complex gang hierarchies, in Icelandic director Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson’s intimately observed but crisply unsentimental coming-of-age story – Iceland’s submission for best international feature at the 2023 Oscars.
