[music]
Downloaded from YTS.MX
[Christmas music]
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
Christmas is...
Well, it's about the best time of the whole year.
[Tom] No matter when they take place, modern era or period,
Christmas movies and television specials are always about
someone who has lost their faith in humankind,
regaining it, saved by other people being kind
because it's Christmas.
[Chris] Christmas is the landscape
that everybody wants to paint.
Everyone who tells stories is attracted to
the heightened emotions that it brings.
[Aisha] Nostalgia plays such a huge part in Christmas
because it is part of so many people's childhoods.
And being able to go back and relive those feelings every year
by watching holiday movies is just...
joy.
[Phil] A Christmas Story is one of the best movies about
nostalgia, family and Christmas.
♪ Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way ♪
A Christmas Story, I watch it every year
at least twice. It's. like, the script of my life.
-Can we go now? Can we go? -Yes, we can go now.
It brings out every childhood wonder and hurt
that you can imagine.
[Class] Good morning, Mrs. Sheilds.
[Renee] I can't think of another movie that gets childhood so
perfectly, that weird sort of age
where it's like nine years old.
Hey, listen, smartass.
[Renee] Where Ralphie swears, uses bad words,
but he actually still believes in Santa Claus.
Yeah, I'll ask Santa.
[Alonso] It taps into a
universal kid experience of Christmas.
Writing essays about the thing that you want
like a Red Ryder BB gun.
I want an official Red Ryder, carbine action, 200-shot
range model air rifle!
[Phil] It really does capture wanting that gift
that you know your parents don't want you to have.
No, you'll shoot your eye out.
Ralphie is facing resistance from all corners.
His teacher.
[Adult Ralphie] You'll shoot your eye out?
-The department store Santa. -You'll shoot your eye out, kid.
It's a great, simple story mostly told from the
-kid's point of view. -Ho, ho, ho.
It's funny and sweet, but cinematically really original.
[screams]
God, it's hard to beat Home Alonefor me.
McCauley Culkin, iconic performance.
This house is so full of people, it makes me sick.
[David] Home Alone is about what if you've gone away
for the holidays--
What else can we be forgetting?
--and you forgot your child?
-Kevin! -I've made my family disappear.
[David] Just the fun and the hijinks of that film,
it is on the Mount Rushmore of holiday movies.
I remember just thinking that I was fully transported into,
like, this could actually happen to me as a five-year-old.
It was terrifying, that idea, but also, so exciting.
[Alonso] Being liberated from family responsibilities,
but at the same time taking on family responsibilities
to protect the home and repel the bad guys.
It becomes basically a Looney Tunes cartoon.
You guys give up? Or are you thirsty for more?
At the same time, you're also seeing his mom
desperate trying to get home.
I've been from Chicago to Paris, to Dallas,
-to where the hell am I? -Scranton.
[Jacqueline] Finally, Kevin's walking alone in his
neighborhood and he realizes that it used to be home alone
in celebration. And now it's home alone missing his family.
And that really is what makes it such a great Christmas movie
and not just a kid attacking the bandits movie.
[Lorraine] Home Alone really established John Hughes
as somebody that had the holiday-Christmas theme down.
What we're looking for today
is the Griswald family Christmas tree.
[Lorraine] National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
is essentially about how being around family makes you crazy.
[Chris] The stress of being with your extended family,
making sure the lights are right.
Make sure all the kids are getting along.
Nobody could do that the way John Hughes could.
Oh!
[Clea] It's a very relatable movie
because there is so much pressure
that we all put on the holidays.
[Alonso] And of course, inChristmas Vacation,
it's just one catastrophe after another.
-Oh, hey. -Is he drunk?
The Best Man Holiday is actually the second film
within the Best Man franchise.
No, no dessert yet. Not until we do our talent show.
[Jacqueline] And that Christmas talent show
shows just how within the culture that movie was.
♪ Can you stand the rain
[Jacqueline] It's like, of course you're gonna do
the New Edition classic, Can You Stand The Rain.
[David] It was emotional. It was funny.
It was a like a box of holiday chocolates.
-No. -Come on.
-No. -Why?
Christmas comedies run the gamut of different kinds
of stories and different tones.
-Can you help me? -Ah, yes.
-Mary. -Mary had a little-
-No, Merry Christmas. -Merry Christmas.
[Ann] I think what people come to a Christmas movie to find
is the humor plus the heart.
Buddy-- I think there is something
I probably should tell you.
[Kenneth] I considerElf to be a modern Christmas classic.
I mean, even trying to describe it makes me laugh.
[Alonso] It rides this fine tight rope between this sweetly
magical movie about someone who wholeheartedly
believes in the Christmas spirit.
A lot of people down South don't believe in Santa Claus.
What?
But it also is a movie about this big, tall dork
in an elf costume making his way through Manhattan
with no idea what's going on.
You look like you came from the North Pole.
That's exactly where I came from!
It's a very traditional package for a Christmas movie
built around the subversive heart of Will Ferrell.
And there's something kind of delightful about that.
Tomorrow morning, 10:00 AM, Santa's coming to town!
Santa! Oh my God!
Santa here? I know him!
He found the edge in a very innocent character.
And to me, that's what's so fun about it.
I know him!
The movies I grew up with, like Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindeer--
that to me seemed like a hook.
Buh-bye.
Let's treat this movie like it's a guy who grew up
in a 1960's Christmas special.
[Man] Kirby!
[Jon] And it was also an opportunity to explore
visual effects with forced perspective.
[Class] There's room for everyone on the nice list.
[Jon] And stop motion, all very old techniques.
This might be the golden opportunity to find out
who you really are.
[Jen] I didn't like Rudolf. It's a classic kind of
fish-out-of-water story, but Will Ferrell just
brings so much to it.
-Come with me. -Right.
All he wants is to be accepted and believed.
And at the end of the movie, we get to see all these
people who come to believe.
There is that consistent Christmas element inElf
of change, of realization.
Merry Christmas! Ho, ho, ho!
[music]
Santa Claus in the movies is kind of the direct
result of obviously centuries of history, of mythology.
He is a jolly man who lives in the North Pole, and his cheeks
are rosy, and he brings this kind of magical place
where anything is possible.
♪ Jingle bells, jingle bells
[Tim] The best of these Christmas movies use Santa
to raise questions of faith.
And in Miracle on 34th Street, this question of faith is
put on trial.
Before you up on the floor, I just want to give you
a few tips on how to be a good Santa Claus.
Go right ahead.
To have Santa Claus convince you that he is, in fact,
Kris Kringle, you have to go on a faith journey.
There goes Santa Claus.
Oh, don't even mention the name.
[Alonso] Young Natalie Wood, in one of her first screen
appearances, has been raised to be a clear-eyed realist.
No Santa Claus, no fairy tales, no fantasies of any kind.
-Is that it? -That's right.
This movie is reflective of a very specific time
in American history. This is the end of World War II.
Many people are scarred emotionally and otherwise.
And the country's trying to find its way again.
Oh, Christmas isn't just a day, it's a frame of mind.
The Christmas spirit is in trouble. It's waning.
Would you please tell her that you're not really Santa Claus?
The idea that a child would be raised in a world
without fantasy is not unheard of.
Children, like everyone else, had just lived through
this horrifying, world-spanning conflict.
I'm sorry. She doesn't speak English. She's Dutch.
She just came over.
This young girl is a war refugee. She's an orphan.
-Hello. [speaking Dutch] -[speaking Dutch]
[Tim] Kris Kringle starts speaking in colloquial Dutch.
And Natalie Wood witnesses this remarkable moment.
And you can see her kind of starting to go, oh,
maybe this guy is more magical than I'm giving him credit for.
[singing in Dutch]
[Alonso] It's one of the most moving moments of the film,
but it's also very specific to that era,
because there were war refugees. And it was incumbent upon us,
the viewer, to make them feel welcome
and to give them a Merry Christmas, too.
They said you wanted to see me, Mrs. Walker.
[Tim] By the end of the movie, Edmund Gwenn as Santa Claus
changes not only little Natalie Wood's mind, but her mother's.
He's not like anyone else. He must be Santa.
I think perhaps you're right, Susie.
[Ron] When I first saw it, it landed with me
because I was at that age where, you know,
the cat was out of the bag, but I was nostalgic for the belief.
And I lost myself in Miracle on 34th Street.
[music]
This idea of magic that we've come to forget
and not believe in and the kids still have.
I believe.
[Shane] Part of it is the ability to believe that a lone
man can travel across the world in one night and magically, from
a sack that fits on a sleigh, produce gifts that he puts down
chimneys that they wouldn't fit in every house all over
the world. And the kid goes, I'll buy that. That sounds good.
-Hey you! -What's--Oh! Ooh!
[David] The biggest twist of the film, The Santa Clause,
is if you happen to find Santa, there's a clause that says...
Yeah, right.
It's almost like a horror movie. This guy starts to gain weight
even though he's not eating any more. He gets white hair.
He doesn't know what's happening to him,
but he eventually realizes he really is Santa Claus.
-Annie, nice. -Beep!
-Johnny, naughty.
[Lorraine] InThe Santa Clause, the father is not
the greatest dad, but he transforms into Santa.
And by doing that, he actually becomes the father
he probably should have been before.
It just took him transforming into Santa to get there.
I love you, Dad.
Santa Claus is the superhero of Christmas.
Santa, is there a back way out of this place?
Of course there is, Lee.
But this is one Santa that's going out the front door.
He protects the magic of it.
One night only.
He can be playful, and I like that about Santa in movies.
Sometimes they're there to pull out a flask
or get shoved down in the middle of a chase.
-Or get their beard pulled. -Whoo!
[Tim] So it can be silly in a way, but it just works because
it's an acknowledgement of the kid in all of us.
And what would you like for Christmas?
Santa has traditionally been depicted in film and TV
as a jolly, fat white man.
Hey man, you ain't Santa Claus.
[Aisha] Over the years, we've had debates about
what Santa should look like, what he can look like.
What makes you think this isn't Santa Claus?
'Cause Santa Claus ain't Black. He's white.
And so even though we had The Jeffersons,
which was a revolutionary show at its time, 34 years later,
Black-ish, another revolutionary show
has a similar episode. And there's still this expectation
that Santa should be white.
There's only one Santa, but daddy wants to be
one of Santa's helpers. Isn't that nice?
But we'll still get our presents from the real Santa, right?
The white one?
Until we get to the point where it's not surprising to see
a Black, or an Asian, or a Latino Santa,
we're still gonna be having this conversation.
-The real Santa is Chinese. -What?
-Santa's Chinese? -Yes.
Why do you think all the toys he delivers say made in China?
But it's a fictional character. Santa can be whatever you want.
-It can be a woman. -[screams]
The movie Noelle is a story about a person who is
eager to take the mantle is the one that is often ignored.
Noelle is the sibling of the soon-to-be new Santa Claus,
played by Bill Hader.
-Oh, this is heavy. - The Book of Santa,
I've read it. I've memorized it. I've listened to it on tape.
I just don't get it.
He wants to do anything in this world,
except be Santa Claus.
Merry Christmas.
So do we break for lunch now?
[Clea] Anna Kendrick was a perfect person for that movie.
She is so grounded and humble.
I think humility is a really important quality in a Santa.
It's not just about the presents we get,
it's about the presents we give.
The presents of love and understanding.
[Clea] Christmas is an opportunity to be our
best selves and figure out what that is.
And in Noelle's case, her potential is Santa.
[music]
Of course she should be Santa.
[music]
[Alonso] A Christmas Carol is the classic story written
by Charles Dickens in 1843.
A Merry Christmas to you, Uncle. God save you.
Humbug!
And it has gone on to become the most adapted work of literature
in the English language.
What reason have you to be merry?
What right have you to be merry? You're poor!
A lot of what we see as Christmas stories are retelling
in a different way, with different characters,
the Dickensian A Christmas Carol.
You don't like Christmas much, do you?
A Christmas Carol holds the greatest archetype,
Ebenezer Scrooge. He looms as large as Santa Claus does.
[Alonso] Scrooge is a meaty role,
and a lot of actors have taken it on.
Albert Finney, Alastair Sim and George C. Scott,
Patrick Stewart, Michael Caine, Bill Murray.
Ebenezer Scrooge is Shakesperean in his
interpretative possibilities.
[Kenneth] Everyone wants to take a crack at Scrooge.
It's like a great character that you measure yourself against.
You want all day tomorrow, I suppose?
-If it's quite convenient, sir. -It is not convenient.
[Tim] One of the enemies of Christmas is greed.
And Dickens is responding to the income inequalities,
the unfairness, the hardships of urban life in Britain
during the Industrial Age.
Two pence, five shillings, ladies, due before Christmas.
That means today.
It's a powerful story about regeneration,
rehabilitation and change.
It's a morality play, and it's a redemption story,
but it's also a ghost story.
Merry Christmas, governor. Merry Christmas.
[Alonso] There was this notion that Christmas night
was when the veil between the two worlds was at its thinnest.
[Lorraine] Why are we having a ghost story at Christmas?
Well, we really like it, and we can't stop.
We can't stop remaking it.
[Alonso] There's a 1901 version.
In 1910, the Edison Company made their own adaptation.
Then you have Reginald Owen playing the lead
in the 1938 version.
A Christmas Carol is one of those stories
that can adapt to almost anything.
And for the 90th time, can I get some French toast?
[Pete] They've done gender switches.
Oh, spare me.
[Pete] Animation.
Money, money!
Ebenezer Scrooge.
[Pete] Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol.
The Muppets did A Christmas Carol.
♪ Every day in every way ♪
♪ Scrooge is getting worse
-You wish to be anonymous. -I wish to be left alone.
I would say that Alastair Sim is
my favorite Scrooge. And that version of
A Christmas Carol is the greatest of all time.
Jacob Marley.
[Alonso] In the story Scrooge's late business partner,
Jacob Marley, appears to him on Christmas Eve.
What do you want with me?
He had died seven years ago the same night.
[screaming]
So of course, he's a horrible corpse.
I wear the chain I forged in life.
[Tim] Each of these links represents a bad deed.
And he turns to Scrooge and he said,
you already have chains around you.
And then Marley says, but you have a second chance.
I have come... for your sake, Ebenezer.
He's visited by three time-traveling ghosts
who take him on this journey where he looks at his life.
And he starts the process of the reckoning.
One master passion engulfs you... money.
[Jacqueline] When he chooses his career over his true love,
that was a fork in the road.
He recognizes the mistake he made because now he's alone.
You know, I think it better you see things as they really are.
[Dana] During his journey through time with the ghosts,
he witnesses other people who know what it is to celebrate
-and to love each other. -[All] Merry Christmas!
And Scrooge learns by example how to live.
God bless us, everyone.
[David] Those three ghosts are powerful.
It really makes you think about your past,
your present and your future.
[bell gongs]
And whoa, if you don't change your ways,
this is what will befall you.
Spirit of the future, I fear you more than
any other spectre I've seen.
A crisis of conscience, a fear that you at the end
of your life may have no friends and no family.
And you may die alone. That is a universal fear.
[Dana] Finally, he witnesses this open grave
in which he will be buried,
with nobody there to mourn him.
[screaming]
[Kenneth] He doesn't know whether he will be allowed
to come back to mortal life to correct his past.
[screaming]
[Tim] And by the end of the story,
Scrooge is a fundamentally different person
because he has found the spirit of Christmas.
Christmas time be praised!
Who's saved by Christmas? Scrooge is.
Happy New Year!
[Pete] This dance of delight that every Scrooge we've ever
seen goes through? Nobody ever better than Alastair Sim.
♪ I didn't know anything, I never did know anything ♪
♪ But now I know that I don't know ♪
♪ All of the Christmas morning
When his heart melts, I don't think there's a
false moment in it.
And when Scrooge goes to his nephew's home,
where they're having their Christmas party,
he looks very tentative.
The housekeeper doesn't have a word of dialogue,
but she gives him this encouraging smile.
♪ So slowly, slowly she came ♪
And she convinces him to come into the party.
♪ Young man, I think...
Then he gives this amazing speech that just melts,
melts my heart every time I watch it.
Can you forgive a pig-headed old fool for having no eyes
to see with, no ears to hear with all these years?
A Christmas Carolis one of the greatest redemption stories,
not just read for a Christmas story, any story.
The idea that no matter how miserable a life you lead,
if the Christmas spirit touches your heart,
you can find redemption.
[music]
Come on and sit on Santa's lap.
And then what?
It depends whether you've been naughty or nice.
Well, you're Santa. Aren't you supposed to know?
[David] Love is a magical thing.
And if you put the holidays on top of it,
it's like a present that's got a ribbon on it.
[Emily] We want to believe in true love,
but we're not sure it exists.
But at Christmas we're willing to believe
in slightly different things, like three ghosts visiting you,
or a guy getting to see what the world would've been like
if he hadn't been born.
Finding your true love is kind of like that.
And at Christmas time, it feels like that might happen.
[Tom] The Shop Around the Corner was a gorgeous black and white.
There's that old world, European kind of Christmas.
I think what makes The Shop Around the Corner
such a traditional watch at Christmastime is because
it feels like this old-fashioned fairy tale.
[Ben] Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan play clerks
at a gift shop, and they hate each other.
Mr. Carlick, I don't like you.
And we know that secretly they're pen pals who've
fallen in love. They just don't know
that that's who they're writing to.
"My heart was trembling as I walked into the post office.
And there you were, lying in box 237."
[Dana] It tells the story of recognizing that what
you needed was right there all along.
So this very simple setting where the two of them work,
becomes a magical place of transformation.
[Ben] You've Got Mail is a pretty direct remake of
Shop Around the Corner made 58 years later,
but instead of pen pals, they're writing emails to each other.
[Computer] You've got mail.
[Tom] That dynamic of searching for each other
and don't really know it. It's a magical thing.
You can't discount the power of coming together at Christmas.
[Dana] Seeing somebody that you didn't see before,
and that's part of what the holiday setting does,
is make you look around and see, well, this was always here.
I just didn't recognize it.
I see a beautiful woman with a good heart.
My favorite Christmas movie is The Preacher's Wife.
I watch it every year multiple times in the Christmas season.
I'm an angel.
The Preacher's Wifeis a remake of The Bishop's Wife,
which starred Carey Grant as the angel.
I was instructed to come here in answer to your prayer.
[David] The angel realizes that the issue with the preacher is
not the church and the finances, it's his marriage.
But then you've got Denzel Washington
in the long coat and the hat. I mean, forget about it.
The angel in both movies is actually really, really hot
and charismatic. So while there is clearly some chemistry
between the angel and the wife, the wife realizes what she loved
about her husband, and the husband realizes he needs to
bring his family back together.
[Ben] Christmas stories are often about recognition of
what's really important. That's certainly the case here.
And it took an angel coming down for them to realize that
they're better together.
Merry Christmas.
[Tim] Christmas is a time of joyousness when you're
with people, but if you're alone for one reason or another,
it magnifies your loneliness.
That's one of the themes of The Apartment.
'Twas the night before Christmas
and all through the house,
not a creature was stirring,
nothing. No action.
We have tons of the happy, joyous Christmas movies.
And there's something really refreshing about a film like
The Apartmentthat admits the reality is that a lot of people
are living that moment not so great.
[Alonso] The Apartment stars Jack Lemmon as a
mid-level manager at a giant corporation who understands
that he might be able to get ahead in the company if he
will let executives use his apartment as a place for
their, um, extramarital trysts.
But I promised the guy I'd be out of here by 8:00 positively.
What guy?
♪ Jingle bells, jingle bells Jingle all the way ♪
At the time when we're supposed to be at our most
bouyant and joyous, it also can be incredibly disheartening.
Are you all right? What's the matter?
Nothing.
[Alonso] He is in love with Shirley MacLaine,
but is chagrined to discover that she is one of the people
who's been using his apartment.
When you've been married to a woman for 12 years,
you just don't sit down at the breakfast table and say,
pass the sugar, I want a divorce.
[Ron] Christmas can put loneliness into stark relief.
And she tries to commit suicide.
Oh my God.
[Jacqueline] It isn't until the traumatic event
with Shirley MacLaine that you really get that this is
happening at Christmas.
That this is probably happening because it's Christmas.
Hold that.
[Alonso] This is a film that teeters on the abyss of despair,
but brings it back in a way that's believable
and realistic, and poignant.
Did you hear what I said, Miss Kubelik?
I absolutely adore you.
Shut up and deal.
I see a real parentage between
The Apartmentand Carol.
People who are not having the warm, family Christmas time
that they're supposed to be having.
Caroluses Christmas as this sort of underscoring of,
it's the season of love. It's the season of family.
And what does that look like when you are living in a society
that tells you, you aren't allowed love?
You aren't allowed a family?
The movie is really about the romance that develops
between the two of them. Cate Blanchett being married.
Harge, what's wrong?
Carol's husband figures out what's happening
and takes their daughter away on Christmas Eve.
Carol is distraught, so they run. They go on this road trip.
Christmas time, it's like you're in this rarified air.
And finding each other and being able to belong
with each other in this bubble of Christmas
creates a deeper intimacy.
Just stay like that.
[Dana] They compose an alternate family with each other,
so it's a really hopeful Christmas movie, even though
it takes place in a world that doesn't recognize the possibilty
of those characters' love.
Actually, I'm in love.
There are few movies that redefine
what a Christmas movie could be.
Love Actuallyis a great Christmas movie because
it uses the season in a way that we all recognize.
It's really the iconic movie that makes Christmas
about finding love.
[Hanif] Love Actually, it's a portal back into
a past version of myself as an 18-year-old who wanted
to be in love all the time.
-Does Natalie live here? -No, she doesn't.
Hugh Grant is the prime minister going door to door trying to
find the woman he loves, and discovering that his chaffeur
can sing the second verse of Good King Wenceslas.
♪ Deep and crisp and even
[Alonso] And then Emma Thompson
being done dirty by Alan Rickman.
And then we, of course, have the rock musician played
by the great Bill Nighy.
♪ Christmas is all around me
[Alonso] It's gorgeous and it's also stupid.
It's everything, this movie.
It's gonna be a very good Christmas.
[cheering]
[music]
[Ben] After the end of World War II, when the country
had just seen the awfulness of war and lost people who they
cared about in the war, they needed to recognize
the brotherhood of mankind. So in the 1940s,
we get some great Christmas movies that captured the
zeitgeist of the country.
Quartermaster Jones reporting.
These are movies where Christmas is a catalyst for
reexamining where we are.
All right, folks. That's enough of that.
[Tim] There's something magical about Christmas
that can heal wounds and can lead to self-knowledge.
And of course, the best of them, It's A Wonderful Life.
It's a story about greed and goodness, and charity, and hope
all wrapped up into one.
I can't think of Christmas and Christmas Eve without thinking
ofIt's A Wonderful Life.
It's my childhood. When I was little, I would get into the
big chair with my dad, and we would watch the movie
because it was my dad's favorite movie.
[Ken] I remember seeing it the first time with my family
and crying, and being shocked and a little bit embarrassed
by the emotions.
[Ron] I don't know how many times I've seen
It's A Wonderful Life. I always see something new.
[Tom] It's a beautiful black-and-white gem
that probably has gone down in motion picture history
as the perfect screenplay and the perfect execution
of that perfect screenplay.
Capra, Stewart... Can you beat that?
I don't think so.
America's just been through a long depression
and World War II. And many of Hollywood's greatest actors
went to war. And Jimmy Stewart was one of them.
I'm very proud to be here. And I'm going to do my best
to be useful as a soldier in the United States Army.
[Ben] Jimmy Stewart's a pilot. Delivered 20 bombing missions.
Of course, he had PTSD. He risked his own life
on those 20 missions.
And his men were at risk whenever he sent them up.
[Tim] Stewart wondered if he could ever return to acting,
something that seemed frivolous.
Frank Capra, who as a director made films for the war effort,
understood this about Jimmy Stewart.
And he went to Stewart and he said,
this is the right role for you.
The main character contemplates suicide.
And apparently, that was it.
[Ken] The film reflects the darkness that the world
has emerged from, but it's also the optimism that comes
from having seen the worst of human beings and understanding
that good people triumphed,
and that good people could triumph.
[Alonso] Despite getting a handful of
Academy Award nominations, including best picture,
it did not find an audience in theaters.
[Ron] When it came out,
it was kind of a shoulder shrug for people.
Maybe it was a little too close to coming out
of the drama and the pain, and suffering of war.
[Alonso] The film was forgotten to the extent
that nobody bothered to renew the copyright on it.
And so then, when it lapsed, it went into the public domain.
And TV stations could just show it whenever they felt
like it and not have to pay a dime to anybody.
So that movie was on TV enough at Christmas time,
that it became part of the American psyche
because we watched it over and over again.
And realized, oh, this is actualy great.
And it becomes the defining American Christmas movie.
[Ken] It isn't really about Christmas per se,
but it's completely about Christmas and its spirit.
Yeah! Extra! Read all about it!
[Ann] George Bailey is a good man and he helps build
his entire community,
vastly improving the lives of everybody around him.
Mr. and Mrs. Martini, welcome home.
George Bailey's community is an aspirational one
for the United States. The expectation is that
everybody is gonna get a piece of the pie.
Enter the Martini castle!
Look Mr. Potter.
Meanwhile, there's a Mr. Potter who is a rapacious,
greedy businessman.
I will pay 50 cents on the dollar.
Oh, you never miss a trick, do you, Potter?
It's really a very simple story of good and evil,
but it's still mindful of all of the problems that happen.
[Claudia] On Christmas Eve, George Bailey has this
unexpected financial crisis,
which derails him, as it would anyone.
Mr. Potter conspires to ruin him professionally and personally.
You're worth more dead than alive.
And the bottom falls out.
And then oh my, what do you do?
It's a misappropriation of funds.
[David] It's a sobering thought.
I can only imagine how George Bailey felt.
How do you deal with your children and your wife
looking at you as a hero?
-What's the matter? -[David] As a provider.
As, you know, somebody.
And then what does your life really mean?
[Aisha] The fact that this happens against the backdrop
of Christmas makes that feel so much more visceral
and feel even sadder.
[Man] How about some of that good spaghetti?
[Ben] The most critical scene is in the bar, where George Bailey
hits his legitimate low point.
If you're up there and you can hear me...
show me the way.
[Claudia] Here it is Christmas Eve,
and he's reached rock bottom.
He comes upon a bridge, and he contemplates suicide.
[Aisha] Then an angel swoops down to help George Bailey
realize how much he's meant to all the people in his life.
I'm your guardian angel.
[Tim] I would argue all good Christmas shows,
the most powerful Christmas shows,
there's an element of supernatural.
[Kenneth] So this angel shows him what would have
happened to his family, to his town,
if he had never been born.
The idealic village of Bedford Falls
becomes Pottersville, which is a real dystopia.
[Chris] Pottersville is a hellscape for him,
and it sets in motion the events that will turn him back around.
Mary!
[Ron] In a really complicated, difficult world,
a damnable world, the choice to engage and live matters,
and you can matter.
I wanna live again! I wanna live again!
The central characters in both A Christmas Carol
and It's A Wonderful Life experience transformation.
Scrooge gets it through redemption
and George Bailey through recognition.
Yay! Hello, Bedford Falls!
[Rami] When you see Jimmy Stewart running,
hello Bedford Falls,
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas!
[Kenneth] He comes to realize that he, in fact,
has had the wonderful life.
You have no idea what's happened to me.
[Dana] He becomes grateful for all the things
that he didn't realize he had, and he was about to throw away.
Come in, Uncle Billy!
[Tim] Not only does George Bailey recover himself
by getting a second chance, others around him get a chance
to show him how much he's meant to them.
I wouldn't have a roof over my head if it weren't
for you, George.
And what saves him? The spirit of Christmas.
[Ken] What the film tells you is George Bailey is us
and his experiences are ours.
And that what we want to create is a community
where we lift people up.
Here you are, George. Merry Christmas.
So the ultimate question comes down to
where do you, as an American, wanna live?
Do you wanna live in Bedford Falls, the town that
Jimmy Stewart is desperately trying to keep going?
Or do you wanna live in Pottersville, where there's
nothing in it for anybody, except what they can get
for themselves?
And so we feel our own selves on a kind of cusp today of
what kind of choices are we gonna make?
I can't imagine there is an American within the sound
of my voice that doesn't wanna live in Bedford Falls.
[music]
Oh, ooh, ooh, ooh!
There is a period of the wintertime that goes
from Thanksgiving to Christmas,
you want to get together with family and friends.
Oh, would you look who's home?
[Tom] It is a little cold outside, so everybody naturally
gathers together inside with family.
Merry Christmas.
[Tom] They've been hanging around each other for no reason
other than you're family and you love each other.
So what are you guys doing for Christmas?
We've got the entire family flying in, 13 airport pickups,
four days of listening to how gifted my nieces are.
At Christmastime. everyone wants to be with their family.
Well, not everyone wants to be with their families.
I'm vacationing in tropical Albany this year
with Trish's family.
They got us a cot, which is awesome.
Christmas movies can be so resonant
with people who aren't even Christian.
We understand holiday gathering and the stuff that happens.
Why do you guys put yourselves through that?
It's Christmas, right? Don't you have to?
Christmas is the time when we want everything to be right.
We hope everything will be right, but it isn't always.
This is beautiful.
[Clea] I love Christmas movies. They become traditions.
They become ways for us to connect with each other.
And yet even with all of the Christmas movies,
I had never seen my own experience represented.
Do you remember this summer, when I came out to my parents
and told them we were together, and they took it really well?
Yeah.
Okay, well, that wasn't entirely accurate.
Happiest Season is the closeted version
of coming home to the family for Christmas,
which is not the happiest season.
-So who do they think I am? -My roommate.
[Clea] Coming out is such a personal thing,
and it's very complicated.
You know, there's a lot of shame around that.
Is she not gonna stay up here with me?
Harper, I would never ask two grown women
to share the same bed.
[Clea] I've been on both sides of that situation, where you're
just the friend or asking someone to be just the friend.
Do you know how painful it's been
to watch the person that I love choose to hide me?
I am not hiding you! I am hiding me!
The tension that they play there is if I come out,
this might be the last time I ever see my family.
I'm gay.
And I am... in love with Abby.
I came out to my mother on Christmas Day.
My mom just froze. And I also froze.
And we just kinda sat there in this unplanned, oh no,
now everything is different forever moment. Yeah.
When I wanted to make a Christmas movie, I knew that
I wanted to find a way to have tolerance or acceptance.
All I want for you is to find the same joy and happiness
that you've given me, no matter where it comes from.
I think it resolves in a way that is a bit of a fantasy,
as a queer person who came out and lost most of her family.
-Where am I? Here? -There.
It was very meaningful to have that fantasy of
it's Christmas time, and my family loves me.
Abby, what are you doing way over there? Get in here.
Come on.
You know, that's uh, that's a story that I think we, uh,
we need more of.
Christmas is when it all kinda comes out,
because you're dealing with everyone's expectations.
-You don't have to be nervous. -I'm not.
[Alonso] WithThe Family Stone
you have the guy bringing home his fiancée to meet the family,
a situation that is fraught with tension. Are they gonna like me?
And then it turns out, oh no, they don't.
They don't like me at all.
She is a total phony. She's completely uptight.
[Ann] Although they're highly functional together,
they're not very functional with other people.
[screams]
It's a family Christmas where everything explodes.
It's like a bomb went off in the middle of Christmas.
Meredith.
In addition to the comedy, there's also the real drama
that the matriarch has been recovering from cancer.
And they discover over this weekend that the cancer is back.
I'm sick, honey.
[Kenneth] And we don't know what the future holdsm
making us aware that life is fragile
and maybe it makes sense to put our animosities aside.
She wanted to wait, you know, until after Christmas
to tell you kids.
[Jacqueline] What happens when the thing that drove the family,
it begins to crumble, they have to find a new dynamic.
And soAlmost Christmas took whatThe Family Stone did
and sort of gave it a chapter two.
It still doesn't even seem real.
[David] I wrote this story about a dysfunctional family that was
coming home for the holiday. Their mother had passed away.
And so this is the first Christmas without her.
Danny Glover's character is heartbroken and lonely, trying
to reconnect with the love of his life through the joy that
she had, which was cooking the sweet potato pie for Christmas.
Everything I write comes from my experiences
and my great grandmother, Annie Mae Woods,
would make sweet potato pie every holiday.
And when she passed, my mother said, don't worry about it.
I've got it. We'll be fine.
And so we get to Christmas Day,
and we get the pie and it looks like it.
Everybody digging in, and then collectively everybody
stops chewing mid-chew,
and we realized that it wasn't in the recipe.
[crying] Hmm.
It was in the love.
The ingredient that mattered that was missing was her love.
When I was writing it, that's the woman that I was channeling.
It's in the magic of love.
The Invention of Jeronicus Jangle.
[Jacqueline] Jingle Jangle is a piece of Black joy
with this fantastical Christmas adventure.
[David] Jingle Jangle, I wrote it because I wanted
my son to have a story with some people that looked
like him in this fantasy world.
This is my wonderful family.
[David] What makesJingle Jangle a Christmas movie is what made
It's a Wonderful Life a Christmas movie.
I'm Journey, your granddaughter.
Just like It's A Wonderful Life,
if he can remember what he means to his family and the value
of who he is independent of what he has, then so can we.
Maybe we could spend Christmas here if it's all right with you?
That would be all right with me.
He was just waiting to open his heart up again.
It's a journey to get back to happiness.
And at the end of the day,
that's what the holidays are really all about.
[music]
♪ Hark the herald angels sing
♪ Glory to the newborn king
♪ Peace on earth
[Dana] The way that people used to gather around a parlor piano
and sing together is not something that really happens
in American life anymore, except at Christmas.
♪ You better watch out You better not cry ♪
[Dana] Everybody knows the words to at least
a few Christmas songs.
It's one less little remnant of communal life and celebration.
♪ To town
A Christmas song, more than set decoration or prop design,
can really signify to an audience
what time of year it is, but more importantly,
the vibe of the story.
It's like putting a little tinsel
around the framing of the movie.
[music]
[Ann] Meet Me In St. Louis takes place at the turn of
the century, but it's released during World War II,
when so many families are separated.
[Kenneth] There was this sense of nostalgia, a sense of missing
what people in some ways perceived as
the innoncence of the pre-war years.
[Jacqueline] MGM at that time was bringing color,
bringing music, and all of this sort of pageantry to an America
that did not have that.
If Santa Claus brings me any toys, I'm taking them with me.
But the film's biggest introduction to the culture was
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
and the iconic performance of it that Judy Garland gives.
♪ Have yourself a merry little Christmas ♪
The way Judy Garland sings the song is so beautiful,
but yet mournful. And when you think about the era that
it came out of, coming towards the end of World War II.
And having her sing it in a really sad moment
within the film really adds even more power to the lyrics.
♪ Some day soon we all will be together ♪
[Ann] We may be together if fates allow.
It gave the audience the kind of permission to be sad.
[Emily] You never know when you're gonna lose something
or lose someone, or everything's gonna change.
But we have today, we have this Christmas right now.
There's another one coming, but who knows?
Joyeux Noelis based on a true story that occurred
during World War I in 1914, during Christmas, when
German troops, Scottish troops, French troops laid down
their arms and listened to these beautiful Christmas hymns.
[singing in Latin]
[Claudia] This German opera singer sings hymns in Latin
that they all know.
Music is something that transcends so much.
And through the power of a Christmas carol,
it creates this moment of peace in a very fraught situation.
[singing in Latin]
[Shane] The soldiers on both sides of the trenches
called a truce, and they came out of the trenches
and walked into no man's land, then met together.
Christmas is like a tap on the shoulder that says, really?
Is this the only way?
♪ I'm dreaming of a white Christmas ♪
[Dana] White Christmas is maybe the most nostalgic
Christmas song I can think of.
White Christmas was originally written by Irving Berlin for a
movie for Holiday Innin 1942.
[Tim] For a Russian-Jewish immigrant like Irving Berlin,
there was a deep sense of gratitude to the United States
for welcoming him as a refugee
and also for fighting against fascism.
[Claudia] My dad was actually in World War II in Europe.
And I remember when we would hear the song,
White Christmas, it would just, created this really
nostalgic feeling for servicemen,
the idea that they wouldn't
be home for Christmas. But those were abnormal times.
It was a World War, and Irving Berlin just
captured that so beautifully.
♪ I'm dreaming of a...
[Lorraine] Twelve years after the song was introduced,
the film, White Christmas opens with a makeshift
Christmas show during World War II of Bing Crosby
singing to the troops.
♪ To hear sleigh bells in the snow ♪
To be literally at the worst place you would want
to be on the globe, probably, at that time,
the songWhite Christmas and the lyrics, I'm dreaming,
that longing and aspiration is kind of the beauty of the song.
♪ And may your Christmases
[Alonso] So by the time you get to the movie,White Christmas,
Bing Crosby singing that song on the battlefield in World War II
is immediately taking audiences back to those war years,
where that song meant so much to them.
[music]
[Alonso] And then over the course ofWhite Christmas,
we come to see that the film is nostalgia
for World War II itself.
-General Waverly. -Sir.
[Ken] But then all of the contrivances of the film
evaporate in favor of what the essential impulse is to honor
their commander who's fallen on postwar hard times.
[Alonso] The big finale is that the general walks in to what
he thinks is just gonna be the Christmas show, only to be
greeted with all of his former soldiers, who have traveled to
Vermont to be there for him.
♪ We answer to his call
[Ken] And the miracle of people conspiring to help someone else
creates snow,
which is the realization of your dream
of a white Christmas.
It's pretty good.
It's why we like the movies.
[Pete] Ten years ealier, Bing Crosby was on a USO tour,
and he sang White Christmas to those troops in real time
during the war with his buddy, Bob Hope.
Bob Hope would travel to sites where American men
were fighting in wars.
The Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War.
And he'd entertain them.
[Chris] Bob would have these USO Christmas shows every year,
and then they would made into specials that we would watch.
[Man] The Bob Hope Christmas Special starring
The Gold Diggers, Racquel Welch.
[Ken] I grew up in a family-- we were very much opposed
to the Vietnam War. But you know, when Bob Hope
had a special, you-you watched it. He'd bring beautiful women,
but he would tell jokes, mostly.
I love Christmas in Vietnam.
It's so nice to see a tree decorated instead of occupied.
[Ken] The joy you'd see on the faces of the soldiers.
And it reminded you that it wasn't the soldiers that you
were upset with, they were doing the fighting and dying.
And so there's a real poignancy in these shows.
♪ Silent night
[Ken] Whenever you are away from home at the time that you
associate most with home, to have somebody come and say,
hey, we're bringing Christmas to you.
Have a big New Year. We'll see you home. God bless you.
[Claudia] As well as Bob Hope with the troops,
everybody seemed to want to have a Christmas special.
And we all watched them.
♪ We wish you the merriest, the merriest ♪
♪ The merriest
[Lorraine] Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra,
it was an American tradition to see your favorite entertainers
sing traditional Christmas songs.
♪ Christmas time's coming
Christmas specials, you know, they were a mainstay
in our household.
The Andy Williams Special was a must see.
♪ It's the most wonderful time of the year ♪
It's an excuse to bring the family together
to watch something.
The specials were, they were just fun.
And then cool pop artists would show up.
Hello.
[Aisha] The Bing Crosby, David Bowie duet,
there's these two worlds colliding.
♪ A newborn king to see
[Aisha] It's kind of become this odd, quirky moment
of Christmas lore.
♪ Our finest gifts we bring
It also encapsulates the sheer artifice of it all.
♪ Oh holy night
[Hanif] To me, Christmas in its base aesthetic form
is opulence, right? I think Mariah Carey
and Dolly Parton fit right into that mold of performers
who know how to be theatrical in every sense of the word.
♪ I'll be home for Christmas ♪
Well, we all have our favorites. And then sometimes
you think, I really like this song. I'd like to see and hear
how this person does it.
♪ Are there church bells in twon ♪
And sometimes they unearth a little gem.
♪ It's the most wonderful time of the year ♪
The variety show may seem dated, but with
Michael Bublé, Lady Gaga, or Carrie Underwood
when Christmastime rolls around. Mm-mm. It's completely relevant.
♪ It's music to my ears
♪ Christmas is my favorite time of year ♪
[music]
[Lorraine] Television's a fairly new medium in the 1960s,
and one of the first animated Christmas specials was
Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol.
Merry Christmas to everybody.
[Dana] As a child, you were waiting for the announcement
in the TV Guideof when Frosty and all of those shows
were gonna come on.
[David] A Charlie Brown Christmas
was a tradition. It brought the whole family together.
[Tom] When you see Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindeer,
that means bang, it's Christmas!
Rudolph.
Rankin/Bass used the stop motion so brilliantly.
There's something that draws you into it.
But also, those are just great, sweet stories.
Ho, ho, ho.
[Ron] Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindeer,
irresistable.
[Jen] One of the things that's instantly appealing
is everybody knows the song.
♪ Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer ♪
[Jacqueline] The Rudolf story is about an underdog that
we know is really the hero.
We won't let Rudolf join in any reindeer games, right?
Anybody can appreciate the sense of feeling left out.
But then there's a triumphant moment.
Rudolf, with your nose so bright,
won't you guide my sleigh tonight?
[Lorraine] The idea that this outcast could turn around
and save the day, and then everybody would go,
God, we probably should've treated him better back then.
Yeah, you know, we were wrong. It's like, yes,
that could be me. I could've saved the day
and you would all be sorry.
[cheering]
[Alonso] It is a celebration of nonconformists,
which was not exactly the staple of 1960's television.
So in a way, Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindeer
was really ahead of its time.
♪ Frosty the snowman
[Ron] Frosty the Snowman, I love it.
I'd watch that right now. Get it going. I wanna see it.
♪ Before I melt away
All the things that happen in the song happen to Frosty.
And then it has that Christmas moment at the end.
He is able to come back to life.
It's like a resurrection of Frosty.
It's just this idea of having faith that someone that you
care about is still gonna be able to be there for you.
[gasps]
[Lorraine] Nightmare Before Christmas.
For my son, that is a traditional Christmas film.
I love that Tim Burton is part of his Christmas tradition.
Like, what could be better?
♪ What's this? What's this? ♪
♪ There's color everywhere
[Lorraine] Just the idea of discovering Christmas.
What is the joy of this?
♪ What's this in here?
[Tim] It wasThe Nightmare Before Christmas stop motion
was something that I felt was part of what the
energy of it was.
♪ What's this?
That form of animation has always been so inspirational
to me. When you've ever been around a stop-motion puppet
and moved it one frame at a time, and then you see it,
and it's just-- there's something that's
quite magical about that.
♪ What is this?
[Dana] It's a movie that uses this unsettling kind of imagery
to tell a very sweet, heartwarming kind of
Christmas story.
And then there's the incredible score by Danny Elfman.
Also sung by Danny Elfman and the wonderful Catherine O'Hara.
♪ For it is plain as anyone can see ♪
[Dana] It's a romance, and it feels like a very
personal expression of longing for transformation.
Hello in there.
[Tom] My favorite Christmas story, it's
A Charlie Brown Christmas. Time freezes when I watch it.
I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus.
Christmas is coming, but I'm not happy.
I love that Charles Schultz took the cast of Peanuts and
put them in this little story. But really what he was trying
to say was Christmas has become too commercial.
My own dog gone commercial. I can't stand it.
He makes a point of saying, hey, wait a minute,
what about the true meaning of Christmas?
Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?
So you have Linus who reads this Biblical passage
about the first Christmas.
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding
in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
[David] He gave the story about the nativity,
and it was like, whoa.
And on earth, peace, good will toward men.
And he reminded you of what the holidays were all about.
♪ Christmas time is here
[Aisha] I love the Charlie Brown Christmas music.
It feels both old, but new.
And when you think about a kid's TV special, you don't expect it
to have this cool, jazzy score.
But Vince Guaraldi made something that's
become a classic.
[Vince] One of the best scores in the history
of filmed entertainment. It's pure, unalloyed emotion
straight from Charles Schultz's heart to the audience
by way of Vince Guaraldi.
You can't hear the music and not start dancing exactly
like the characters.
[music]
And even what he does with songs like
Hark, the Herald Angels Sing, the minute you hear it,
it puts you in the holiday season.
♪ Hark the herald angels sing ♪
It's magical and it's the spirit of Christmas
part and parcel.
♪ Trim up the tree with Christmas stuff ♪
[Claudia] How The Grinch Stole Christmas takes
the Dr. Seuss book and brings it to life.
[Jen] It was animated by the great Chuck Jones.
And the Grinch is just so emblematic of what a playful,
talented animator he was.
And they'll sing and they'll sing.
Dr. Suess creates an alternative universe.
Characters who seem designed for children,
but have powerful lessons.
And in the Grinch, he tackles the issue
of the spirit of Christmas.
[Man] The Grinch hated Christmas,
the whole Christmas season.
[Alonso] The Grinch is the kid's version of Ebenezer Scrooge.
He has a lot of the same greed and his hatred of the holiday.
I must stop Christmas from coming,
but how?
The Grinch is great because it's mean. He's evil.
He's thinking about, I'm going to ruin Christmas for everyone.
I know as a kid, that really turned me on.
And You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinchimmediately
entered the pantheon of great holiday songs.
♪ You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch ♪
[Lorraine] The Grinch thinks that by taking their presents,
their decorations, their food that he's gonna steal Christmas
from them, because he doesn't realize that it's really
about something else.
[Chris] But when all the stuff is gone
and Christmas still happens, he is converted.
[Man] And the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day.
My heart expands at the same time the Grinch does
and for the same reason. When they gather around
the non-existent tree. And it's just beautiful.
♪ Christmas Day is here
[Ron] You know, I've always loved Christmas and the Grinch.
And there was an opportunity to make a feature version.
And Jim Carrey was interested in playing the Grinch.
And it was a tremendous challenge because I knew what
we were going to be compared with, and I knew we kind of
couldn't compare.
But as a director, I knew it would be fun
to create Seussian worlds.
-You're the-the-the-the- -The-the-the-the Grinch!
[screams]
But mostly I wanted to direct Jim Carrey.
And his hat.
[Ron] And use Jim Carrey's genius as a physical comedian.
♪ You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch ♪
[Ron] He was able to choreograph his twists and turns
with the camera movement in ways that were so precise.
Now you're doomed!
[Ken] Jim Carrey's a fabulous Grinch.
But it's all about the softening of hearts.
No one should be alone on Christmas.
[Ken] He can steal their physical Christmas,
but he can't steal Christmas.
Merry Christmas, Mr. Grinch.
[Ken] And that's the key to all of the Christmas movies.
The best things in life are not things.
♪ Welcome Christmas, Christmas Day ♪
[music]
Special holiday episodes are always stupid.
[Aisha] When you think about all of our cultrual institutions,
nothing is too sacred to be taken down a peg.
Because the themes of family and togetherness are a chilling
-reminder of your own isolation? -No, but thank you for that.
Christmas is like, sometimes we have to put on a tie.
Sometimes we have to make sure to be polite for people.
And the effort of that means that we need to blow off steam a
little bit in a subversive way.
These Christmas comedies like The Simpsonshelp us do that.
All right, children. Let me have those letters.
I'll send them to Santa's workshop at the North Pole.
Oh, please, there's only one fat guy that brings us presents
and his name ain't Santa.
The very first episode of The Simpsons
in 1989 was actually a Christmas special.
-Ah, whoo! -Good one, Dad.
When it debuted, it busted up a whole lot of tropes
and it was kind of a seismic shift.
D'oh!
The outrageous sense of humor sort of set the stage
for the series going forward.
[bell ringing] [Simpsons theme music]
Happy Birth--Uh!
[Jen] It became a phenomenon very quickly because of the way
that it was pushing boundaries.
Subversive Christmas specials on TV,
you've gotta go to South Park.
-Behold my glory. -Holy shit, it's Jesus.
What are you doing in South Park, Jesus?
Trey Parker and Matt Stone made this little Christmas short.
[Phil] They made a video casette and that made the rounds.
I mean, that went viral before there was viral.
Tomorrow is my birthday, yet all is not right.
Your birthday is on Christmas? That sucks, dude.
[Jen] It was very crudely done, and that's what
kind of got them noticed.
South Park Elementary presents the birth of Jesus.
[breathing in labor]
Come on, Mary, push!
[John] Those guys figured out how to make hilarity
out of sacrilege in the most naked way.
-Mr. Hanky? -Howdy ho!
[Jen] In its first Christmas episode, there's a character
called Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo.
It's feces with a Santa hat.
Gosh, you're looking swell.
[Jen] And this was a moment watching TV where you're like,
can they do this?
♪ Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo
There's only one Christmas movie that I watch every Christmas,
only one.
And it's Bad Santa.
Marcus, get this kid off me before he pisses on me, alright?
I like the stuff where you're trying to do something
that's subversive, that still works inside
the traditional package.
[Alonso] You have a lead character
who is a bad-tempered alcoholic
who is only dressing as Santa as part of an elaborate scheme
to steal from a mall.
It's like a dark, nihlistic takedown of Christmas movies
as much as Christmas. But in the end, it turns out to be, like,
a feel-good movie.
-Santa! -Yeah.
You're bringing my present early?
It's as sentimental and well intentioned
as a classic Christmas film.
This is Christmas and the kid's getting his fucking present.
To pull off both of those simultaneously in the same movie
almost impossible.
[car horn honking] [car tires screeching]
[Jacqueline] I think if you're gonna say Christmas
and action movies, you kind of have to say Shane Black
'cause he has made an entire industry around it.
Hallelujah.
[Shane] I love putting Christmas in my movies.
It gives you instant context. You keep cutting to bits
of Christmas, and it orients you back in the story.
[explosion]
And in Lethal Weapon, the contrast that Christmas
gives us offers a lot of chances of being reminded
of the potential of people.
Riggs, the Mel Gibson character, he's mourning his dead wife.
In the loneliness and the hush and isolation of Christmas,
he hits bottom.
If you're low, you're the lowest around the Christmas holidays,
because you see the trappings everywhere.
I've never forgotten the image of looking in the window
in theChristmas Carol and seeing the Cratchits
eating Christmas dinner.
And I've always felt somewhat, to my chagrin, that I was always
outside the window looking in on people who knew effortlessly
how to live life much better than I did.
To me, Danny Glover is the Cratchit family.
Come on in, Martin. Come on in.
[Shane] Of having Christmas inside,
and the guy outside is Riggs.
Danny Glover offers him that gateway to something,
which he's been looking through the window at for so long.
It's a soft kind of reminder that an unexpected redemption
can be found.
My favorite Christmas movie-- Can I say Die Hard?
Okay, so there's this perpetual question of is Die Hard
a Christmas movie?
[laughing] No! Is it? I don't think so.
Well, hell yes, it's a-- Die Hardis a Christmas movie.
I'm on the side of not believing Die Hardis a Christmas movie.
Die Hardis by far the greatest Christmas movie.
I've been converted on this point.
I will allow it if-- I will not fight this.
I don't see why this is even a debate.
Die Hardwears its Christmas movieness on its sleeve.
[Alonso] It is set at a Christmas party.
It is about an estranged couple rekindling their love
for each other at the holidays.
[Dana] There's the sweatshirt with "Ho, ho, ho,
now I have a machine gun" written on it in blood.
Ho, ho, ho.
Surely the goriest Christmas card
that has ever been delivered.
[Ken] It's Christmas in the service of just
one of the great, perfect movies of all time.
Tell her that, um, that she is the best thing that ever
happened to a bum like me.
The Christmas theme is realization, redemption
and people coming together.
[Phil] Christmas is such a cultural touchstone.
Trying to be with your family at Christmas is a big deal.
[Ken] And of course, good triumphs over evil.
Yippee ki-yay.
-Merry Christmas, Argyle. -Merry Christmas.
[music]
-Happy Christmas, Harry. -Happy Christmas, Ron.
[Kenneth] Christmas is a touchstone.
Christmas is shorthand to clue the audience in
of the emotional state of the characters.
And they also wanna put you
into kind of a Christmas frame of mind.
Christmas really doesn't have to have a moment where somebody
comes out and explains the meaning of Christmas.
It can be just set at that time of year
and incorporates the trappings of the holiday.
-What do you want for Christmas? -Me? Oh, just you.
[Dana] You see in The Godfather,
inGoodfellas, in a lot of gangster movies, there's a real
tendency to have some sort of scene celebrating Christmas.
I got the most expensive tree they had!
The tree in Goodfellas, it's so relevant of the era
and of the culture.
Merry Christmas.
[Ann] There's just so much you can do through
visual storytelling. It counts on the audience to bring our
own projections and our own memories, and our own desires
around Christmas to those scenes.
Hold me.
[Este] When you think about Christmas, you think about
coziness and getting close to people.
But inEdward Scissorhands, you have this coziness
married with heartbreak.
And you really can't help but feel
so sorry for Edward in that moment.
No one wants to be alone on the holidays.
There's a loneliness to Christmas. And I think one of
things that people respond to in these Christmas-adjacent movies
is they capture that loneliness. Tangerinecertainly does.
It's Christmas Eve. We're gonna go our separate ways because
I think that's a lot easier than calling our family and
trying to explain why we have to be bailed out of jail.
What family?
[Emily] Tangerine is a movie about two trans women.
And they're sex workers, so they're living on the fringes
of society. And telling the story at Christmas time
is a very important part of why that movie works.
This is about, who is your family?
Who are you going to turn to?
Who are you going to come to at the end of the day?
[Clea] Christmas is an opportunity to show that even
if you don't have a traditional family,
you can still be surrounded by love.
[Dana] I think some of the most moving depictions of Christmas
are people being thrown together.
-Hey! Merry Christmas. -Feliz Navidad!
They find a way to celebrate. And they find a way
to create community.
There's a big difference between Christmas movies and then the
television episodic Christmases because these are characters we
live with throughout the year.
And then we're spending Christmas with them too.
-Merry Christmas, Fonzi. -Yeah, yeah. Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas.
[Ron] You know, I grew up watching TV.
And the Christmas episodes were always a highlight.
So I was really thrilled the Happy Days writers
decided to have a Christmas episode.
In that episode, Fonzi, who's saying he had family,
but he didn't. He was lonely.
I accept your invitation.
So the Happy Days family envelops him,
bringing Fonzi into the Cunningham household,
and eventually letting him live there.
Hey God?
Thanks.
[Ron] In a lot of a ways, the future of the show
was discovered through that Christmas episode.
Every TV show is about a family.
Surprise!
-Whether it's a sitcom-- -Christmas is fun, right?
[Phil] A drama.
The guys in the police precinct, they're a family.
Merry Christmas, Felix.
They're saying to you at home, we are like you.
You are like us.
[Aisha] OnEverybody Loves Raymond,
Raymond decides to give his parents a toaster engraved
with their family's name on it.
Merry Christmas. We love you.
It really captures the angst of gift giving.
I give it to them on the 23rd. It's the 26th
and they haven't called or stopped by.
[Phil] That was something that came from my actual life.
I gave a toaster to everybody, and it said,
Everybody Loves Raymondon it.
I sent it to my parents because they liked the show,
and they supposedly like me.
So I called home, and my father answered.
He says, your mother wanted a coffeemaker.
Yes, they traded my gift for a coffeemaker.
I can't believe this!
Do you know how much time and, and thought and-and.
That was a very specific thing relatable to my family.
I didn't know it would be relatable to yours
or anyone else's.
Who are you people?
[Phil] Here's what you should do when you get a gift.
I'm just saying, thank you. The end.
♪ Silent night
In the last 10, 15 years, it's been really
refreshing to see TV series move toward representing different
kinds of families and different ways of celebrating holidays.
You know, I see this tree. I see it in my living room.
I see my grandfather rising up from the grave
and having another heart attack.
[David] Thirtysomething was one of the first shows
that was about a character who was wrestling with Judaism
and Christianty being melded into the same family.
I didn't grow up celebrating Christmas.
I grew up celebrating Hanukkah.
It's time to light the Hanukkah candles!
For me as a kid, Christmas for Jews was
Chinese food, uh, and movies.
♪ Hanukkah's eight nights too long ♪
[Este] And so once Adam Sandler came out with
Eight Crazy Nights, made me feel not so alone.
♪ Happy Hanukkah
It's a story of Adam Sandler during Hanukkah,
so now when I think of Hanukkah, I think of Eight Crazy Nights.
So we got one, everybody. We got one.
Of course, there's a lot of people out there that don't
celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah, but they do celebrate something
else like Kwanzaa.
Oh, you bought us Christmas presents.
No, I didn't. These are Kwanzaa gifts, Synclaire.
And then you have Seinfeld with a holiday that
doesn't even actually exist.
A Festivus for the rest of us.
On Seinfeld, Festivus is an invention of George's dad.
George, Festivus is your heritage.
It's part of who you are.
And it's actually based on a real thing.
One of the writers on Seinfeld, his father invented Festivus
and they put it into the show.
The tradition of Festivus begins with the airing of grievances.
I got a lot of problems with you people!
His Festivus rant is everybody's rant.
My son tells me your company stinks!
Oh, God.
The airing of grievances, to me, it actually is what the
holidays are all about. I find it incredibly cathartic.
Let's rumble!
And so Festivus for the rest of us, let's go.
It's a Festivus miracle!
[music]
Everybody's so happy about-- Don't you know it's Christmas?
[Rick] There's something about the sacrifice of service,
I think, that really hits the hardest around Christmas time.
Christmas is a hard holiday to be away from your loved ones.
M A S H in its conceit was
comedy amidst tragedy.
Come on, we've got trouble. Somebody's been hit by a sniper.
[David] When M A S H did a Christmas episode,
it didn't pander to the holiday.
Sorry to ruin your holiday, folks.
Forget ours. His is shot to hell.
You realize, oh, the violence, the war never ends.
-Set up two units of plasma. -What for? It's a waste of time.
-Doctor, if there's no point? -If we can delay it long enough,
his kids won't have to think of Christmas as the
day their daddy died.
[Ken] That episode, it showed me as a writer that comedy
could stop being funny and be very impactful and moving.
It's over. Let him-let him rest.
This young man dies, and Hawkeye changes the clock,
so that it's after 12:00.
Look, he made it.
Time of death, 12:05, December 26th.
[Ken] You got your hopes up that he had lived,
but there was no Christmas miracle on that day.
Gloria said she'll be over in a few minutes.
-I'll take them. Thank you. -Hi, Mike.
All in the Familydid politics probably better
than any other show from that era.
It allowed for both drama and pathos, but also humor.
Why don't you stay and have Christmas Eve dinner with us?
There's a knock on the door, and it's a friend of Michael's.
He's living in Canada because he's a Vietnam draft dodger.
Aren't you taking a big chance coming down to the States?
Yeah, but uh, it's Christmas, you know?
So Christmas sets the tone for all of this.
On holidays, Pinky sometimes, he gets feeling a little low,
you know?
And Archie has invited another guest, his friend, Pinky.
So if he starts talking about Steve, get him off the subject.
Make a joke about something. Who's Steve?
Well, Steve is the only son. He got knocked off over in Vietnam.
So you have the gold star father and the draft dodger
at the same table.
The next question is, what the hell you got in Canada,
you ain't got here?
So here they are dealing with the argument
of the moment around the Vietnam War at Christmas time.
-I'm not a deserter. -Well, I didn't think you was.
I was just trying to figure out--
-I'm a draft dodger. -And you know, fireworks.
-So maybe I should go, huh? -Are you nuts?
-Oh no, David! -Don't let him go!
Certainly, he's gotta go! What are you talking about?
The laughs stopped, you know? It got really tense.
You were at that dinner table.
If my opinion is of any importance-
Certainly, your opinion is of importance!
A gold star father!
[Rick] It made a strong statement about war
when television wasn't really taking
political stands like that.
My kid hated the war, too.
But he did what he thought he had to do.
And David here did what he thought he had to do.
But David's alive to share Christmas dinner with us.
And if Steve were here, he'd wanna sit down with him.
And that's what I wanna do.
[clapping]
[Tim] What he's saying is Christmas is truce.
Christmas is a moment when even those who don't agree
with each other put it aside.
Merry Christmas, David.
Christmas just was the most loaded day of the year
to set that episode because
you just have to forgive people on that day.
Good morning, Mr. President!
[Rick] Aaron Sorkin and I wrote the Christmas episode
In Excelsis Deofor the first season of The West Wing.
-Yeah? -I'm Toby Zigler.
[Rick] On the site of the Korean War memorial,
we tied the death of a homeless guy to a character, Toby Zigler.
That tattoo on his forearm is Marine Battalion 2nd and 7th.
This guy was in Korea.
Somebody once told me that the most important story
you'll ever write is your own.
My father was a Korean War vet, and when he passed away,
he was living in a flophouse. He was mostly homeless.
Merry Christmas.
I became aware after my father's death and burial
that I could've had him buried in Arlington.
And it always sort of stuck with me.
[Jacqueline] Toby's sort of shook by this man's death,
so he used the power of his office to arrange
a military funeral for him. Of course, the White House
at Christmas is a huge thing, and we get to know the character
Mrs. Landingham, a no-nonsense secretary to the president.
You seem a little down this week.
Yeah, I know, Charlie.
I tend to get a little down during the holidays.
She confesses that she lost her twin boys in Vietnam.
So they joined up as medics, and four months later,
they were pinned down during a fight in Da Nang and
were killed by enemy fire.
That was Christmas Eve, 1970.
She says it almost like a memory,
but not an emotion.
With the noises and the shooting,
they had to be so scared.
There's a grief of what you don't have that everyone else
has at Christmas, whether it be a loved one or a partner.
Or a place to go where you feel wanted.
AndWest Wing echos that disparity.
Did you use his name to arrange a military funeral?
[Ken] Toby went out on a limb with his job,
but he can't help himself. He has to do the right thing.
You shouldn't have done that, Toby.
-I know. -[John] That episode
of the holiday West Wing went a little bit deeper.
It honored service and sacrifice in a particular way.
I'd like to come along.
[Rick] There's a fraternity among people who've lost
loved ones in war.
You have something in common with everyone else who's ever
made that sacrifice. My father did make a sacrifice.
And it affected the rest of his life.
Cutting the footage of the children singing
with the funeral was just,
I'm like, trying not to get like, teary eyed about it, but--
[music]
Christmas is a vehicle to try kind of toughened
and daring things, and put together things that would
normally be in any other circumstances, impossible.
[gun shots] [choir singing]
The spirit of the season demands it.
[music]
[Tom] I think all Christmas movies are about redemption.
Perhaps from your own choices or from cruel fate.
It's the one time of year where we can be forgiven
for being unabashedly sincere and sentimental.
And even a movie that is aware of that and winks at that,
you can engage it on some level.
Santa?
[Tim] Unity, family, togetherness, generosity,
these ideas don't get old.
-Merry Christmas. -Merry Christmas.
[Tim] Watch a good Christmas show, and it doesn't matter
when it was made.
And that's what makes the best of these Christmas shows not
only accessible across cultures, but across generations.
My favorite Christmas movie is Love Actually.
-Miracle on 34th Street.
-It's a Wonderful Life
I love watching It's a Wonderful Life.
A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Christmas Vacation.
Home Aloneis by far my favorite Christmas movie.
This is really cliché...
Whoa. I mean it's boring but...
-It's a Winderful Life.
Of course.
The Alastair Sim -A Christmas Carol.
-Charlie Brown Christmas.
-Elf.
-The Family Stone.
-Love Actually.
-The Apartment.
It's probably -Home Alone.
-Miracle on 34th Street.
And I still like to believe in Santa Claus.
[music]