Harry Potter to Eyes Wide Shut: 12 of the Best Alternative Festive Films

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Great Day Out (1998)

Before the advent of Wallace and Gromit feature films in recent decades, every Christmas my family would listen to reruns of the original Aardman claymation classics of the 1980s and 1990s on the BBC. Today, the cozy feeling of tea and toast on the sofa still perfectly embodies the holiday season for me. My favorite is the first, A Grand Day Out, which despite running less than 25 minutes, somehow fits within the heaps of copious stories. After all, why not build a rocket to fly to the moon in search of cheese if your cupboard is empty? And surely few moments in movie history (or Christmas movie history, at least) can compare to Wallace’s dramatic last-minute realization during the countdown to launch: “No crackers, Gromit! We forgot the crackers!” (Jocelyn Temperley)

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The Keepers (2023)

“You can’t even dream a full dream, can you?” is a line of dialogue that embodies the quiet influence of Alexander Payne’s recent festive classic. At a snowy, all-boys boarding school in New England in the early 1970s, grouchy classics teacher Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) stays over winter break to supervise a disillusioned student abandoned by his parents, Angus Tolley (Dominic Cessa), with the recently bereaved head chef Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) for company. As the unlikely trio gains a deeper understanding of each other, they begin to find pockets of joy in each other’s company—especially after a trip to Boston, which clears away the clouds of self-doubt. With sparkles of sharp wit and hope, and a pitch-perfect soundtrack featuring the likes of Labi Siffre and Shocking Blue, The Holdovers is as much a comforting Christmas film as it is a poignant coming-of-age story. (Molly Gorman)

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Live Flesh (1997)

Pedro Almodovar’s Live Flesh begins and closes with two unexpected Nativity scenes, 25 years in between and lots of drugs, sex and violence. A close-up of the Star of Bethlehem from Madrid’s Christmas lights opens the film. Then we hear the screams of a young sex worker (Penelope Cruz), who gives birth to a baby on a public bus with the help of her mistress (Pilar Bardem). The scene, an inventive mix of drama and comedy, hints at what will happen in the film and beyond. Years later, Cruz referred to this scene as a “rehearsal for life,” as Bardem (Javier Bardem’s mother) became a grandmother to Cruz’s children. Live Flesh also marks Almodovar’s departure from high camp melodrama towards a more mature, darker and often sadder cinema. It is a film about love, death, birth, longing, and redemption, with two scenes featuring the birthdays of its outcast characters. And perhaps this is a prequel to the upcoming Spanish landmark film: Bitter Christmas. (Javier Hirschfeld)

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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

If you’re looking to watch one of the Harry Potter movies over the holidays, any of them will likely fill you with those warm, nostalgic feelings. But Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban may be taking the biscuit (or should it be the chocolate frog?) for a particularly Christmas scene in Hogsmeade that includes a snowball fight and, of course, an invisible cloak. Are there themes of death and revenge? You can bet on your sailing ships. But there are also gorgeous ballrooms filled with elaborately prepared food, and dazzling performances from the likes of Gary Oldman, Timothy Spall, and David Thewlis. With Alfonso Cuarón directing, the third part of the series becomes darker as the three main characters grow up from childhood. But then, the best Christmas stories always have a touch of darkness in their cauldrons. And who needs Santa’s sleigh when you have the opening scene of “Knight Bus,” one of the most memorable series in the Potter universe? (Cal Byrne)

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Young Frankenstein (1974)

My family used to holiday in the Dolomites, in a small apartment on the ground floor of a house next to the forest. After a day on the slopes, we would ski back home through the pines, jumping over a narrow stream. Our living room was full – friends and family sitting on the couch, around the table, and on the rug. Young Frankenstein was on TV: in Italy, they broadcast Mel Brooks’ horror tribute every Christmas. It was inexplicably renamed Frankenstein Jr., and dubbed in Italian. Meaningless translations of lines like “A werewolf? There’s a wolf!” Make it even more ridiculous. Other jokes don’t need words: the moving hump, Igor’s eye, Mrs. Blücher’s horses. We ate panettone, tangerines, chocolate and nougat. If I’m not alert, my brother will throw stinky ski socks at me. I would retaliate later and squeeze a tangerine peel into his eye. I think Young Frankenstein is Christmas for me because it’s pure fun and mischief – like childhood. (Anna Prisanin)

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