It probably would not have pleased Jean Shepherd, who died in 1999, that he should be best remembered for the off-kilter gem A Christmas Story, the Bob Clark–directed sleeper from 1983. Certainly the film, which has become an inescapable presence, captures Shepherd’s subversive sense of humor capably enough. The renowned radio storyteller had, after all, inspired all kinds of anarchy in his day, including an episode in which hundreds of his listeners milled around in downtown New York, not saying anything, which brought out the puzzled police in equal numbers.

The film does a great job of showing that childhood is a minefield that few survive without some odd little scars—and, perhaps, a revulsion for the taste of soap or icy metal. A Christmas Story is charming and funny, boasting lines that have become part of American culture (“You’ll shoot your eye out!” “Awww, fudge”). Ever the contrarian, Shepherd objected to the film’s sweetness, its buying in to holiday nostalgia even as it poked an eye into some of the conventions of Christmas. Never mind: the film, overplayed though it might be, makes a fine start to the season.

Audiences didn’t quite get Frank Capra’s 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life, with its gentle vision of angels and small-town heroes, when it first appeared. Most critics were puzzled by its sentimentality, which was much at odds with the prevailing weariness, thinly veiled anger, and danger of contemporary films such as The Best Years of Our Lives and The Killers. Those audiences were small in any event, since paying customers who had survived a newly ended world war were busy at home producing the baby boom generation.

Another puzzle, to those who did make it to the theater, was that Jimmy Stewart, the film’s much-liked star, looked not his affable self but instead like a man haunted by something he did not wish to discuss—namely, what would later be called posttraumatic stress disorder, a legacy of his service as a bomber pilot in World War II. For all that, he pulled himself together to give a stellar performance, and his fellow actors, including Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, and Beulah Bondi, rose to the occasion to make this canonical film, its charming resolution a homey Christmas Eve.

After a couple of doses of sugar, it’s time for some vinegar. Though far from canonical, Terry Zwigoff’s 2003 offering puts a very grownup and most unseasonal spin on the holiday. Suffice it to say that Billy Bob Thornton does a devilish and very funny turn as a department-store Santa with very evil things on his mind.

It’s good to see Lauren Graham shake off the sugary sweetness of her Gilmore Girls role to get down and decidedly dirty, too. She didn’t make it back for the sequel, released in 2016, and neither did audiences, a lesson hard learned: it’s often best just not to go back to the scene of the crime.

Suffice it also to say that the kids should be locked away for the night before spinning this one lest you have to answer questions about why Santa’s boots are pointing in the same direction as that lady’s shoes.

Back to niceness, but with an ironic twist. George Seaton’s 1947 film imagines another department-store Santa who just happens to be the real thing: Kris Kringle, a.k.a. Santa Claus. When he makes the mistake of admitting as much to the children who flock to Macy’s to see him, as well as to his bosses, Santa is sent to the asylum, and it’s up to the true believers to spring him. Watch the film for its tender story and the magnificent performances by Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O’Hara, and a very young Natalie Wood.

Also known as A Christmas Carol, Brian Desmond Hurst’s 1951 film is perhaps the best adaptation to date of Charles Dickens’s 1843 novella. Alastair Sim is the definitive Ebenezer Scrooge, even if he’s a little nicer than Dickens’s original, and Glyn Dearman makes the least treacly of a string of heart-wrenching Tiny Tims.

A sidenote: Charles Dickens was no fan of the wealthy, though well off himself after decades of poverty, having been put to work in a factory at age 12 when his father was sent to debtor’s prison. After reading a parliamentary report on child labor, he announced that he was going to write a book on the subject. Instead, fortunately, he wrote A Christmas Carol.

As readers and filmgoers alike know, it takes time and haunting to turn Ebenezer Scrooge to the good; he has to be shocked into doing the right thing, for, as recent studies tell us, the rich are well supplied with money and possessions but, as a class, are notably deficient in matters of the soul. Dickens knew as much, describing Scrooge as “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner.” The movies, Hurst’s among them, have denatured Dickens’s book, so that Scrooge becomes a mere curmudgeon easily transformed, with Hurst’s version boasting a hardhearted namesake with a flicker of humanity that Dickens’s text does not really support. A faithful film version would be a welcome, and surely interesting, project, although it would necessarily be rated as too scary for children—and probably for most adults, too.

An antidote to the fundamental niceness of Hurst’s adaptation is its madcap transmutation—even transmogrification, for purists—into Rowan Atkinson’s splenetic, dyspeptic, and hilarious take.

Blackadder, as fans of the BBC television series know, is the time-traveling Machiavellian who never quite attains the wealth and power he believes he deserves, largely because he’s so nasty to those who might put him in that position. Here “Ebenezer Blackadder,” whose visits with the ghosts of Christmas have convinced him to turn from nice to awful instead of the other way around, has just slammed the door on Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who have come to reward him for his services to the poor. The royals knock again.

Ebenezer Blackadder: I am not at home to guests!

Prince Albert: I flatter myzelf ve are rather special guests, sir.

Ebenezer Blackadder: Oh, of course, I must apologize! It isn’t often that one receives a Christmas visit from two such distinguished guests.

Prince Albert: Ah, zo you recognize us at last!

Ebenezer Blackadder: Yes! [Turning to Victoria.] Unless I’m very much mistaken, you’re the winner of the ’Round Britain Shortest Fattest Dumpiest Woman Competition. And for her to be accompanied by the winner of this year’s Stupidest Accent Award is really quite overwhelming.

What’s Christmasy about Nagisa Oshima’s 1983 film about British prisoners of war in Japanese-occupied Java? The spirit of forgiveness and bonhomie, which is something of what the holiday is supposed to be about. Though the film is downlifting, so to speak, the performances by David Bowie, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tom Conti, and Takeshi Kitano (a.k.a. Beat Takeshi) are remarkable, with a payoff that comes with the last line.

And what’s Christmasy about Fridrik Thor Fridriksson’s offbeat 1995 Icelandic-Japanese road film? Just the eponymous cold and the beauty of Iceland in winter, which is a decent approximation of Santaland.

A young Tokyo salaryman named Hirata, played by Masatoshi Nagase, travels deep into Iceland’s glacier-carved interior to conduct a ceremony to honor his parents, who died there seven years earlier. He would rather have gone to Hawaii, but his grandfather reminds him that their souls will not rest until the ritual has been performed. And so he goes—only to encounter very strange things, not least of them sheep heads on his dinner plate, as well as a pair of inept American criminals, played with delicious nastiness by Lili Taylor and Fisher Stevens.

Speaking of nastiness, for those raised on The Sound of Music, this little Canadian film from 1978 will amaze, for Christopher Plummer emerges over its course as one of the most deeply unpleasant, murderous people you will ever hope not to meet. In fact, you may never trust a department-store Santa again. Enough said.

[Editor's Note: Silent Partner is one of the few movies included both in this list and in our Movie Advent Calendar. Screenopolis says check it out.]

A lively, lovely Scottish film directed by Bill Forsyth, this 1984 Christmas tale travels a roundabout path to peace on Earth—or at least Glasgow, where two rival Italian families have declared war over which is to corner the local ice cream market. A brokenhearted radio host, beautifully played by Bill Paterson, saves the day, though, like Edmund Gwenn’s Santa, his mental health is called into question—which, of course, affords Forsyth the chance to repeat the great Chico Marx line, “Everybody knows there’s no such thing as Sanity Clause.”

Mars lacks many things, from water to guitars, but especially someone to bring joy to all the little Martian girls and boys. Hence the green-skinned Martian grownups travel to Earth to kidnap Santa Claus, and a couple of earthling stowaways, for the task.

Here’s a sample of the dialogue, which should help demonstrate why the 1964 film is considered one of the worst ever made:

Betty: What are those funny things sticking out of your head?

Rigna: Those are our antennae.

Betty: Are you a television set?

George Clooney may be today’s Hollywood heartthrob, but his aunt Rosemary set the stage ablaze half a century ago. In this classic film, directed by Michael Curtiz in 1954, Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye play World War II veterans who, with their high-stepping love interests, strive to save their former general from bankruptcy. How to do so? In fine Andy Hardy fashion, they put on a show—and reprise the Irving Berlin song “White Christmas,” introduced in the film Holiday Inn a dozen years earlier. Call it schmaltzy and sentimental, but this is the perfect film with which to close the season. Happy holidays!