New Christmas Classics: Great Family Movies for Christmas

There are literally dozens of Christmas movies on television, not just on the Hallmark Channel, and I enjoy them. But I would not call them classics. Indeed, it’s hard to tell them apart. There have been some wonderful recent holiday films that deserve to be called classics.

“Jingle Jangle” is a delightful musical with an outstanding cast, including Forest Whitaker and Keegan-Michael Key in the story of a toymaker and his granddaughter. The joyous musical numbers are colorful and remarkably athletic.

“A Boy Called Christmas” is a fanciful origin story of Santa Claus as a boy in Finland who goes off in search of Elfhelm. The cast includes Dame Maggie Smith, Kristen Wiig, and Sally Hawkins, and Stephen Merchant provides the voice of a mouse sidekick.

“Klaus” is another Santa origin story with a stellar cast, this one featuring spectacular animation and voice talents of Jason Schwartzman, J.K. Simmons, Rashida Jones, and Joan Cusack.

“The Man Who Invented Christmas” is a different origin story — this one the story of how Charles Dickens came to write “A Christmas Carol,” with “Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens in the starring role.

“The Star” is the story of the Nativity, through the eyes of a little donkey named Bo (Steven Yeun), and the friends he meets along the way as he helps Mary (Gina Rodriguez) and Joseph (Zachary Levi) on the way to Bethlehem