I love the Christmas classic movies and watch as many as I can every year.  But there are many great Christmas films that don’t get mentioned as often and I like to remind families that these are worth making time for as well.

1.  The Nativity Story  This sincere and respectful story is a good way to remember that Christmas is about more than presents and parties.  “Whale Rider’s” Keisha Castle-Hughes has a shy but dignified and resolute air and she glows believably as the very young woman who is selected as the mother of Jesus. And “Drive’s” Oliver Isaac effectively conveys tenderness, doubt, courage, and transcendence as Joseph.

2. A Christmas Memory Truman Capote’s bittersweet memory of his childhood Christmas making fruitcakes with his elderly cousin, the only relative who cared about him is beautifully filmed with the magnificent Geraldine Page and Capote himself reading the narration.

3. Will Vinton’s Claymation Christmas The California Raisins guys put together this Christmas special, with the highlight the funniest-ever performance of “Carol of the Bells.”

4. Come to the Stable Loretta Young and Celeste Holm play French nuns trying to raise money to build a hospital.  Their faith and goodness transforms those they meet.

5. Little Women “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents” is the first line of this classic novel based on the loving if sometimes tumultuous family of author Louisa May Alcott.  The movie opens with an important Christmas lesson about the joy of giving. All three versions of the story, with Katharine Hepburn, Winona Ryder, and Saoirse Ronin, are superb.

6. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Based on the classic book, this stars Loretta Swit as the mother of six rambunctious kids who insist on playing roles in the church pageant.

7. This Christmas I love this movie about a family with five adult children who return home to celebrate Christmas with their mother and youngest brother.  The outstanding cast includes Regina King, Idris Elba, Loretta Devine, and Chris Brown.  Be sure to watch through the credits to see the actors perform a great dance number.

8. Desk Set Before Google, companies had human beings to track down information. Katherine Hepburn plays the head of the all-female research department for a television network and Spencer Tracy is the engineer who is installing the company’s first computer, which takes up a whole wall and uses punch cards and vacuum tubes. Sparks fly — and not just in the equipment.

9. Die Hard Yes, it is a Christmas movie. Bruce Willis plays a cop visiting his estranged wife at her office Christmas party when the building is taken over by bad guys led by Alan Rickman in this action-movie classic.

10. The Polar Express Tom Hanks stars in this animated story based on the book by Chris Van Allsburg about a magical train ride to the North Pole.

11. Home Alone This comedy smash hit stars Macauley Culkin as a little boy who is accidentally left home when his family goes away for the holidays and has to take care of himself and guard the house from a couple of inept thieves.  The slapstick is a bit over the top but the message of Christmas is surprisingly touching.

12. Annie The story of the plucky orphan from the comic pages became one of the biggest Broadway musicals of all time and one of its highlights is Christmas with Daddy Warbucks.

The Film Independent Spirit Awards were announced this morning with American Fiction, May/December, and Past Lives among the top nominees. In order to qualify, the budget for the film has to be at least 70 minutes long and with a budget under $30 million (raised last year from $22.5 million), or, in the television categories, in its first year of broadcast. Nominees below:

BEST FEATURE 

All of Us Strangers
Producers: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Sarah Harvey

American Fiction
Producers: Cord Jefferson, Jermaine Johnson, Nikos Karamigios, Ben LeClair

May December
Producers: Jessica Elbaum, Will Ferrell, Grant S. Johnson, Pamela Koffler, Tyler W. Konney, Sophie Mas, Natalie Portman, Christine Vachon

Passages
Producers: Michel Merkt, Saïd Ben Saïd

Past Lives
Producers: David Hinojosa, Pamela Koffler, Christine Vachon

We Grown Now
Producers: Minhal Baig, Joe Pirro

BEST FIRST FEATURE (Award given to director and producer)

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
Director: Raven Jackson
Producers: Maria Altamirano, Mark Ceryak, Barry Jenkins, Adele Romanski

Chronicles of a Wandering Saint
Director: Tomás Gómez Bustillo
Producers: Gewan Brown, Amanda Freedman

Earth Mama
Director/Producer: Savanah Leaf
Producers: Sam Bisbee, Shirley O’Connor, Medb Riordan, Cody Ryder

A Thousand and One
Director: A.V. Rockwell
Producers: Julia Lebedev, Rishi Rajani, Eddie Vaisman, Lena Waithe, Brad Weston

Upon Entry
Directors: Alejandro Rojas, Juan Sebastián Vásquez
Producers: Sergio Adrià, Carlos Juárez, Alba Sotorra, Carles Torras, Xosé Zapata
 
JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD – Given to the best feature made for under $1 million

The Artifice Girl
Director/Writer: Franklin Ritch
Producers: Aaron B. Koontz, Ashleigh Snead

Cadejo Blanco
Director/Writer/Producer: Justin Lerner
Producers: Mauricio Escobar, Ryan Friedkin, Jack Patrick Hurley

Fremont
Director/Writer: Babak Jalali
Writer: Carolina Cavalli
Producers: Rachael Fung, Chris Martin, Marjaneh Moghimi, George Rush, Sudnya Shroff, Laura Wagner

Rotting in the Sun
Director/Writer: Sebastián Silva
Writer: Pedro Peirano
Producer: Jacob Wasserman

The Unknown Country
Director/Writer/Producer: Morrisa Maltz
Writer: Lily Gladstone
Writers/Producers: Lainey Bearkiller Shangreaux, Vanara Taing
Producers: Katherine Harper, Laura Heberton, Tommy Heitkamp
 
BEST DIRECTOR

Andrew Haigh
All of Us Strangers

Todd Haynes
May December

William Oldroyd
Eileen

Ira Sachs
Passages

Celine Song
Past Lives
 
BEST SCREENPLAY

David Hemingson
The Holdovers

Cord Jefferson
American Fiction

Laura Moss, Brendan J. O’Brien
Birth/Rebirth

Emma Seligman, Rachel Sennott
Bottoms

Celine Song
Past Lives

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY

Samy Burch; Story by Samy Burch, Alex Mechanik
May December

Noah Galvin, Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman, Ben Platt
Theater Camp

Tomás Gómez Bustillo
Chronicles of a Wandering Saint

Laurel Parmet
The Starling Girl

Alejandro Rojas, Juan Sebastián Vásquez
Upon Entry

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

Jessica Chastain
Memory

Greta Lee
Past Lives

Trace Lysette
Monica

Natalie Portman
May December

Judy Reyes
Birth/Rebirth

Franz Rogowski
Passages

Andrew Scott
All of Us Strangers

Teyana Taylor
A Thousand and One

Jeffrey Wright
American Fiction

Teo Yoo
Past Lives

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

Erika Alexander
American Fiction

Sterling K. Brown
American Fiction

Noah Galvin
Theater Camp

Anne Hathaway
Eileen

Glenn Howerton
BlackBerry

Marin Ireland
Eileen

Charles Melton
May December

Da’Vine Joy Randolph
The Holdovers

Catalina Saavedra
Rotting in the Sun

Ben Whishaw
Passages

BEST BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE

Marshawn Lynch
Bottoms

Atibon Nazaire
Mountains

Tia Nomore
Earth Mama

Dominic Sessa
The Holdovers

Anaita Wali Zada
Fremont

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Katelin Arizmendi
Monica

Eigil Bryld
The Holdovers

Jomo Fray
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt

Pablo Lozano
Chronicles of a Wandering Saint

Pat Scola
We Grown Now
 
BEST EDITING

Santiago Cendejas, Gabriel Díaz, Sofía Subercaseaux
Rotting in the Sun

Stephanie Filo
We Grown Now

Daniel Garber
How to Blow Up a Pipeline

Jon Philpot
Theater Camp

Emanuele Tiziani
Upon Entry
 
ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD – Given to one film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast

Showing Up
Director: Kelly Reichardt
Casting Director: Gayle Keller
Ensemble Cast: André Benjamin, Hong Chau, Judd Hirsch, Heather Lawless, James Le Gros, John Magaro, Matt Malloy, Amanda Plummer, Maryann Plunkett, Denzel Rodriguez, Michelle Williams

BEST DOCUMENTARY 

Bye Bye Tiberias
Director: Lina Soualem
Producer: Jean-Marie Nizan

Four Daughters
Director: Kaouther Ben Hania
Producer: Nadim Cheikhrouha

Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
Directors/Producers: Joe Brewster, Michèle Stephenson
Producer: Tommy Oliver

Kokomo City
Director: D. Smith
Producers: Bill Butler, Harris Doran

The Mother of All Lies
Director/Producer: Asmae El Moudir
 
BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM

Anatomy of a Fall
France
Director: Justine Triet

Godland
Denmark/Iceland
Director: Hlynur Pálmason

Mami Wata
Nigeria
Director: C.J. ‘Fiery’ Obasi

Tótem
Mexico
Director: Lila Avilés

The Zone of Interest
United Kingdom, Poland, USA
Director: Jonathan Glazer

PRODUCERS AWARD 

Rachael Fung

Graham Swon

Monique Walton

 SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD

Joanna Arnow
Director of The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed

Laura Moss
Director of Birth/Rebirth

Monica Sorelle
Director of Mountains

TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD 

Set Hernandez
Director of unseen

Jesse Short Bull, Laura Tomaselli
Director of Lakota Nation vs. United States

Sierra Urich
Director of Joonam

BEST NEW NON-SCRIPTED OR DOCUMENTARY SERIES

Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court
Executive Producers: Vinnie Malhotra, Aaron Saidman, Eli Holzman, Dawn Porter

Dear Mama
Executive Producers: Lasse Järvi, Quincy ‘QD3’ Jones III, Staci Robinson, Nelson George, Charles D. King, Peter Nelson, Adel ‘Future’ Nur, Jamal Joseph, Ted Skillman, Allen Hughes, Steve Berman, Marc Cimino, Jody Gerson, John Janick, Nicholas Ferrall, Nigel Sinclair

Murder in Big Horn
Executive Producers: Matthew Galkin, Vinnie Malhotra
Co-Executive Producers: Lisa Kalikow, Joshua Levine

Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence
Executive Producers: Mindy Goldberg, Dan Cogan, Liz Garbus, Jon Bardin, Zach Heinzerling, Krista Parris, Daniel Barban Levin, Felicia Rosario
Co-Executive Producer: Julie Gaither

Wrestlers
Executive Producers: Greg Whiteley, Ryan O’Dowd
Co-Executive Producers: Alejandro Melendez, Adam Leibowitz

BEST NEW SCRIPTED SERIES

Beef
Creator/Executive Producer: Lee Sung Jin
Executive Producers: Steven Yeun, Ali Wong, Jake Schreier, Ravi Nandan, Alli Reich
Co-Executive Producers: Alice Ju, Carrie Kemper

Dreaming Whilst Black
Creator/Executive Producer: Adjani Salmon
Creators: Maximilian Evans, Natasha Jatania, Laura Seixas
Executive Producers: Tanya Qureshi, Dhanny Joshi, Bal Samra, Thomas Stogdon

I’m a Virgo
Creator/Executive Producer: Boots Riley
Executive Producers: Tze Chun, Michael Ellenberg, Lindsey Springer, Jharrel Jerome, Rebecca Rivo
Co-Executive Producers: Marcus Gardley, Carver Karaszewski

Jury Duty
Creators/Executive Producers: Lee Eisenberg, Gene Stupnitsky
Executive Producers: David Bernad, Ruben Fleischer, Nicholas Hatton, Cody Heller, Todd Schulman, Jake Szymanski, Andrew Weinberg

Slip
Creator/Executive Producer: Zoe Lister-Jones
Executive Producers: Ro Donnelly, Dakota Johnson, Katie O’Connell Marsh, David Fortier, Ivan Schneeberg

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES

Emma Corrin
A Murder at the End of the World

Dominique Fishback
Swarm

Betty Gilpin
Mrs. Davis

Jharrel Jerome
I’m a Virgo

Zoe Lister-Jones
Slip

Bel Powley
A Small Light

Bella Ramsey
The Last of Us

Ramón Rodríguez
Will Trent

Ali Wong
Beef

Steven Yeun
Beef

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES

Murray Bartlett
The Last of Us

Billie Eilish
Swarm

Jack Farthing
Rain Dogs

Nick Offerman
The Last of Us

Adina Porter
The Changeling

Lewis Pullman
Lessons in Chemistry

Benny Safdie
The Curse

Luke Tennie
Shrinking

Olivia Washington
I’m a Virgo

Jessica Williams
Shrinking

BEST BREAKTRHOUGH PERFORMANCE IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES

Clark Backo
The Changeling

Aria Mia Loberti
All the Light We Cannot See

Adjani Salmon
Dreaming Whilst Black

Keivonn Montreal Woodard
The Last of Us

Kara Young
I’m a Virgo

BEST ENSEMBLE CAST IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES

Jury Duty
Ensemble Cast: Alan Barinholtz, Susan Berger, Cassandra Blair, David Brown, Kirk Fox, Ross Kimball, Pramode Kumar, Trisha LaFache, Mekki Leeper, James Marsden, Edy Modica, Kerry O’Neill, Rashida Olayiwola, Whitney Rice, Maria Russell, Ishmel Sahid, Ben Seaward, Ron Song, Evan Williams

December is a time for families and celebrating and time off from school and work. It is also a time that the movie studios like to release films they hope will win Oscars and other awards. So there will be great movies in theaters and on streaming for families to share over the holidays. Here’s some of what they can look forward to.

Already in theaters: Disney’s “Wish” and Dreamworks’ “Trolls Band Together” are already in theaters and both are sure to delight children and their parents. And for mature teens and adults, “The Holdovers,” one of the best films of the year, is the story of the most disliked teacher at a posh boys’ boarding school in 1970, and the students he is stuck with over the Christmas holidays because they cannot go home. Watch for Paul Giamatti and Da-Vine Joy Randolph to get some awards in a few months. Every performance in this movie is a gem.

December 1

Renaissance: A Film by Beyonce — Queen Bey’s concert film.

Candy Cane Lane — A comedy/horror film with Eddie Murphy as a man who sells his soul to have the best decorated house in the neighborhood.

How the Gringo Stole Christmas — George Lopez stars in this “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”-style farce.

December 7

“Waitress” — The Broadway musical version of the beloved indie about the pregnant pie-maker will be in theaters for just five days.

December 8

The Boy and the Heron — The latest from Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli is a dreamy and sometimes nightmarish story of a boy mourning the loss of his mother who travels to an enchanted land.

Leave the World Behind — Oscar-winners Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali star in a story about two couples stuck together as it seems the world may be ending.

December 15

Wonka — The people behind the “Paddington” films have made another endearing treat with this origin story of the world’s greatest candy-maker.

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget — Finally, a sequel to the Aardman classic from the “Wallace & Gromit” studio.

American Fiction — Percival Everett’s satiric novel, Erasure, about a Black professor whose savage parody of “ghetto” literature, was written more than 20 years ago but this pointed, hilarious, and brilliantly acted film is sure to be one of the most talked-about of the year.

December 20

Maestro — Bradley Cooper wrote, directed, and stars as composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein, one of the central cultural figures of the 20th century. This film focuses on his loving but often fraught relationship with his wife, played by Carey Mulligan.

December 22

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom — Marvel’s underwater superhero is back.

Anyone But You — Two people smarting from recent break-ups pretend to be a couple to make their exes jealous. I can’t imagine what happens next. Festival audiences loved the chemistry between Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney.

All of Us Strangers — Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal are sizzling as a couple tentatively exploring a relationship as Scott’s character finds a way to return to the house he grew up in, where his parents, killed before he turned 12, seem to be still there waiting for him.

The Iron Claw — Zac Efron and “The Bear’s” Jeremy Allen White star in the story of one of professional wrestling’s most cherished and tragic families.

December 25

The Color Purple — The Alice Walker book and Stephen Spielberg movie turned Broadway musical is now a movie musical with knockout performances by Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, and American Idol’s Fantasia.

The Boys in the Boat — George Clooney directed this fact-based story of an American rowing team in the 1936 Olympics, held in Berlin as Hitler was trying to show the world the superiority of the German athletes.

Freud’s Last Session — Anthony Hopkins plays the pioneering psychoanalyst and atheist and Matthew Goode plays “Narnia” author and Christian C.S. Lewis.

Ferrarri — Our year of movies about the origin stories of consumer products (including Air Jordans, Blackberry, Beanie Babies, and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos) concludes with Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari.

Chris (Eddie Murphy) loves Christmas so much his children are named Nick (Thaddeus J. Mixson), Joy (Genneya Walton), and Holly (Madison Thomas). Possibly, it’s not a coincidence that his wife is named Carol (Tracee Ellis Ross). The family lives in the Southern California town of El Segundo, on a street called Candy Cane Lane that is famous for the elaborate Christmas (and, at one house, Hanukkah) decorations.

As the movie begins, Chris has an extra reason to try to win the competition for best decorations. His across-the-street neighbor Bruce (Ken Marino) has won the past four years. But this year, Chris has just been laid off and for the first time the local television channel that covers Candy Cane Lane is offering a $100,000 prize for the winner.

He discovers a pop-up Christmas store called Kringle’s, run by Pepper (Jillian Bell). He sees a gigantic tree-shaped, “!2 Days of Christmas”-themed decoration and buys it, so enthusiastic and in such a hurry to get it home that does not check to see how much it costs, not just in money, but in more. He signs without reading the fine print. It turns out Pepper was once an elf at the North Pole. She was thrown out for putting too many people on the Naughty list. Now she sets impossible tasks and when people cannot complete them she turns them into little ceramic Dickensian Christmas figurines, charmingly CGI-animated and endearingly voiced by Nick Offerman, Robin Thede, and Chris Redd, with the fabulous a cappella group Pentatonix as a carol-singing choir.

The “12 Days of Christmas” ornaments start to come to life, creating chaos at Carol’s job, just as she is up for a promotion and at Joy’s track meet, just as a scout from her dream college is in the stands (the lords a leaping are very impressive). The impossible task for Chris is to get the golden rings from each of the ornaments before midnight, or he will be trapped forever as one of the ceramic figures.

Murphy gives a lower-key, nearly anti-less performance than we’ve seen from him in the past, letting the concept and the special effects take the lead, with him grounding the fantasy by focusing on Chris as a devoted father. The strength of the family keeps the story from getting lost in the silliness. Some elements of the film are less successful, especially the cut-aways to the local television show, with one of the hosts increasingly irritated with the other. But it all comes together at the end, with David Alan Grier as Santa and a satisfying resolution for Chris and his family.

Parents should know that this film has extended fantasy peril and some schoolyard language.

Family discussion: What made Chris and Carol change their minds about Joy’s school choice? What’s your favorite Christmas decoration?

If you like this, try: “Family Switch”

The animators at Disney, now celebrating their 100th anniversary, have had a lot of time to think about wishing. From Disney’s first feature film, “Snow White,” which had a heroine warbling about the day her prince would come to their second feature film, with the greatest wishing song of all time, the one we still hear every time a Disney movie begins with a view of Cinderella’s castle and “When You Wish Upon a Star,” to all of the princesses singing their wishes — “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes,” “A Part of His World,” “Once Upon a Dream,” Belle singing she wants more than “this provincial life,” Moana singing about “How Far I’ll Go,” no one’s movies do better at giving us characters with wishes we want to see come true. So there’s no better way to pay tribute to Disney history than “Wish,” a movie about wishes, with loving references to many of their most beloved classics.

Oscar-winner Ariana Dubose provides the voice of Asha, a 17-year-old girl who lives on an island in the Mediterranean Sea with her mother, Sakina (Natasha Rothwell), and grandfather, Sabino (Victor Garber). Like Disney animation, Sabino is reaching his centenary. Like most Disney heroines, she has cute sidekick, a goat named Valentino (Alan Tudyk).

Their island is governed by King Magnifico (Chris Pine). The people of the kingdom believe that he will grant the wishes they share with him when they turn 18. But as Asha finds when she becomes his assistant, he hoards the wishes, which appear in floating translucent spheres. When people turn their wishes over to him, they lose their memory of what it was they aspired to, and they become docile and easily governed.

Asha makes her own wish the old-fashioned way, on a star, just like Geppetto in “Pinocchio.” To her surprise, the star responds by flying down from the sky to help her out, starting with giving Valentino the ability to speak. Asha originally only wanted to make the wishes of her mother and grandfather come true. But she realizes that she has to give all of the wishes back to the people who wished them. In addition to the star and the goat, she gets some help from her seven friends, who adorably match up with the seven dwarfs from Disney’s first feature. One Is sleepy, one is grumpy, one is bashful…you get the rest. The “Doc” character is Asha’s best friend Dahlia, the King’s chef, voiced by Jennifer Kumiyama. To honor the actress, who uses a wheelchair, Dahlia uses a cane, welcome representation for audience members who use adaptive equipment and their families, and welcome normalization for those who may not yet have those people in their lives.

The character design here is understated by contemporary animation standards, perhaps another nod to the classical era. The backgrounds and settings are pure Disney magic, though, delicately colored, stunningly beautiful, and bursting with imagination. Asha’s home and Magnifico’s castle are fairy tale delights. The musical numbers are lovely and the one with dancing chickens is a highlight.

And the story is well designed, exciting and heartwarming. It has a gentle but skillful exploration of the meaning of wishes, how they help us imagine what is most significant to us and think about how to get there, and about the importance of finding our own way to make our dreams come true and support the dreams of those around us. Asha is an endearing heroine, unsure about herself but always sure about what is right. When key characters switch loyalties at meaningful moments, as the king becomes more ruthless, it underscores the importance of values as well as aspirations — just as we would hope as Disney starts on its next century as the gold standard in family movies.

NOTE: Stay ALL the way to the end of the credits for a sweet extra snippet.

Parents should know that this film has a mean, selfish villain who attacks people with sometimes-scary green lightning. There is a reference, as in most Disney films, to a parent who died.

Family discussion: What is your wish? What did the king mean by “safe” and was he right? How many references to other Disney movies did you catch?

If you like this, try: the other animated Disney classics like “Snow White,” “Pinocchio,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Frozen,” “Mulan,” and “Encanto” and the live-action fairy tale, “Stardust”