By all means, watch the classics! One of the sweetest family traditions is sharing favorites like “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “White Christmas,” “A Christmas Story,” “Elf,” “Home Alone,” and my favorite, “A Christmas Carol” (I watch the MCM, Alistair Sim, and Mr. Magoo versions every year, usually the Muppets version, too.) And then there are the TV classics like “A Charlie Brown’s Christmas,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” and “The Year Without a Santa Claus.”

I’ve already posted lists of lesser-known but wonderful Christmas movies. And yes, “Die Hard” is definitely a Christmas movie. Case closed.

But there should always be room for something new, and I love these:

Jingle Jangle (Netflix)

“Colorful” is not a colorful enough word to describe a fantasy movie musical so maximalist that even the title is overstuffed. The many pleasures of this overflowing Christmas stocking of a film are sure to make it a family favorite, and most likely a family tradition. Originally conceived as a musical play, it retains the liveliness of an in-person production. The exceptionally talented and appealing and nearly all-Black cast, including Phylicia Rashad, Forest Whitaker, and Keegan-Michael Key give the film a fresh perspective. The snowball scene is one of my favorites.

Klaus

This is a Santa Claus origin story, based on the books by Grant Morrison. A spoiled, selfish young man is sent to a remote village to act as postman, not to return until he has delivered 6000 letters. Striking animation, top voice talent, and a charming interpretation of the way many of our favorite traditions began make this a gem.

“Dear Santa” (streaming now on Peacock and other services)

I love this documentary about the wonderful volunteers and USPS “elves” who answer kids’ letters to Santa. Schoolchildren and adults, including former beneficiaries of the program work around the clock. You won’t find a better example of giving being better than receiving than this charming and heartwarming film.

Holiday Rush (Netflix)

Romany Malco plays Rush, a popular DJ and a single dad of four. When he loses his job just before Christmas, his family has to leave their comfortable home and move back in to his old neighborhood with his aunt, played by the magnificent Darlene Love. This is a warm-hearted story about love and families and what really matters.

The Man Who Invented Christmas

Fans of this site know that “A Christmas Carol” is my favorite holiday story. This is the story of how that book came to be written, with Dan Stevens just perfect as the brilliant but harried Charles Dickens. The book, one of the most popular of all time, really did change the way people saw Christmas, with more focus on helping others, and this story of love, reconciliation, and the power of storytelling is a treasure.

And, okay, yes, they aren’t classics and they don’t make much sense or vary much from the formula, but I like Hallmark Christmas movies, and the ones on other services, too. Some of my favorites are:

“Write Before Christmas”

A recently dumped young woman sends five Hallmark greeting cards to people who have been important to her and they change the lives of the recipients and hers, too).

“The Christmas House”

The Hallmark Channel’s first movie with a gay couple — the brother of the main character and his husband — is more layered and sympathetic than the more high-profile “Happiest Season.” In this story of parents famous for their Christmas decorations insisting both of their sons come home to help.

“The Mistletoe Promise” A woman who owns a travel company with her ex-husband meets a man who is as reluctant to celebrate Christmas as she is. They join forces to support each other through the gauntlet of office-based holiday events.

“The Princess Switch”

A Chicago baker and a European princess who happen to look identical, both charmingly played by Vanessa Hudgens, pull a switch and each finds love. The sequel adds a third look-alike!

“The Mistletoe Promise”

A travel agent and a lawyer have different reasons for dreading Christmas, so make a pact to be each other’s plus one through the holidays.

Oh, and coal in the stocking of everyone connected with “Holidate!”

An 1886 novella by Leo Tolstoy inspired Japanese director Akira Kurosawa to create one of the most acclaimed films of all time, “Ikiru,” in 1952. And now those two core works have inspired an extraordinarily wise and touching British film starring Bill Nighy called “Living,” with a screenplay by Nobel Prize-winner Kazuo Ishiguro. What has drawn all of these artist together is that most profound of existential questions, literally the meaning of life. And like the two earlier works, “Living” is superb in every detail.

The story is set in post-WWII London. Mr. Williams (Nighy), a supervisor in a government office, overseeing a group of mostly white men (one woman, one Indian-British) who sit around tables piled high with file folders and documents. The production design by Helen Scott and cinematography by Jamie Ramsay are impeccable. We follower newcomer Peter Wakeling (Alex Sharp) as he begins to learn the way the office works. His colleagues board the commuter train together. “This time of morning, not too much fun and laughter. Rather like church,” he is cautioned by one of his new co-workers after he ventures some mild self-deprecating humor. All conversation is highly professional, quiet, understated, and exquisitely polite.

A group of local women trying to get a permit to turn a small area that was bombed in the Blitz turned into a playground keep coming to Mr. Williams’ department. And every other department in the building, because each one tells them it is someone else’s responsibility. For Mr. Williams, his job is about moving paper, not helping people.

After he gets the bad news from his doctor, Mr. Williams practices telling the son and daughter-in-law who live with him that he only has a few months to live. His emotional vocabulary is so shrunken, so limited, the only word he can think of to describe the situation is, “bore.”

He cannot bring himself to tell them, even or especially after he hears them talking about how they want to move out and live on their own. And then, Mr. Williams, the most methodical and reliable of men, does not go to his office. He finds his way to the seaside and strikes up a conversation in a bar with a bon vivant writer (Tom Burke), one of only two people he will tell about his diagnosis. The writer suggests spending his last months having fun, and they spend a raucous evening together, but that is not what Mr. Williams needs.

The second person he tells is a former co-worker, who spends some time with him, and it is her example that helps lead him to an understanding of what he needs to make the final time meaningful.

Nighy, always superb, has never been better. He is able to show us emotions that Mr. Williams does not even understand he is experiencing. Every moment of this film is exquisite, a poetic elegy to reveal not only Mr. Williams’ purpose but our own.

Parents should know that this movie deals with a terminal illness. There is some mild language, drinking, and drunkenness.

Family discussion: What do you and the people around you to do find meaning? Will the people in Mr. Williams’ office keep their pledge? Why didn’t he tell his son what was going on?

If you like this, try: “The Browning Version” (1951 version) and “Last Holiday” (1950 version), two British films from the era depicted in this film with related themes, and “Ikuru” and “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” as well.

“Everything Everywhere All At Once” cinched four major wins when The Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA) announced their top honorees for 2022 this morning. A life-affirming, genre-traversing journey through the multiverse as experienced by a struggling working-class wife, mother, and laundromat owner, writer-directors Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert’s uniquely unclassifiable feature proved victorious in the Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor categories, the latter for former child star Ke Huy Quan’s breakthrough return to acting after a 20-year hiatus.

In the other major acting races, Colin Farrell won Best Actor for his riveting performance in Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin,” as a 1920s everyman living off the coast of Ireland who is stricken with confusion and grief when his best friend abruptly ends their relationship, and Kerry Condon won Best Supporting Actress for the same film, as Farrell’s outspoken, increasingly concerned sister. Cate Blanchett triumphed in the Best Actress category for her haunted tour de force turn in Todd Field’s “TÁR,” as a world-class musician and conductor experiencing a reckoning for her questionable past actions.

Best Youth Performance went to Gabriel LaBelle as an aspiring teenage filmmaker not unlike Steven Spielberg in “The Fabelmans,” and Best Voice Performance was awarded to Jenny Slate for her irresistibly funny and poignant turn in the title role of Dean Fleischer-Camp’s “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.” Zoe Saldaña won Best Motion Capture Performance for her excellent work in James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water.” Best Acting Ensemble went to the marvelous cast of Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion,” the second chapter in the “Knives Out” murder-mystery franchise, starring Daniel Craig as returning detective Benoit Blanc, and Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kate Hudson, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Dave Bautista, Jessica Henwick, and Madelyn Cline as his gaggle of suspects. Johnson also won Best Adapted Screenplay for the spiky, surprising, meticulously plotted “Glass Onion.”

“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” a beautifully rendered stop-motion animated adaptation from del Toro and co-director Mark Gustafson, won Best Animated Feature. Best International/Foreign Language Film was awarded to Park Chan-wook’s “Decision to Leave,” an intoxicating romantic mystery from South Korea, and Best Documentary kudos went to “Good Night Oppy,” Ryan White’s inspiring story of Opportunity, the NASA exploration rover whose planned 90-day mission to Mars in 2003 turned into a nearly 15-year odyssey.

In technical categories, Joseph Kosinski’s blockbuster hit “Top Gun: Maverick,” the acclaimed long-awaited sequel to 1986’s “Top Gun,” took home the prizes for Claudio Miranda’s dazzling cinematography and Eddie Hamilton’s seamless editing. Best Production Design went to Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” while Best Score was awarded to composer Michael Giacchino for Matt Reeves’ “The Batman.”

The Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics Association comprises over 60 DC-VA-MD-based film critics from television, radio, print and the Internet. Voting was conducted from December 9-11, 2022.

THE 2022 WAFCA AWARD WINNERS:

Best Film:
Everything Everywhere All At Once

Best Director:
Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All At Once)

Best Actor:
Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin)

Best Actress:
Cate Blanchett (TÁR)

Best Supporting Actor:
Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All At Once)

Best Supporting Actress:
Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin)

Best Acting Ensemble:
Glass Onion

Best Youth Performance:
Gabriel LaBelle (The Fabelmans)

Best Voice Performance:
Jenny Slate (Marcel the Shell with Shoes On)

Best Motion Capture Performance:
Zoe Saldaña (Avatar: The Way of Water)

Best Original Screenplay:
Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All At Once)

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Rian Johnson (Glass Onion)

Best Animated Feature:
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Best Documentary:
Good Night Oppy

Best International/Foreign Language Film:
Decision to Leave

Best Production Design:
Hannah Beachler, Production Designer; Lisa Sessions Morgan, Set Decorator (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)

Best Cinematography:
Claudio Miranda, ASC (Top Gun: Maverick)

Best Editing:
Eddie Hamilton, ACE (Top Gun: Maverick)

Best Original Score:
Michael Giacchino (The Batman)

The 2022 WAFCA AWARD NOMINEES WERE:

Best Film:
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All At Once
The Fabelmans
TÁR
Top Gun: Maverick

Best Director:
Todd Field (TÁR)
Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Sarah Polley (Women Talking)
Steven Spielberg (The Fabelmans)

Best Actor:
Austin Butler (Elvis)
Tom Cruise (Top Gun: Maverick)
Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Brendan Fraser (The Whale)
Paul Mescal (Aftersun)

Best Actress:
Cate Blanchett (TÁR)
Viola Davis (The Woman King)
Danielle Deadwyler (Till)
Michelle Williams (The Fabelmans)
Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once)

Best Supporting Actor:
Paul Dano (The Fabelmans)
Brendan Gleeson (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Barry Keoghan (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
Ben Whishaw (Women Talking)

Best Supporting Actress:
Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)
Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
Janelle Monáe (Glass Onion)

Best Acting Ensemble:
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All At Once
The Fabelmans
Glass Onion
Women Talking

Best Youth Performance:
Frankie Corio (Aftersun)
Jalyn Hall (Till)
Gabriel LaBelle (The Fabelmans)
Banks Repeta (Armageddon Time)
Sadie Sink (The Whale)

Best Voice Performance:
Rosalie Chiang (Turning Red)
Gregory Mann (Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio)
Ewan McGregor (Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio)
Sandra Oh (Turning Red)
Jenny Slate (Marcel the Shell with Shoes On)

Best Motion Capture Performance:
Sam Worthington (Avatar: The Way of Water)
Sigourney Weaver (Avatar: The Way of Water)
Zoe Saldaña (Avatar: The Way of Water)

Best Original Screenplay:
Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
Steven Spielberg & Tony Kushner (The Fabelmans)
Jordan Peele (Nope)
Todd Field (TÁR)

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Rian Johnson (Glass Onion)
Patrick McHale, Guillermo del Toro (Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio)
Rebecca Lenkiewicz (She Said)
Samuel D. Hunter (The Whale)
Sarah Polley (Women Talking)

Best Animated Feature:
Apollo 10½
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Turning Red
Wendell & Wild

Best Documentary:
All That Breathes
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Descendant
Fire of Love
Good Night Oppy

Best International/
Foreign Language Film:
All Quiet on the Western Front
Close
Decision to Leave
EO
RRR

Best Production Design:
Hannah Beachler, Production Designer; Lisa Sessions Morgan, Set Decorator (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)
Catherine Martin, Karen Murphy, Production Designers; Bev Dunn, Set Decorator (Elvis)
Jason Kisvarday, Production Designer; Kelsi Ephraim, Set Decorator (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
Rick Carter, Production Designer; Karen O’Hara, Set Decorator (The Fabelmans)
Rick Heinrichs, Production Designer; Elli Griff, Set Decorator (Glass Onion)

Best Cinematography:
Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC (Empire of Light)
Larkin Seiple (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
Janusz Kaminski (The Fabelmans)
Hoyte van Hoytema ASC, FSF, NSC (Nope)
Claudio Miranda, ASC (Top Gun: Maverick)

Best Editing:
Matt Villa, ASE ACE; Jonathan Redmond (Elvis)
Paul Rogers (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
Michael Kahn, ACE; Sarah Broshar (The Fabelmans)
Monika Willi (TÁR)
Eddie Hamilton, ACE (Top Gun: Maverick)

Best Original Score:
Michael Giacchino (The Batman)
John Williams (The Fabelmans)
Alexandre Desplat (Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio)
Hildur Guðnadóttir (TÁR)
Hildur Guðnadóttir (Women Talking)

“Empire of Light” has such enticing visuals and such thoughtful performances it can almost lull audiences into forgetting that the storyline and characters are like pieces from different jigsaw puzzles. They never come together. And, more problematic, they are two-dimensional cardboard depictions, not the real thing or even a worthy substitute.

The title refers to the setting, a once-grand movie theater called Empire across from the beach along England’s south coast. It is 1980, near the end of the year.

Hilary (Olivia Colman) is the manager, taking care of just about everything from sweeping up spilled popcorn to placing the boss’s slippers in front of the space heater to matching up the ticket stubs to make sure every customer is accounted for. It also includes sexually servicing the boss, Donald Ellis, who murmurs tender nothings like “You’re so helpful.”

Hilary has recently returned to the theater after a stint in a mental hospital. She takes medication for bipolar disorder and has regular check-ins with a doctor. That may be why she is tamped down, or it just may be English reserve. Or both. She admits to him that she feels a bit numb. Colman, never less than superb, is the best part of the film, showing us how Hilary’s smile and her eyes communicate opposite emotions.

The other staff includes Norman, the projectionist, who is proud of his understanding of optical physics (Toby Jones), Janine, with wild hair and punk-black lipstick (Hannah Onslow), and quiet but observant Neil (Tom Brooke). One day, Ellis introduces a new employee, Stephen (Micheal Ward), the son of an African immigrant, who is a nurse at the local hospital. Hilary is drawn to him, his gentle care for a bird with a broken wing and his good humor. She stops taking her medication and begins to feel less numb. Some feelings are welcome, some not, as when she snaps at Stephen for trying to amuse Janine by imitating an elderly customer. The same goes for an underused Jones, who is stuck with explaining the magic of the stories projected on a beam of light. Hilary’s recognition of the abuse Stephen suffers because he is Black seems like it is from another movie. A better one, as the issue is more about her reaction than about his experience.

The cinematography by all-time great Roger Deakins is enticing and production designer Mark Tildesley, who gives the Empire theater just the right amount of faded glory, especially in the top floor, once additional theaters with a gracious lounge, now abandoned by everyone but pigeons.

It is a joy to see Colman as Hilary. She shows us the pain and isolation Hilary is experiencing and handles the various stages of bipolar disorder without losing sight of the feelings of anger, jealousy, and longing that are about being human, not about being mentally ill. Ward has enormous appeal. But neither can overcome the underwritten characters created by writer/director Sam Mendes. Small moments engage us, especially those with Tanya Moodie as Stephen’s mother and Crystal Clarke as his love interest. but it never comes together. By the time Hilary finally decides to actually watch a movie and not just supervise the operations of the theater, the message is unforgivably heavy-handed, with the selection, a movie about someone who is removed from what is going on around him, just in case we did not get the message. Movies can be magical. They can bring us together. As Roger Ebert liked to say, they can be empathy machines. But not this one.

Parents should know that this film includes brief violence from a racist mob. Characters use strong language and they smoke and drink. Hilary takes (and does not take) psychotropic medication. There are sexual references and explicit situations.

Family discussion: What did Hilary learn about Stephen when he rescued the bird? Why didn’t she watch the movies? What movies feel magical to you?

If you like this, try: “Blinded by the Light,” set in the same era, and “The Fabelmans”

TV Guide journalist Michael Ausiello fell in love with photographer Kit Cowan and wrote a book about their life together and Kit’s death from cancer called Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies. Like Love Story, we know from the beginning that we will be crying at the end. But we expect that it will be a tender, inspiring story, and it is.

Jim Parsons plays Ausiello, a man whose deep attachment to television — and to one show in particular I will not spoil — stems from and perpetuates a tendency to be introverted and self-conscious in his interactions with others, especially possible romantic partners. He calls himself an “FFK,” “former fat kid,” so he is insecure about his body.

Kit (Ben Aldridge) is handsome, confident, and outgoing. He has never considered making a commitment to any kind of romantic or intimate relationship. Both of them are surprised and scared to find themselves caring about each other. Michael is the one who confesses he has always dreamed of someone to lie under the Christmas tree with him, year after year.

They move in together. They lie under the Christmas tree. But they have some problems. Michael worries that Kit is cheating on him with a handsome co-worker. Kit gets impatient. Each of them is irritated with the very changes they introduced each other to. Michael, a non-drinker when they met, is now getting quietly snockered in the evenings. Kit, who didn’t watch much television when they met, is watching too much, even for Kit. Both, of course, are about distancing themselves from having real conversations.

Kit moves out, but they remain close. And then, after one more Christmas celebration, Kit tells Michael he is experiencing pain. Michael goes with him to the doctor and they have the conversation everyone dreads, the one that begins with, “I’m afraid the news is not what we had hoped.”

The movie balances our expectations for a movie love story with specifics about the perspective of these gay men and their friends in the capable hands of director Michael Showalter, who gave us a similar, fact-based story in “The Big Sick.” The title itself makes it clear that this one will not have a happily ever after ending. But it has some wise insights about the connections based on going through the direst circumstances together. Intimacy is terrifying, but in the reflected light of the even bigger terror of loss, we can achieve some clarity about risking all of the pain to face it together, to help each other through the worst.

Parsons leaves behind his iconic role in “the Big Bang Theory” to give us the tender-hearted Ausiello, who has to learn to make real-life connections beyond his attachment to his television “friends.” And Aldridge is endearing as Kit allows himself to be vulnerable. Over the closing credits we see a brief video of the real Kit, a scene re-created for the film. With the book and the movie, Michael has made a lovely tribute to Kit, to love, to being human, and to sharing our stories.

Parents should know that this movie has strong language, sexual references and situations, drinking, marijuana, and terminal cancer.

Family discussion: What pushed Kit and Michael apart and what brought them back together? What do we learn from the reaction of Kit’s parents?

If you like this, try: the book, Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies, and Ausiello’s Instagram account for Kit’s photographs