Shot entirely on iPhones, this subversive holiday film celebrates found family in donut shops and laundromats and bar bathrooms. One of filmmaker Sean Baker’s best, Tangerine’s fable of Christmastime sex workers navigating love and loss in Hollywood is everything the indie great is known for: intimate, warm, silly, heartfelt and just scuzzy enough. For children, the film gives its own take on the age-old questions about Santa Claus-how does the old fella do it all in a single night? (The answer, a is high-tech melange of spaceships, military precision, armies of elves, GPS systems, palatial computer power stations, and more.) Watching the new and improved North Pole in action feels more like scenes from an adventure film than a family Christmas flick, and makes for a delightful family viewing.

Though this animated feature from Aardman and Sony Pictures Animation strays from Aardman’s usual claymation ( Wallace & Gromit) and claymation-simulating CGI ( Flushed Away) style, this feel-good family film works beautifully as vividly colorful Christmas treat.

Dougherty, after all, is no stranger to holiday-themed horror comedies-he also directed the superb Halloween horror anthology Trick ‘r Treat-which means we’ve maybe got a new anti-Christmas classic on our bloody hands. The actors (Adam Scott, Toni Collette, Allison Tolman, David Koechner) fight with actual, physical creations, and as a result the terror seems more realistic and brutal. In fact, Krampus owes a lot to Joe Dante’s Gremlins: Both films inject the holiday with zany violence, and Krampus, in the spirit of Gremlins, makes heavy use of practical effects over CGI. Krampus is a horror film, filled with horrific imagery (it’s one of the harshest PG-13 films in recent memory), but it also has a solid sense of humor, albeit a nasty one. It’s clear from these opening moments that director Michael Dougherty has his tongue planted firmly in cheek. Women get punched in the face, children scream and store employees stare on in slack-jawed apathy. Bing Crosby’s “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” plays during the film’s opening credits sequence as consumers pummel one another all in the name of a good Christmas bargain.

Krampus begins on a fantastically sour note. With an all-around terrific ensemble, Happiest Season is a delectable festive treat. Additionally, the rom-com’s supporting characters-the excellent Dan Levy and the brilliant Aubrey Plaza-offer some of the film’s most charming moments. Yet, through a queer perspective, the film is a revamped rendition of all the typical holiday plights. Like many festive titles, Happiest Season revolves around coming home for Christmas. It’s a touching comedy that recognizes the weight of its subject. Abby’s preparing to propose while Harper is trying to summon the courage to tell her girlfriend she’s not yet out to her family and, more so, tell her family Abby’s not just a friend. Abby (Kristen Stewart) and Harper (Mackenzie Davis) are going to the latter’s family home for Christmas but both have very different versions of how they’re expecting to celebrate the holiday season.

Happiest Season was one of the best cinematic gifts we received for last year’s Christmas. Here are the best Christmas movies of all time: After all, if your holiday comfort food is Last Christmas or Christmas with the Kranks, who are we to judge? Still, that doesn’t mean some films haven’t distinguished themselves over time (and, often, through critical consensus) as go-to holiday fare, and while we won’t judge you, we will absolutely judge-or at least rank-those. While any list of favorites or “best” contain a strong dose of subjectivity, a list of the Best Christmas Movies of All Time is even less constrained by questions of cinematic quality and other, objective criteria.

Best christmas movies on netflix family