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Also see: 7 movies to catch at the theater this season.
It’s that time of year when you can’t browse the cable guide without spying tired old Jimmy Stewart, a bratty Natalie Wood or that kid with the glasses who almost shoots his eye out—again. While we’re fond of the Big Three, we’ve seen them a million times. Perhaps more. Start a new family tradition by adding some of the following titles to your Netflix queue. After all, your four-year-old will never know that Edward Scissorhands isn’t a holiday classic.
Holiday Inn
(1942, not rated) Recovering workaholic Bing Crosby retires to Connecticut and opens an inn that accepts guests only on red-letter days. This setup allows Bing and his manorexic, undermining friend Fred Astaire to sing and dance through a roster of holiday-themed Irving Berlin tunes, including “White Christmas” and “Easter Parade.” The story’s fast pace and frequent musical interludes should hold kids’ attention, while the sophisticated dialogue will satisfy adults. Caveat: Unless you want to fast-forward through Lincoln’s Birthday, be prepared to explain what blackface is to your preschooler.
Lady and the Tramp
(1955, G) Remember attempting to reenact the spaghetti-sharing scene with sibs, friends and family pets? While you don’t really need an excuse to snuggle up with this Disney hit, let us refresh your memory of its holiday theme: Jim Dear gives Lady the dog, wrapped in a red bow, to his Darling for Christmas. The following year, Lady and her Tramp celebrate with puppies of their own. Tell your kids it’s the closest they’ll get to a puppy under the tree.
Gremlins
(1984, PG) In a small shop in NYC’s Chinatown, a father discovers the perfect Christmas gift for his son, Billy: an intelligent, gentle little creature called a mogwai. If only Dad spoke Cantonese, he’d know that roughly translates to “demon.” Sure enough, Billy is soon saddled with a litter of mean, ugly monsters that attack his family. Although produced by kid-friendly Steven Spielberg, the horror-comedy is surprisingly violent, and today would probably receive a PG-13 for various gruesome gremlin deaths and a scene in which Phoebe Cates’s character reveals how her father died on Christmas in a comically nasty way. Save this one for tweens.
Ghostbusters II
(1989, PG) The paranormal fighting quad (Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson) return to protect our city from evil pink slime, pursuing the menace through abandoned subway tunnels. Adults will naturally moan that the original was funnier, but city kids will dig the Manhattan setting and cheer when Lady Liberty (a.k.a. Libby) strides across the Hudson to save the day.
