A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish

...This movie was just released this year, and it is a classic Cinderella retelling with a focus on the Christmas season. It is a modern retelling of the classic with an aspiring singer-songwriter, a forbidden Christmas gala, and a handsome Santa.

This film features actors like Laura Marano, Gregg Sulkin, and Isabella Gomez who will give viewers the romantic movie they didn't know they were missing. It might be overdone in a sense, but it is a tale that will never grow old.

Dear Santa

...This story is about a privileged young woman named Crystal who has to find a way to prove her worth after her parents threaten to close all of her credit card accounts. She has until Christmas to change, and she decides to work at a soup kitchen after finding a letter to Santa.

The little girl who wrote it asked for someone to marry her widowed father, the owner of the kitchen, and Crystal decides to try and win his heart. It is a feel-good story starring Amy Acker, David Hadyn-Jones, and Emma Duke.

Beverly Hills 90210 alumni Jason Priestly takes the helm for this warmhearted romantic comedy about a die-hard party girl struggling to change her frivolous ways. Crystal (Amy Acker) comes from a wealthy family. She loves spending money, but when her shopping habits drain her parents' bank account, they give her until Christmas to clean up her act. Should Crystal fail to comply, her credit cards will be promptly cancelled. Petrified at the prospect of having no money and no boyfriend, Crystal has a flash of inspiration when she finds a letter to Santa from seven year old Olivia (Emma Duke). In the letter, Olivia asks Santa to find her widowed father Derek (David Haydn-Jones) a new wife. He owner of a local soup kitchen, Derek has dedicated his life to helping others. Though Crystal has never set foot in a soup kitchen, she soon seeks Derek out and begins volunteering her time in an effort to get closer to him. Little does Crystal realize that Derek's scheming girlfriend (Gina Holden) will do anything to keep her man to herself. Meanwhile, Crystal remains determined to prove herself, despite the obstacles that stand in her way.

• Genre:
• Comedy
• Directed By:
• Jason Priestley
• Written By:
• Barbara Kymlicka

A Christmas Prince

...The great thing about this film is that there are three movies in this romantic Christmas series. It all begins when a reporter tries to uncover some dirt on the playboy prince. She goes in undercover as a tutor and ends up forming a relationship with the man she is supposed to destroy.

Love Actually

...This movie follows the Christmas love stories of several individuals throughout the holiday season. You see a rock legend, a proclamation of love at a wedding, deception, poor choices, and so much more. Viewers will connect with some more than others, but it reveals the numerous trials that happen during this season.

A month later they all learn to love what they have and it is an inspirational romanticism that will mend any broken heart. There are so many big-name actors like Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Keira Knightley, and so on. This is a necessity for the season that every Christmas fanatic has to watch.

White Christmas

...If you are more into classic Christmas tales, then this is the film you should watch this holiday season. It starts back in World War II as two performers send a farewell to their commanding officer, before sending us forward in time to their bigshot careers in the entertainment industry.

They meet a couple of girls, help out their old commander, and reunite their entire division. The cast is great with actors like Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Rosemary Clooney who bring the entire story to life on your TV screen.

Singing along to Irving Berlin’s White Christmas is not encouraged until the very end of the show, but it’s hard not to join in as the title song kicks off. Based on the 1954 movie starring the legendary Bing Crosby, this cracker of a Christmas show glistens with irresistible, snow-topped charm.

Danny Mac’s velvety voice leads the sparkling musical of love and war, reprising his role from the production’s original performance in Leicester last year. He and Dan Burton are impishly suave as gallant former soldiers turned famous performers, Bob Wallace and Phil Davis, who are searching for a new act for their New York variety show. Their infectious camaraderie is matched by the fizzing charisma of up-and-coming sister act Betty and Judy Haynes (Danielle Hope and Clare Halse), who woo the lads with their flirty, blue-feathered performance of Sisters.

When upscale, happily unmarried San Francisco couple Kate and Brad find themselves socked in by fog on Christmas morning, their exotic vacation plans morph into the family-centric holiday they had, until now, gleefully avoided. Out of obligation--and unable to escape--they trudge to not one, not two, but four relative-choked festivities, increasingly mortified to find childhood fears raised, adolescent wounds reopened and their very future together uncertain. As Brad counts the hours to when he can get away from their parents, step-parents, siblings and an assortment of nieces and nephews, Kate is starting to hear the ticking of a different kind of clock. And by the end of the day, she is beginning to wonder if their crazy families' choices are not so crazy after all

• Genre:
• Comedy
• Directed By:
• Seth Gordon
• Written By:
• Caleb Wilson, Jon Lucas, Matt R. Allen, Scott Moore, Matt Allen

Holiday In Handcuffs

...This romantic comedy is the perfect way to spend an evening in, whether it be by yourself or with a few others. The main character describes the perfect boyfriend to her family, but when they tell her to bring him along for the holidays, she panics after he breaks up with her on Christmas Eve.

She kidnaps another man at gunpoint and takes him with her on holiday, all while doing everything in her power to convince her family he is Nick. A love story ensues throughout the chaos as actors like Melissa Joan Hart, Mario Lopez, and so many more play their roles perfectly.

The Family Man

...This movie stars a man named Jack Campbell who is a wealthy businessman and has devoted his life to the job. This Christmas turns out a bit different as he learns there is more to life than just work. He wakes on Christmas day to find himself the father to children and a husband of 13 years.

This character learns to love this new life and it transforms him once he heads back to his old one. It is a romantic Christmas tale you can't miss with actors like Nicholas Cage, Téa Leoni, Don Cheadle, and Saul Rubinek.

The Family Man

Directors - Raj & DK

Cast - Manoj Bajpayee, Priyamani, Sharib Hashmi, Gul Panag, Shreya Dhanwanthary

Without ever parodying the genre, The Family Man succeeds at being a surprisingly funny spy series; equally capable of snappy one-liners as it is of slick thrills. Like its street-smart protagonist, the new Amazon show is wily, adaptable, and intelligent; but most noticeably, it is a necessary foil to the painfully drab Bard of Blood, which will arrive, with all its similarities, on Netflix in seven days.

The resemblance is so uncanny, that I couldn’t help but imagine notes being exchanged between the two productions, via secret tunnels and across secure phone lines. Both shows feature a protagonist who is plucked from a life of domesticity, a rookie female tag-along, and a curious obsession with Balochistani politics. But beyond that, in tone, texture and taste, they’re thankfully quite different.

Metropolitan

...Spend Christmas among the Urban Haute Bourgeoisie, or U.H.B., in Whit Stillman's debut film and preppie classic, Metropolitan. According to the title card, the film is set in "Manhattan, Christmas Vacation, not so long ago," and follows a group of well-heeled friends returning to their Fifth Avenue homes from college in time for the holiday parties (and after-parties). The wry and merciless patrician comedy was a revelation when it came out 25 years ago, and remains one today.

Starring: Carolyn Farina, Chris Eigeman, Edward Clements

Summary: A group of young upper-class Manhattanites are blithely passing through the gala debutante season, when an unusual outsider joins them and stirs them up.

Director: Whit Stillman

Genre(s): Drama, Comedy, Romance

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 98 min

The Best Man Holiday

...If you're looking for a holiday tearjerker with solid performances and plenty of eye candy, cue up The Best Man Holiday, the (far superior) sequel to 1999's The Best Man. In the film, a group of friends stage a Big Chill–style reunion to celebrate Christmas together with all the trimmings: food, fights, football, and tragedy. The ensemble cast includes Morris Chestnut, Monica Calhoun, Taye Diggs, Sanaa Lathan, Regina Hall, and Terrence Howard, and they make the most of the melodramatic material, turning in performances that will have you cry-laughing into your eggnog.

After nearly 15 years apart, Taye Diggs (television's Private Practice), Nia Long (Soul Food), Morris Chestnut (Kick-Ass 2), Harold Perrineau (Zero Dark Thirty), Terrence Howard (Hustle & Flow), Sanaa Lathan (Contagion), Monica Calhoun (Love & Basketball), Melissa De Sousa (Miss Congeniality) and Regina Hall (Scary Movie franchise) reprise their career-launching roles in The Best Man Holiday, the long-awaited next chapter to the film that ushered in a new era of comedy. When the college friends finally reunite over the Christmas holidays, they will discover just how easy it is for long-forgotten rivalries and romances to be ignited. Malcolm D. Lee returns to write and direct this sequel to his directorial debut. Sean Daniel (The Mummy franchise) will produce alongside Lee for The Sean Daniel Company. (c) Universal Pictures

• Genre:
• Comedy
• Directed By:
• Malcolm D. Lee
• Written By:
• Malcolm D. Lee

All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun," as I so tirelessly quote Jean-Luc Godard. Pauline Kael refined that insight after seeing a movie poster in Italy which translated as "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang." These four words, she wrote "are perhaps the briefest statement imaginable of the basic appeal of the movies. The appeal is what attracts us and ultimately makes us despair when we begin to understand how seldom movies are more than this."