The best holiday movies to watch now on Peacock

Like a lot of films that come packaged as antidotes to seasonal cheer, Krampus is really a stealth Christmas carol, smuggling a pro-St. Nick message in the guise of counterprogramming for Scrooges. It’s a good ruse: The opening scene is a slow-motion lambast of last-minute shopping sprees, parents and children alike scrambling over each other to the ironic accompaniment of a Bing Crosby staple. The hatefulness holds as we meet our unlucky, unhappy family, brought together through annual obligation. Dad (Adam Scott) is a workaholic, Mom (Toni Collette) is a pill-popping stress machine, and the teenage daughter (Stefania LaVie Owen) is… well, an eye-rolling teenage daughter. That’s just the tip of the dysfunctional iceberg, as the cozy suburban home is soon invaded by dull, cruel, uncouth relatives. It’s enough to make the resident Kevin McCallister (Emjay Anthony) tear up his letter to Santa, accidentally summoning the big man’s shadow, a hooved hulk of Alpine folklore who comes charging down chimneys, malevolent minions in tow… []

It takes a lot to become a new Christmas classic, so it’s doubly impressive that Love Actually managed to enter that pantheon while also holding the distinction of being one of the most divisive holiday movies ever made. Love Actually carries a these days, from pointed critiques about the film’s lack of diversity and questionable treatment of women to a broader sense that there’s something crassly commercial about the whole thing… For those who are able to lock into the film’s tone—or perhaps just those who saw it at the right age—writer-director Richard Curtis’ charming Christmas confection has yet to go stale, even if it very much feels like a product of its time. []

Yes, Miracle On 34th Street is pure Hollywood hokum, a blatant piece of sub-Capra populism designed to advance the controversial proposition that Santa is real and children should be allowed to let their imaginations run free. (How did Fox keep the protestors at bay?) But the film is pretty savvy too, getting a jump on mounting anxieties about the post-war cult of consumerism, soon to be savaged by beatniks, cartoonists, and underground stand-up comics. The story of a real “Kris Kringle” (played by the inimitable Edmund Gwenn) earning the trust of upper management at Macy’s and teaching young Natalie Wood and her progressive mother Maureen O’Hara to believe in Christmas again is really an object lesson in how to put one over on the buying public. What does the Macy’s customer say when Santa sends her to another store to buy her son a fire truck? She congratulates Macy’s on “this wonderful new stunt you’re pullin’.” []

Take morality tales like A Christmas Carol and It’s A Wonderful Life and infuse their spirit into , and you’ve got . Steven Weber stars as a modern-day Scrooge whose prioritizing of greedy business dealings over his family causes divine intervention: right your wrongs with 12 Christmas Eve redos, instructs friendly Angie the Angel (played by none other than screen legend Molly Shannon), or you’ll die. This Martha Coolidge-directed 2004 TV movie makes great use of its day-repeating structure—watching someone die in increasingly wacky ways is just fun!—and manages to hit the heart-warming notes required of a holiday classic. [Jack Smart]