12 must-watch classic Christmas movies

Christmas in Connecticut (1945)

In this delightful romp, Barbara Stanwyck is a 1940s career woman who has essentially billed herself as a domestic goddess precursor to Martha Stewart. But in fact, she's anything but. She's just a really good writer. So when her publisher wants to meet her in person, she rents out a lovely Connecticut home, complete with a makeshift husband and baby.

Then, a visit by an extremely charming war vet (Dennis Morgan) threatens to derail her entire ruse. This film is a holiday joy from start to finish, complete with tree trimming, flapjack flipping, and a flirty carriage ride.

If you liked Christmas in Connecticut, you might also enjoy: The Lady Eve (1941), Stanwyck's most seductive comic turn, in which she handily wins a war between the sexes over a hapless Henry Fonda, scripted by Preston Sturges.

Where to watch Christmas in Connecticut: Max

The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

Real-life friends Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan are co-workers who loathe each other as they fall in love over an anonymous pen-pal relationship. If you're a fan of You've Got Mail, you'll likely appreciate its source material here, while director Ernst Lubitsch crafts a charming cast of characters in Budapest, no less, as the shop workers get ready for the holiday season. The characters are on a lower pay scale than your typical showy Hollywood setting, yet still look past initial pride and prejudices to find a love story for the ages in a humble stockroom.

If you liked The Shop Around the Corner, you might also enjoy: To Be or Not to Be (1942), another thoroughly enjoyable Lubitsch comedy that features Jack Benny and Carole Lombard as a warring married couple whose theater troupe somehow gets caught up in the effort to trap a Nazi spy.

Where to watch The Shop Around the Corner: Max

Bachelor Mother (1939)

Ginger Rogers was just departing her successful musical partnership with Fred Astaire when she embarked on this entertaining romp set during the holiday season, which interestingly conveys the concerns over an unwed mother several decades ago. Rogers is shopworker Polly Parrish, who gets mistakenly identified as the mother of an abandoned baby.

A series of complications ensue, especially when her boss (a dashing David Niven) gets tangled up in the scandal and is assumed to be the father. Rogers has wonderful chemistry with both Niven and the baby, and even though Polly seems (rightfully) dubious about everyone's assumption that the ideal Christmas present for a young woman is a child, eventually she rises to the task.

If you liked Bachelor Mother, you might also enjoy: Kitty Foyle (1940), another non-Astaire vehicle that shows what a non-dancing Rogers was capable of. She won a Best Actress Oscar for playing a middle-class woman who falls for a blue-blooded charmer.

Where to watch Bachelor Mother: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

The Bishop's Wife (1947)

Cary Grant's cinematic charm has always seemed otherworldly, but never more so than in his turn as an actual angel in The Bishop's Wife. David Niven is a young bishop who's so tripped up by ambition and the desire to build a cathedral that he's forgotten what's truly important — even his own family. An angel named Dudley (Grant) shows up to set things right again.

Honestly, it's tough to find a Christmas movie more charming than this one. Dudley's walks through the city make it seem as bucolic as a small town, while each amiable resident, from the Professor (Monty Woolley) to the title character herself (Loretta Young), is more appealing than the next. Naturally, with Dudley's help, the bishop eventually rediscovers the true meaning of Christmas, a message that The Bishop's Wife ably passes along to its holiday audience.

As EW described, "Grant's turn is thoroughly convincing because he himself appears to be having a terrific time: He's expansive, graceful, and seems always on the verge of chuckling with goodwill."

If you liked The Bishop's Wife, you might also enjoy: Holiday (1938), in which Grant again exudes pure charisma as an interloper in a well-to-do family, engaged to a young heiress but with a persistent pull toward her unconventional sister (in one of his four pairings with Katharine Hepburn).

Where to watch The Bishop's Wife: Amazon Prime Video

The Apartment (1960)

Jack Lemmon plays office lackey C.C. Baxter with a crush on cute elevator gal Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) in director Billy Wilder's attack on the emptiness of corporate culture. Baxter's eponymous home is being used by all the higher-ups for their extramarital dates — which he takes advantage of to climb up the corporate ladder, until he finds out that Fran is involved with his own boss (Fred MacMurray, expertly playing against type). Framing The Apartment at the holidays (The office Christmas party! The melancholy New Year's Eve celebrations!) just makes the solitary status of our players more acute, until they manage to craft a true connection of their own. As EW explained, "Love conquers all in The Apartment."

If you liked The Apartment, you might also enjoy: Some Like It Hot (1959), another Wilder-Lemmon collaboration, in which the actor is paired with Tony Curtis as a couple of musicians who witness the St. Valentine's Day massacre and have to go on the lam…in an all-woman band.

Where to watch The Apartment: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

It Happened on 5th Avenue (1947)

A pair of men who are unhoused solve their housing problem by squatting at the Fifth Avenue home of a rich industrialist when he heads south for the winter. Obviously, hijinks ensue, especially when the wealthy man's daughter heads to the New York mansion after running away from finishing school, and a few other WWII vets and their families enter the mix just in time to spend the holidays together.

It Happened on 5th Avenue not only highlights the post-war housing crisis, but also offers an appealing communion between the haves and the have-nots as they switch places and experience life from the other side.

If you liked It Happened on 5th Avenue, you might also enjoy: The similarly themed The Devil and Miss Jones (1941), in which Jean Arthur unwittingly aids a stuffy tycoon (Charles Coburn) posing as a low-status worker to try to prevent the formation of a union.

Where to watch It Happened on 5th Avenue: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

The Thin Man (1934)

Relationship goals: the sophisticated, urbane, and witty Nick (William Powell) and Nora (Myrna Loy) Charles (created by mystery author Dashiell Hammett) as they galavant through Manhattan nightlife solving crimes. Powell and Loy have an effortless chemistry (they eventually made 14 movies together, including several Thin Man films), adding to the movies' lighthearted feel, even in the face of investigating a murder.

This first in the series appropriately kicks off during the holidays: If only we were all able to call out killers at glamorous dinner parties or celebrate the festive season with a long line of martinis. EW says of the Thin Man series, "The first one is the best, but even the lesser ones are still screwball fun. And they sure beat yuletide small talk." As Nora herself comments while sporting a holiday hangover, "Next person who says 'Merry Christmas' to me, I'll kill 'em."

If you liked The Thin Man, you might also enjoy: The Thin Man Returns (1936). Sure, it's not as great as the first, but this sequel features a surprising culprit, as well as Jimmy Stewart in an early role.

Where to watch The Thin Man: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)

The houseguest from hell takes precedence in this fun adaptation of a Kaufman and Hart play, probably spied at a high school near you. Prestigious man of letters Sheridan Whiteside (Monty Woolley) spills down the snowy front steps at the home of small-town family the Stanleys, where he's planned a promo dinner in Mesalia, Ohio, right around the holidays.

He proceeds to commandeer the entire household, hilariously insulting one and all, until, of course, he turns his attention to fixing all of the Stanley family's problems. Bette Davis masters a rare light comedy turn as Sherry's long-suffering secretary, with Jimmy Durante as a visitor from Broadway and Wizard of Oz good witch Billie Burke as the overwhelmed matriarch of the Stanley clan.

If you liked The Man Who Came to Dinner, you might also enjoy: You Can't Take It With You (1938), another enjoyable Kaufman and Hart production (which won the Pulitzer Prize as a stage play); it has the same basic life lesson as It's a Wonderful Life, as well as its director (Frank Capra) and a few of its stars (Jimmy Stewart and Lionel Barrymore)… but you probably haven't seen it a bazillion times already.

Where to watch The Man Who Came to Dinner: Max

Meet John Doe (1941)

Frank Capra takes on the "forgotten man" in this 1941 charmer. Barbara Stanwyck, as a fast-talking newspaper reporter in the His Girl Friday vein, crafts an anonymous letter in the paper from a man who says he'll jump off the top of city hall on Christmas Eve due to man's continuous inhumanity to man.

The John Doe becomes a sensation, as the whole city wants to offer him a job and prevent him from jumping. So Stanwyck and the paper find an actual man living life on the rails (Gary Cooper) to pose as John Doe, who quickly becomes overwhelmed by all the attention. This movie may even out-Capra It's a Wonderful Life with its celebration of everyday people and the connection between neighbors — a sentiment that fits perfectly within the holiday season.

If you liked Meet John Doe, you might also enjoy: Howard Hawks' Ball of Fire (1941), another film starring Stanwyck and Cooper, even though it's a far cry from John Doe. Ball of Fire features Stanwyck as a savvy nightclub singer hiding out with stuffy academic Cooper and his endearing crop of professorial colleagues.

Where to watch Meet John Doe: Amazon Prime Video

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Divorced, busy career woman Doris (Maureen O'Hara), with a wise-beyond-her-years daughter, Susan (Natalie Wood), hires an unusual man to play Santa Claus at Macy's department store. In fact, he truly believes he's Santa himself! Along the way, he gets into a bit of trouble over his proclaimed persona, but he's even able to crack the hardened hearts of Doris and Susan, as an ambitious young lawyer (John Payne) aims to defend Santa legally.

Edmund Gwenn won an Oscar for the role he was born to play, Kris Kringle. And honestly, couldn't we all use a reason to believe in Santa Claus, especially one that stands up in court? EW described: "As Kris Kringle himself points out, 'Christmas isn't just a day, it's a frame of mind.' And there's no better movie for putting you in a holiday mindset than the 1947 hit."

If you liked Miracle on 34th Street, you might also enjoy: While we'll always think of Gwenn first as Santa, he also made for an excellent Mr. Bennett in the 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice.

Where to watch Miracle on 34th Street: Disney+

A Christmas Carol (1951)

The definitive version of Dickens' Christmas parable features Alastair Sims as an absolutely iconic Scrooge. His dourness at the start of the film is in such contrast to the jubilant Ebenezer at the end, they scarcely appear to be the same person, and the stark black-and-white cinematography makes the legendary tale seem even more like a straight-up ghost story.

There are a multitude of Christmas Carols to be viewed: animated, CGI, Muppets, Bill Murray's Scrooged, and even Spirited with Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell. But this Christmas, you may just want to go back to the ultimate classic and ponder your own Christmases past, present, and future.

If you liked A Christmas Carol, you might also enjoy: The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992). If you are angling for an alternative Scrooge story, we are partial to Michael Caine cavorting with Kermit, Gonzo, and more of Jim Henson's creations.

Where to watch A Christmas Carol: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

Holiday Affair (1949)

A brunette Janet Leigh and a broad-shouldered Robert Mitchum have chemistry in spades in this post-war romance. The pair meet at a department store (a popular setting in many of these holiday movies!) and immediately spark a connection just before Christmas, but she's a young widow with a 6-year-old son and a devoted suitor (too bad, Wendell Corey).

Safety and security are obviously going to lose in the fight against such fierce romantic magnetism, especially with Mitchum in the mix. But Connie's adorable son Timmy (Gordon Gebert), who manages to be cute but not cloying (see also: Natalie Wood, above), practically runs away with the whole thing.

If you liked Holiday Affair, you might also enjoy: Out of the Past (1947), a classic film noir in which Mitchum is sent out to find the missing wife (Jane Greer) of a friend (Kirk Douglas), but, of course, ends up falling for her himself.

Where to stream Holiday Affair: Max