Five Christmas films to revel in

Haunting, salving, teary, side-splitting and glorious - our recommended festive films.

Yaroslav Walker

Yaroslav is Vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead.

Muppet characters dressed as Dickensian characters stand in a snowy street.

'Dickens made the fatal error of not putting Muppets into his story.'

‘Tis the season to be jolly and watching a good film with a cup of tea and a biscuit, while the freezing wind and rain whip at the window, can be one of the jolliest things you can do this year. The genre of ‘Christmas’ has only grown and grown over the decades, so if you’re stumped by the myriad of choices – often dreadful schlock that feature the word ‘Prince’ and ‘Christmas’ in the title superimposed over a picture of two ludicrously attractive people staring lovingly into each other’s eyes in a blizzard – take comfort in my Top 5 Christmas films.

Note – this is my top 5. My personal top 5. These are not the ‘best’ Christmas films. You will not find It’s a Wonderful Life on here. It is glorious and lovely, but I saw it too late in life, and just don’t emotionally resonate with it as much as other Christmas films. I will not apologise. You will not see Die Hard. It is indeed and iconic action film, with a superb Alan Rickman performance, and it is indeed set at a Christmas party…but that isn’t enough to make it a ‘Christmas film’. I WILL NOT APOLOGISE!

5. The Nightmare Before Christmas

An animated scene shows a grandmother readng a story to children on her lap in front of a fire.

I would have put this film higher up the list if not for the fact that it straddles two seasons – All Hollows and Christmas. This film is iconic, however. The stop-motion animation gives the whole affair an extra haunting air. The music is superb – I still find myself humming What’s This every few weeks. The story is unhinged (what else do you expect from Tim Burton?) but to just the right degree, and behind the ghoulish setting and mad-cap story there is a good old-fashioned moral-of-the-story for children and adults alike to enjoy. Nightmare is a marvellous reminder of what it means to have the Christmas spirit, and the great thing about it is that it’s a film you can enjoy any time from October 31st!

4. Bad Santa

A dishevelled looking Santa, without a beard, stares to the side.

Billy Bob Thornton is mesmerising as an ‘eating, drinking, sh***ing, f***ing Santa Claus’. This is not one for the kids! Thornton’s Willie T. Soke is a professional thief who, with his dwarf assistant, get jobs as a grotto Santa and Elf in shopping malls during the festive season so as to case the place and rob it…but this time is different. Soake’s degeneracy has become a serious liability, and his instability and vulgar sexual exploits catch the attention of John Ritter’s mall manager and Bernie Mac’s security chief. Soake is spiralling out of control, but perhaps a romantic relationship with Lauren Graham’s barmaid and a chance encounter with a vulnerable young boy (to whom Soake becomes the least appropriate father-figure) might just be his salvation, and teach him the spirit of Christmas. The script is jet-black funny, and all the performances are spot on – although this is entirely Thornton’s film to shine in. Lewd, rude, and crude, but with a heart of gold (deep down under all the effing and jeffing), this film is the perfect antidote for those who find the jollity of the festive season a little twee.

3. The Holiday

A couple, wrapped up in winter clothes, flirt with each other.

This film has Jude Law in it. This ought to be enough to commend it to you, but I’ll go further. This film has Jude Law playing a jumper-wearing widowed single-dad, who can turn the humble napkin into a delightful children’s entertainment, and who gives smouldering glances across a crowded pub. Before you all rush out to watch it, let me finish the blurb. Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslett are two women, unlucky in love, who decide to swap homes for the Christmas holiday. Winslett is escaping a toxic infatuation and finds solace in a friendship with a nonagenarian scriptwriter from the Golden Age of Hollywood, and a possible romance with Jack Black (giving a genuinely restrained and enjoyable performance). Workaholic Diaz is desperate to learn how to switch-off, relax, and maybe give love a chance. She finds solace in…Jude Law’s many lovely jumpers and smouldering glances. This is not a film to be described but experienced. Its camp and frothy and silly, but its also just really lovely and gets the tears going every time. If my recommendation isn’t enough, listen to my wife – watch this film over Christmas!

2. The Muppet Christmas Carol

Kermit, a frog talks to rats dressed as Victorian children.

It’s a well-known fact that you can’t improve upon the indominable prose of Charles Dickens…WRONG! Dickens made the fatal error of not putting Muppets into his story. Rizzo and Gonzo take on the role of narrators of the story, Kermit does a sparkling turn as Bob Cratchit, and Michael Cain stars as the best on screen iteration of Scrooge (go on, fight me on this!). It’s the well-worn story brought to life by glorious songs – every year I start to sing “Tis the season to be jolly and joyous” to myself – a side-splitting script, and a clear and tender reverence for the original story and its central message. I defy anyone, child or adult, to sit through to the end this wonderful film and not want to keep Christmas in their heart every day. If you don’t like this film then I can only guess that you’ll be visited by ‘Marley and Marley, WOOOOOOOOOOA’!

1. Love Actually

Richard Curtis is my favourite director. Every film of his, however flawed (and there a several flaws in Love Actually), is so warm-hearted and good-natured that I can’t help but love them. Love Actually is Curtis firing on all cylinder: a painfully funny script, an ensemble cast of Britain’s finest talent, and a score that plays your emotions like a fiddle. A series of interconnecting love stories – love found, love lost, unrequited love, misdirected love – playing out in the run-up to Christmas, this film will not fail to put a tear in your eye and smile on your face. At times it’s a little too ‘laddy’ – I’m looking at you American sexcapade storyline – and the fact that all these people live in gorgeous houses in Wandsworth in spite of doing no discernible work is infuriating, but the fact that it is number one on this list in spirt of this is mark of just how strong a film it is. The cast list alone puts it at the top: Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Alan Rickman, Liam Neeson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Bill Nighy, Rowan Atkinson popping in for a bit…EMMA THOMPSON! The raw power of Emma Thompson quietly weeping as she listens to Joni Mitchell and contemplates the implosion of her marriage is stunning to behold. At its heart, it is a simple Richard Curtis film; it wants the viewer to relax in the beautiful spectacle of love, and to know that they are loved. I love Love Actually, and Love Actually loves me.

EMMA THOMPSON!

Review

Character

Culture

Music

21 March 2025

4 min read

Lady Gaga’s battle for authenticity

A new album, and interviews, reveal her progress.

Jamie Mulvaney

Jamie is Vicar of St Michael's Chester Square, London.

A black and white photo of a woman about to open her mouth to sing.

Ladygaga.com.

'Bridled' isn't the first word that comes to mind about Lady Gaga. She has never struck me as being someone restrained and confined. But in a wide-ranging interview in the New York Times, she recently spoke about how the music industry 'bridles' women in music: "they talk to you a lot about your look and what the aesthetic is for the album and the “brand” of music. That started to affect how I made music.”

Whether it's others' beliefs that her more adventurous personas were the real her, or that the 'normcore' (as she puts it) of acting in A Star is Born was a sellout, she is keen to own for herself the definition of authenticity. And, two decades on, she is determined finally to match her relentless authenticity with authority. In interviews with both the New York Times and the Times of London, she has described herself as 'the boss’.

Emerging from several significant personal battles, not least the price of fame itself, Gaga is well-placed to be an authority on authority and authenticity. The jazz musician Miles David said, “Man, sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself.” By returning to her pop roots in her new album Mayhem, she is eschewing the fear of what others might think. Gaga reflects that however romanticised the tortured creative can be, it is unhealthy, and she didn't enjoy this past self when making music, contrasted with the joy of making music from a more contented place now.

When fame is so caught up with artistry (her first album in 2008 was The Fame, reissued a year later as The Fame Monster), she is communicating a sense of peace at where she has arrived in her career. Brittany Spanos reviewed her new album in Rolling Stone by saying “Gaga feels like her most authentic self from start to finish on this album: There’s no characters, concepts, or aesthetic impulses overshadowing the songs,”. This chimes with what Gaga said in her interview in the New York Times about how her work had previously taken over her: “I was falling so deeply into the fantasy of my artwork and my stage persona that I lost touch. I changed my name and refused to live outside my art, but gravity brought me home.” She may be iconic but she is not her own iconoclast: she is comfortable with myriad expressions without being defined by them.

For someone bothered about authenticity, it was an authentic friendship that inspired her to have hope to emerge more fully from her battles.

Now, the 'Perfect Celebrity' as one of the tracks on her album is called, she invites us to think about our relationship with those in fame, but also the battle for authenticity as one who is famous: “The way that we feel about celebrities, whether good or bad, is just part of the entertainment now. So you need to acknowledge that and then also acknowledge that there are now two selves. The real you, in private, and the one you project to the world. And this is something a lot of people face nowadays — which part of myself should I value more?” Gaga recognises the necessity of the platform and image for her work, but “It feels further away from who I am.”

This disconnect between the authentic self and the one portrayed is one we all face - Gaga says: “There is just more of a stage for everybody now. Everyone has the opportunity to have fame." Is it possible for people growing up today to discover who they are, when a version of fame is enmeshed with themselves?

For Lady Gaga, Jonathan Dean writes that being able to experience 'realness' saved her life. “I mean my fiancé, his mother, my family. Friendships — the real ones. Going to the store, making dinner. That is what made my whole life more rich.” She pauses. “I wouldn’t say fame made my life more full.”’

In particular, she credits her now-fiancé with her general wellbeing. If you listen to The Interview podcast from the New York Times, the moment she breaks down in tears is when she is asked how she knew that Michael was genuine. She said it was because he wanted to be her friend. For someone bothered about authenticity, it was an authentic friendship that inspired her to have hope to emerge more fully from her battles.

Being saved by fullness of life through friendship is something that Jesus spoke about. He chimes with Gaga's reflections on an industry that sought to take so much from her, when he says: "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Lady Gaga's experience will be more extreme than most of us will endure, but we all have those places where things are taken from us and given to us, destructive and creative. It is noteworthy that her sense of own human flourishing, and being her 'authentic' self has come through relationship. And that's surely something to sing about.

Celebrate our Second Birthday!

Since March 2023, our readers have enjoyed over 1,000 articles. All for free. This is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.

If you’re enjoying Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?

Do so by joining Behind The Seen. Alongside other benefits, you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing my reading and reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

Graham Tomlin

Editor-in-Chief

Give now