5 Christmas movies to stream on Paramount+

Scrooged is my favorite version of A Christmas Carol ever. Gone is the Dickensian dialogue and Victorian setting; this version is modernized and played more for laughs with Bill Murray in the leading role as Frank Cross, a Scrooge-like network executive at the IBC Television network. On Christmas Eve, Frank forces his employees to work on A Christmas Carol broadcast while giving them chintzy gifts for Christmas.

In other words, Frank is a perfect candidate for some Christmas Carol magic to find any humanity under his sleazy exterior. The Ghost of Christmas Past (David Johansen), the Ghost of Christmas Present (Carol Kane, hilarious), and the Ghost of Christmas Future (Robert Hammond) are really going to have their hands full trying to convince Frank to change. Do they succeed? You’ll have to watch and find out.

Everyone’s favorite White Castle-eating duo is back! And where Harold and Kumar go, a drugged-out Neil Patrick Harris can’t be far behind. A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas takes place six years after the original, with the once-tight best friends having grown apart. A mysterious package brings them together and propels them on a festive journey in and out of New York City.

Anyone who wants light fun and cheap laughs will get it with A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas, which is only marginally based in reality. It’s so far out there that the movie can slip in a stop-motion sequence like those old Rudolph and Frosty specials and it doesn’t seem out of place.

Bad Santa is the Christmas movie for the cynical and sarcastic person in your life. Telling the story of a con man who runs an annual con in which he poses as Santa, the movie is really a redemption story about whether a man who uses Christmas to get over on other people can be saved.

Billy Bob Thornton is superb in the central role, and Bad Santa benefits from being much more clear-eyed about the nature of Christmas than your typical holiday fare. It may end happily, but at least it’s willing to acknowledge the holiday’s seedier underbelly. For those who can’t get enough, there’s the inferior but still decent Bad Santa 2.

It’s debatable to consider Bridget Jones’s Diary a Christmas movie; only a part of it is set during Christmastime, and it’s not terribly bothered with Santas, sleigh bells, or candy canes. But I think it qualifies as it begins and ends with Christmas being a crucial setting. How can anyone forget Mark Darcy’s ugly Christmas sweater or that romantic, snow-swept finale?

Anyway, who cares? This is a good movie to watch any time of the year. The movie, about the romantic trials of a young London career woman (played by the very Texan Renee Zellweger), is the definition of British charming, and it started Hugh Grant’s second career as the silver screen’s most popular bastard.