‘Tis the season of holiday movies. Here are the best, and cheesiest | Opinion

Christmas movies aren’t a high-brow, Oscar-worthy type of cinema. They can be inspirational and, more times than not, cheesy. But forgive the occasional cliche because, after all, Christmas movies aren’t made to make us think too deeply. They are all about the feels, and the holidays are, after all, a sentimental time for many of us.

Christmas flicks provide the exact type of snow-covered escapism that we need this time of the year. After spending 2022 writing about Florida’s culture wars, heady topics like homeowners insurance reform and government officials behaving badly, the members of the Herald Editorial Board, too, is ready to immerse themselves in low-stakes topics like ranking Christmas movies. Here are our picks. Gather ‘round and watch one with the fam after dinner.

‘Love Actually’

Humans are messy, and so is love. That is what makes this movie a modern Christmas classic. Not every character gets a happy ending. Some fall in love with the wrong person, or at the wrong time, others get cheated on. Love is not a pretty picture for everyone, but it is “actually all around” as the film’s characters encounter it in different ways.

Yes, we could live without the stereotype about naive American women falling for the average-looking guy with the British accent. The married middle-age boss having an emotional affair with his young, good-looking employee would be — post #MeToo — creepy. But almost 20 years after “Love Actually” was released, it still offers the right amount of holiday sentimentality.

‘Home Alone’

Nowadays, the name Macaulay Culkin might inspire a “Whatever happened to him?” But in the 1990s, he was America’s most famous child star. If you grew up during that time, the image of a little blond boy screaming in front of a bathroom mirror after putting on aftershave is engraved in your memory.

Being home alone became every child’s dream — before they realized that setting up booby traps and blow-torching people’s heads would likely kill them. Stunts aside, we learned that Christmas is all about family as little Kevin realizes that being left behind during the holidays is not so fun after all.

As a bonus, “Home Alone” takes us back to when Donald Trump wasn’t inciting his supporters to storm the Capitol. When he had a cameo in the movie’s New York City sequel, he was just your typical wealthy business mogul.

Talk about escapism.

“Spirited”

There have been a slew of film adaptations of Charles Dickens’ novel “A Christmas Carol,” but “Spirited,” released this year on Apple TV, deserves an honorable mention. The Ghost of Christmas Present, played by Will Ferrell, tries to redeem the soul of an “unredeemable,” an arrogant media consultant played by Ryan Reynolds who specializes in generating social-media outrage.

“Spirited” is part satire, part musical. Ferrell’s singing is not the reason to see this movie, but we suspect that’s intentional (or we hope so), making the movie’s ability to laugh at itself and the Christmas-musical genre worth a watch.

“A Christmas Carol”

You already know the plot: SOB CEO gets, um, woke — three times in one night — by unsettling spirits of Christmas, past, present and future. It’s that future that really rattles him and truly wakes him up.

This Dickens classic has been made into a film or TV adaptation at least 16 times, many giving respected actors a chance to reveal their inner grump without too much heavy lifting. There was Kelsey Grammer, Bill Murray, who, according to recent reports of bad behavior, might not have needed to act the part in “Scrooged,” Jim Carrey, Patrick Stewart and — get this! — Cicely Tyson, as a grinchy bank manager named Ebenita Scrooge.

Our recommendation: Find the originals, the ones from 1938 and 1951. These evocatively shadowy black-and-whites are heartwarming and reassuringly low tech.

“Jingle All the Way”

Finally, a movie that depicts the backbone of Christmas in America: Mainstream consumerism. In this lesser-known 1990s slapstick comedy, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Howard Langston, an overworked salesman who is constantly disappointing his wife and son. On the day before Christmas, Howard goes on a mission to buy his son’s favorite toy, Turbo Man, which is sold out all over town. Throw in Sinbad (whose character is on the same mission as Howard), an animatronic deer and some adult-ish humor, and you have yourself a suburban Christmas classic.

Some will argue that the movie is kind of stupid or that Schwarzenegger can’t act well, but they’re letting their inner critic override their ability to laugh at a fun ‘90s flick. Don’t take it so seriously. In the end, the film has a heartwarming message: It isn’t the material things, but the people around you that make holidays worth it. An ode to Christmas capitalism, this movie is the perfect satire on how far parents will go to buy their children’s love around the holidays.

“About a Boy”

Yes, yes, we know. This isn’t what you’d call a traditional Christmas movie. It’s about an emotionally disconnected slacker who has never worked a day in his life and starts to suspect he’s shallow — truly festive stuff — but it has all the requisite themes: a horribly embarrassing school talent show, a life-affirming moral and a whole lot of Hugh Grant.

It also has the curse of the Christmas season: music that gets stuck in your brain, the kind you can’t escape in any CVS or mall, played endlessly from October to January. And that’s the beauty of this movie. It’s a sardonic comment on commercialism, yet it trades on that same thing simply by existing.

Watch Grant suffer through “Santa’s Super Sleigh” — it’s not a real song, but it’s a central part of the movie and an earworm in its own right. You’ll see what we mean.