It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas as people are really getting into the festive spirit in the lead-up to the end of the year. Tomorrow brings December 1, which means only the biggest Grinches among us will not be doing all they can to feel as Christmassy as possible.
There's no better way to get into the Christmas spirit than to curl up on the sofa and watch a festive classic. There are certain staples of the Christmas calendar year that are essential watches in the run-up to the big day, such as Elf, Home Alone, or, depending on where you side on this debate, Die Hard.
While these classics have more than earned their high profile, there are also some underwatched Christmas films that are the perfect way to commemorate the Christmas season. One of these has recently arrived on Netflix and comes from an Academy Award-winning filmmaker.
The Holdovers is not an overtly Christmas film, but it is set at this time of the year and explores all the themes that make it fitting to watch in the lead-up to December 25. The film stars Paul Giamatti as a professor at a New England prep school in 1970 who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go.
The synopsis on Rotten Tomatoes added: "Eventually he forms an unlikely bond with one of them - a damaged, brainy troublemaker (newcomer Dominic Sessa) - and with the school's head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam."
The film is written and directed by the acclaimed Alexander Payne, who won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay with Sideways in 2005.
The movie, which came out in 2023, boasts a near-perfect 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and critics said it is deserving of being a Christmas staple.
Lillian Crawford of Little White Lies said: "The benefit of the Yuletide setting is that Payne has gifted us a film intended to be watched every year.
"It feels like finding an unwatched classic under the tree on Christmas morning."
Mark Kermode added: "The format may be unsurprising but there is nothing unsurprising about just how good and enjoyable this is... this is the kind of bittersweet, character-dialogue driven piece they just don't do anymore."
David Fear of Rolling Stone said: "What you do walk away from this cracked Christmas-miracle tale with is an admiration for what Giamatti can do with such flawed people... and how richer we are for having him and Payne give such lost souls such a generous spotlight to grow."
In Nick de Semlyen's 5 star review for EmpireOnline, he said: "Consistently hilarious, undercut with melancholy and flecked with profundity, it's a major return to form for Payne after 2017's shrinking-people drama Downsizing, and nothing less than a brand-new Christmas classic"
The Holdovers is available to watch on Netflix now
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