Few movies have left as indelible a print as Frank Capra’s marvelous tale of George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) and the town that couldn’t love without him. Transforming the movie into a live radio play with Christmas carols and live foley sound, this new staging includes a star-studded cast including Andrew Rannells, Megan Hilty, Tituss Burgess, Harry Hamlin, and Lisa Rinna each playing multiple characters.

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The titular miracle of this Christmas classic has little to do with presents or Santa; it's more about how belief and love make the season bright. In Maybe Happy Ending, as much as the robot Oliver believes finding his owner will complete his life, it’s the kindness and connection he finds in fellow robot Claire that opens up his world. Mixing childlike wonder and adult nuance, Maybe Happy Ending is a moving complement to the legendary holiday movie about a storefront Santa.

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My personal favorite Christmas-season watch is this romantic comedy about an L.A.-based movie trailer editor (Cameron Diaz) and Cotswolds-based lit editor (Kate Winslet) who switch homes for the holidays and fall for men in the towns they’re visiting. The Holiday shares DNA with Schmigadoon!, about a couple who stumbles into an old-fashioned musical town. Both have a meta sense of humor and sincere romcom enthusiasm, and who can resist a story of two people who give themselves over to the magic of true love?

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There are a whole sleigh’s worth of adaptations of Charles Dickens’s classic Christmas tale about the reformed miser Scrooge. Whether your favorite is the 1938 film starring Reginald Owen or the recent computer-animated version with Jim Carrey, Colin Firth, and Gary Oldman, you’ll surely love A Christmas Carol at PAC NYC, written by Jack Thorne and directed by Matthew Warchus (Matilda).

A perfect mix of exciting, spooky, and heartwarming, this timeless holiday story will get you into the spirit — the cheerful and the ghostly kind.

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For those who like a slightly looser, goofier take on Dickens's tale, there’s The Muppet Christmas Carol on screen or Drunk Christmas Carol on stage. From the mad geniuses behind Drunk Shakespeare, this high-spirited (pun intended), 21+ staging of A Christmas Carol is a tipsy delight performed by one drunk actor and four sober ones. As with the Muppets, you can expect plenty of silly antics to unfold.

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Home Alone is an essential holiday watch — especially for Macaulay Culkin’s superb performance, the slapstick antics, and the impressive stunt work. If you’re looking for that mix of heart and hilarity, aided by technically impressive pratfalls and production tricks, the family-friendly Play That Goes Wrong (which has its own Christmas-inspired take available on YouTube) is a must.

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Both these titles are blasts from the '80s past. A Christmas Story may be playing for 24 hours on TBS, but on stage, The Lost Boys also offers nostalgic pleasure for fans who remember watching these movies when they first came out. Both also feature family misadventures with bite — literally, in the case of the vampire-centric Lost Boys.

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One of my fondest memories growing up was watching Rankin Bass’s stop-motion animation Christmas specials, from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town. The way the little felt creatures came to life seemed like magic. New York has plenty of all-ages magic shows to ignite that same wonder, including Broadway's Now You See Me Live, based on the hit movie franchise and featuring amazing magic tricks.

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A starry ensemble movie following a tangle of romances around Christmas, Love Actually has cemented itself a favorite holiday watch. The film's intersecting storylines pair well with Hadestown, which remixes the myths of Orpheus and Euryidice and Persephone and Hades. They merge with each other and with a folk-and-jazz score into one poignant tale of love and loss.

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The debate has been settled, if only by the sheer force of its advocates: The blockbuster action movie Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis as a detective handling a hostage situation at a corporate holiday party, is a Christmas movie.

The mix of adrenaline, thrills, and espionage blends well with Operation Mincemeat, a daffy musical take on a WWII intelligence mission involving MI5 and a mysterious corpse. Though Mincemeat is considerably goofier than Die Hard, its spirit and panache are reminiscent of Willis’s resilience and heroism.

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In The Nightmare Before Christmas, Pumpkin King Jack Skellington decides to take over Santa’s job. The film is one long trip down the rabbit hole, first into Halloween Town, and then into the land of Christmas.

Similarly, you can dive into the Upside Down at Stranger Things: The First Shadow, a stage prequel to the Netflix series. It's a blockbuster ride with mesmerizing special effects, a few frights, and ecstatic fun.

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On regular rotation at home when I was young were the Big Crosby-led Christmas classics Holiday Inn and White Christmas, both involving bed-and-breakfast staff that like to put on a show. Though the music might be radically different, the joy of performing is also the backbone of Blue Man Group "A New Holiday Surprise," featuring a mix of clowning, mime, and the musical trio’s signature creativity and innovation.

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The Polar Express is an astonishing work of technical and visual invention. The special glow of childhood is front and center as a group of kids takes a night train to the North Pole, but there's just a little bittersweetness, like a mug of dark hot cocoa.

The animated classic blends well with the musical adaptation of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, about a man who ages in reverse. The nuances of aging are told through bright, twangy folk music as transportative as a steam engine through time.

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Since its theatrical release in 2015, the internet has taken Todd Haynes’s masterful romance Carol and hailed it as a modern classic Christmas movie, as the twinkling lights of New York dress the courtship of its title character (Cate Blanchett) and the naive Therese (Rooney Mara).

Their secret relationship in a repressive society may recall the rock musical Spring Awakening, about 19th-century teenagers discovering their sexuality and desires in a rigid culture. The 20th-anniversary Off-Broadway revival will surely make the story all the more visceral.

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Alexander Payne’s 2023 holiday dramedy, about a college rabble-rouser stuck in the dorms over vacation with a curmudgeonly professor and a tender-hearted cook, has already become a Christmas favorite. Its bittersweet tale of coming to terms with adulthood resonates warmly with Jenna Worsham’s play The Visitors, about a wannabe mom who turns to her siblings for a favor. They all realize they must come to terms with each other as adults in the world, not just people who once shared the same nest.

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