Guess what? Seven days before Christmas, I finally figured out how to list the recurring Xmas flicks in a way that's convenient for you and doesn't require me to come up with three or four dumb jokes a week about Christmas Vacation.
Below you'll also find a review of The Housemaid, which is what it is. Personally, I'm looking forward to Peter Hujar's Day.
Special Screenings
Thursday, December 18
The Case for Miracles (2025)
Marcus West End
What if things that don’t happen… happened? $16.65. Showtimes and more info here.
Female Trouble (1974)
Heights Theater
Have a Divine Christmas. $15. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
White Christmas (1954)
Riverview Theater
Possibly your last time to see it this year? $5. 2:30 p.m. More info here.
A Christmas Story (1983)
Riverview Theater
Meet a midwestern family that’s actually reluctant to buy their child a weapon. $5. 4:45 p.m. More info here.
British Arrows Awards
Walker Art Center
The Walker’s annual holiday showcase of British commercials continues. Through Sunday. $15/$18. Find showtimes and more info here.
Friday, December 19
Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch (2018)
AMC Southdale
Benegrinch Cumbergrinch. $7. 12 p.m. More info here.
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
East Side Freedom Library
I feel like we don’t get as many novelty Christmas Carol retellings now as we did back in the late 20th century. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Five Easy Pieces (1970)
Trylon
Jack Nicholson is a slumming, disaffected rich kid. $8. 7 p.m. Saturday 9:15 p.m. Sunday 3:15 p.m. More info here.
Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970)
Trylon
Faye Dunaway is a model who regrets her life. $8. 9 p.m. Saturday 7 p.m. Sunday 5 p.m. More info here.
Sunday, December 21
Christina Aguilera: Christmas in Paris (2025)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16
Comment dit-on “Genie in a Bottle”? $16.35. 7 p.m. Ticket prices and more info here.
The Royal Ballet: The Nutcracker
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek/Lagoon Cinema
Ba da-da-da da-da da da da. 3 p.m. Monday 7 p.m. Ticket prices and more info here.
Home Alone (1990)
Roxy’s Cabaret
A child of the bourgeois defends his family’s possessions from the lumpen proletariat. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Casino (1995)
Trylon
*Raekwon voice* Schemin’ like De Niro in Casino. $8. 7:30 p.m. Monday-Tuesday 7 p.m. More info here.
Monday, December 22
The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)
Alamo Drafthouse
Geena Davis has amnesia! $13.99. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Love Actually (2003)
AMC Southdale
So much inappropriate workplace coupling. $7. Noon. More info here.
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Heights Theater
Is this movie about Powderhorn Park? $15. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Marcus Mystery Movie
Marcus West End
This one clocks in at 1:50. $6. 7 p.m. More info here.
Tuesday, December 23
Batman Returns (1992)
Alamo Drafthouse
Where’d he go? $10.99. 4 p.m. More info here.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Alamo Drafthouse
All I want for Christmas is Tom Cruise being confused and humiliated and haunted by cuck fantasies for almost three hours. $13.99. 7:15 p.m. More info here.
Die Hard (1988)
Parkway Theater
Never heard of it. $9/$12. Trivia at 7:30 p.m. Movie at 8 p.m. More info here.
Christmas Movies
Elf (2023)
Alamo Drafthouse: Saturday, 12:30 p.m. More info here.
AMC Southdale: Saturday & Wednesday, Noon. More info here.
Granada: Presented by Taste the Movies. Friday, 5 p.m. More info here.
Parkway: Saturday, 1 p.m. More info here.
Riverview: Thursday, 12:30 p.m. More info here.
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Alamo Drafthouse: Wednesday, Noon. More info here.
Emagine Willow Creek: Sunday, 1 p.m.; Wednesday 2 p.m. More info here.
Grandview 1&2: Thursday, 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Riverview: Thursday, 6:45 p.m. More info here.
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
Alamo Drafthouse: Sunday, 12:20 p.m. More info here.
Marcus West End: Thursday 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Parkway: Thursday, 8 p.m. More info here.
The Polar Express (2004)
AMC Southdale: Sunday & Tuesday. Noon. More info here.
Marcus West End: Thursday, 4:45 p.m. More info here.
Opening This Week
Follow the links for showtimes.
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Can’t wait to see this, enjoy it, and promptly forget all about it.
David
The Biblical story gets animated.
The Housemaid
Sydney Sweeney is Millie, an ex-con living out of her car who miraculously lands a job as a live-in maid for the wealthy Winchester family. Amanda Seyfried is Nora, the too-perfect wife. Brandon Sklenar is Andrew, a kind Barry Lyndon buff who’s built like an underwear model. There’s also a daughter who looks like she sees dead people. No sooner does Millie sign on than Nora becomes unpredictably moody and vicious. Mysteries abound! Does Nora have an ulterior motive for hiring a hottie with a killer rack? Why does Andrew stick around with his cuckoo wife? Just what is the deal with that dead-eyed kid? If Sydney Sweeney can act, why does she deliver every line in the same flat zoomer mutter, as though she’s just getting the words out of the way? Seyfried has a ball throughout, and Sweeney does wake up for the finale, but trash shouldn’t be this impressed with itself, and the twist—you knew there was one—is undermined by an extended period of explanatory voiceover. Cartoonish about class, which is fine, and about domestic abuse, which is less so, and overall just not enough fun. Next time you think, “They don’t make movies like that anymore,” be careful what you wish for: This is what happens when they try. C+
Peter Hujar’s Day
Ben Whishaw plays the photographer in this well-reviewed period piece from director Ira Sachs. Looking forward to this one.
The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants
The SpongeBob saga continues.
Ongoing in Local Theaters
Follow the links for showtimes.
Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
Hamnet
There’s no reason this should work. Hamlet isn’t “about” the death of Shakespeare’s only son, and even if the play was his way of processing that calamity, what’s that to us? But while I feared the biographical fallacy would run amok through (cursed phrase incoming) Chloé Zhao’s first film since Eternals—movies have a tedious habit of treating works of art as riddles we decode to understand an artist’s life—Hamnet honors the complexity of human creativity. It helps that the central figure isn’t Shakespeare (Paul Mescal, here to make the girlies weep once more), but his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley), a “forest witch” (as the villagers say) who takes to motherhood intensely, with a protectiveness born out of her visions of dark foreboding. With the aid of DP Łukasz Żal’s muddy tones and chiaroscuro interiors, and an allusive yet plainspoken script co-written with Maggie O'Farrell (author of the novel that serves as source material), Zhao creates a credible Elizabethan world, and Buckley’s performance, ranging from the subtle flickers of a smile to wracked howls of grief, is all-encompassing. The final segment—the premiere of Hamlet itself—is the emotional equivalent of juggling chainsaws, yet Buckley’s commitment anchors a conceit that could as easily elicit snickers as sniffles. In her expression we watch as the stuff of life—mourning, family drama, the unworthiness we feel in the face of personal tragedy—is subsumed into something greater than its components. A
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair
Rebuilding—ends December 18
Sentimental Value
Joachim Trier may be the kindest great director of his generation and its most gently devastating—a sort of Scandinavian Ozu. In his latest, Stellan Skarsgård is Gustav Borg, a once-heralded filmmaker who hasn’t worked in 15 years. Gustav was also, you won’t be surprised to learn, a terrible father who abandoned his wife and his two daughters, Nora (Renate Reinsve), who resents his absence, and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), who seems to have made her peace. Gustav returns on the day of their mother’s funeral and offers Nora a part in his new film, which reckons with their family’s dark past. When she rejects his offer, he instead casts Hollywood star Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), who gradually realizes she’s wrong for the part. All this could be the stuff of high drama or broad comedy, but Trier generally keeps both extremes at a low simmer. Reinsve, as the daughter reluctantly recognizing herself in her father, is no less an incarnation of millennial neurosis here than in The Worst Person in the World, while Skarsgård exercises his charm and authority lightly but firmly, regret battling stubbornness in his every action. At the center of the film is the Borg home, a creaky old storehouse of memories that allows Trier to exercise his easy way with chronology. The film slips into the past then fast-forwards, creating the sense that the past is always just beyond our reach, even while we’re firmly stuck in the present. A
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
In the latest of Rian Johnson’s Knives Out whodunnits, Daniel Craig’s swampy-voiced Benoit Blanc largely cedes the spotlight to Josh O’Connor’s Father Jud, an idealistic young priest caught in a battle of wills with the charismatic Monsignor Jefferson Witt (Josh Brolin). When Witt is murdered mysteriously, everyone in the parish is a suspect, including Father Jud himself. Dead Man is heavier in tone than past installments, and its characters don’t get to flaunt their quirks as memorably. And here’s something you may never hear me say again: A Catholic really should have approved this script before they started filming. Not to censor any of the naughty bits, but to explain to Johnson how the Catholic hierarchy works. When a film strives to take spiritual dilemmas seriously, and often succeeds at it, the institutional differences with Evangelical or even mainline Protestant churches are crucial to pin down. Still, O’Connor, who’s really gunning for “best actor under 40” honors these days, almost pulls it off, and there’s a special pleasure in a performance that holds its own in a flawed setting. B
