Here’s What You Want to See in Movie Theaters This Holiday

There are those for whom the winter holidays mean carols and presents and cookies galore, but for the film industry, Christmas break tends to mean one thing: big box office. This holiday season, you certainly aren’t lacking for options at your nearby cineplex, from animated family-friendly fare to moody period pieces and the (depressingly) rare romantic comedy. If you’re within traveling distance to a theater showing one of the documentaries or foreign offerings contending for this year’s Academy Awards—Burning, Capernaum, Cold War, Shoplifters, and Roma are all Vogue favorites—by all means, please do that, but if you’re thinking more bucket of popcorn, random assortment of family members in tow? You’re going to want to see one of the below.

Without further ado, your best options from what’s at the movie theater this week, in alphabetical order:

Bumblebee

Travis Knight’s Bumblebee has been heralded by no less than The New York Times as “finally, a Transformers movie that’s actually good”—and that was the headline. A movie both you and your nephews can enjoy? Score.

Holmes & Watson

Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly (of Step Brothers and Talladega Nights) team up once again as Sherlock Holmes and his faithful crime-solving partner Doctor Watson in a movie spoof on the genre directed by one of the writers of Tropic Thunder and Idiocracy. Take the teenage boy in your life (or the people you know who act like one) and consider it a reprieve from the headier stuff you have to deal with this holiday.

If Beale Street Could Talk

Moonlight’s Barry Jenkins takes on James Baldwin’s 1974 novel If Beale Street Could Talk: a work the novelist described as a tale of “survival and eventual triumph” in black America or “something like a 20th-century African-American fairy tale,” as Marley Marius wrote for Vogue. It’s a tough watch: Two young lovers (played by KiKi Layne and Stephan James) are torn apart by false rape accusations. In an interview with Vogue, James compared Baldwin to Shakespeare: “They can both be brutally honest and tragic at times,” he said, “but their descriptions of love are so vivid.” Bring tissues.

The Favourite

Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest is everything you want in a moviegoing experience: a sumptuous period drama with fabulous costumes, insanely good acting, and brilliant writing. It’s a likely Best Picture nominee—or at least Best Actress for the incomparable Olivia Colman—so you really might as well see it now.

Mary Poppins Returns

You know the story. She came, she saw, she made them enjoy cleaning up (and all sorts of other fun). Emily Blunt and the delightful Lin-Manuel Miranda star, and Angela Lansbury and Meryl freaking Streep even make appearances. What more could you ask for in a big holiday movie?

The Mule

Clint Eastwood stars in and directs this adaptation of a 2014 New York Times Magazine article about the Sinaloa Cartel’s then-90-year-old narcotics runner. Your dad will probably love it.

On the Basis of Sex

Director Mimi Leder’s really pretty schmaltzy look at Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life story can feel a little bogged down by its writing, but the cost of admission is arguably worth it for Armie Hammer’s at times cringe-inducing ultra-woke portrayal of dreamy Martin Ginsburg and a cameo from the real Supreme Court justice at the end.

Second Act

J.Lo returns to the big screen with a rom-com, thank goodness, and this time, she’s climbing the corporate ladder, intent to prove that common sense and street smarts are just as important as fancy degrees.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

It’s been called “dazzling” and “unique” and even possibly “the best Spider-Man film ever made” by ecstatic reviewers; the kids and the comic book fans among us will love it.

Vice

We told you this movie would cure your George W. Bush administration nostalgia, but we couldn’t have guessed the depths it goes to get the point across. Adam McKay’s latest is him putting his money where his mouth is, so to speak, and using his megaphone to make sure his audience is putting their attention where it matters: the corridors of power. Come for the rage-inducing reminders of America’s hypocrisies, stay for Christian Bale’s insanely accurate transformation into former Veep Dick Cheney. Everyone is going to be talking about it, so you might as well see it now.