Starring: Wyatt Cenac, Greta Lee, Maria Dizzia

A feature length comedy written and directed by Laura Terruso (Hello My Name is Doris) about a struggling young writer who can’t seem to escape his wife’s literary success. But when a road trip to a publisher’s housewarming party takes an unexpected turn, he has to face his own creative shortcomings and find a way to regain control of his life and work.

A violent, strange and oddly spiteful Christmas horror film, Don’t Open Till Christmas follows a serial killer who spends his nights prowling London and hacking up men and women dressed as Santa Claus. Here we have a film that exists solely to offend: cheap, low rent, bottom-shelf sleaze with no regard for its characters, its audience or its story. But, hey — you’ve got to respect a movie that derives so much joy out of punching Santa in the face until his eyeballs fall out.

Starring: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Barry Keoghan, Alicia Silverstone

Dr. Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell) is a renowned cardiovascular surgeon presiding over a spotless household with his ophthalmologist wife Anna (Nicole Kidman) and their two exemplary children, 12-year-old Bob (Sunny Suljic) and 14-year-old Kim (Raffey Cassidy). Lurking at the margins of his idyllic suburban existence is Martin (Barry Keoghan), a fatherless teen who Steven has covertly taken under his wing. As Martin begins insinuating himself into the family’s life in ever-more unsettling displays, the full scope of his intent becomes menacingly clear when he confronts Steven with a long-forgotten transgression that will shatter the Murphy family’s domestic bliss.

Starring: Tommy Wiseau, Greg Sestero, Juliette Danielle

Johnny is a successful banker who lives happily in a San Francisco townhouse with his fiancée, Lisa. One day, inexplicably, she gets bored of him and decides to seduce Johnny’s best friend, Mark. From there, nothing will be the same again.

Starring: Will Ferrell, James Caan, Bob Newhart, Edward Asner, Mary Steenburgen, Zooey Deschanel

Elf is a mix between the misfit story of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and the “believe in miracles” story of A Christmas Carol but with the added joy of Will Ferrell in an elf suit running around New York City. Starring as Buddy, one year he crawls into Santa’s toy bag as a baby and gets whisked off to the North Pole where he gets raised as an elf. Of course, he’s a tall fish out of water and eventually decides to head to his birthplace to meet his father. What he finds is a family and a city who have forgotten the meaning of Christmas so he sets out to save the holiday!

Starring: Peter Billingsley, Darren McGavin, Melinda Dillon, Ian Petrella

While Bob Clark holds a special place in our dark hearts for his inventive horror flicks like the scary treat Black Christmas, it’s his contribution to the American canon of holiday classics with A Christmas Story that solidifies him as one of our favorite directors. Quirky family dynamics, a leg lamp, a bunny suit, bullying, swear words and anorexia are all involved in one boy’s quest for a Red Ryder B.B. gun in the 1940s. With such sincerity and deep humor, make a switch from watching this on television this year and see it on the big screen with your Nitehawk family!

Starring: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson

When die hard New Yorker (and NYPD officer) John McClane’s visit to his estranged family in Los Angeles gets botched thanks to some German terrorists invading a holiday office party, he doesn’t hide under the tree… he saves the day! In bare feet and armed with a slew of wisecracks, McClane navigates the hostage-zone of Nakatomi Plaza like he owns the joint as he saves lives, kills bad guys, outsmarts the local authorities and shows Hans Gruber (along with his wife) who is boss. Never before has an East Coast/West Coast bond been so strong!

Starring: Steve Martin, John Candy, Kevin Bacon, Michael McKean, Laila Robins

It’s a few days before Thanksgiving and Windy City ad-man Neal Page is stuck in New York for the world’s most pointless marketing meeting. With a holiday flight to catch, Neal looks forward to spending time with his family in just a few short hours. It was supposed to be easy. He wasn’t counting on a blizzard sending his flight to Kansas, and he definitely wasn’t counting on meeting chatty shower curtain ring salesman Del Griffith, his new partner in navigating the holiday hell of Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

For 19-year-old Jay, fall should be about school, boys and weekends out at the lake. But a seemingly innocent physical encounter turns sour and gives her the inescapable sense that someone, or something, is following her. Faced with this burden, Jay and her teenage friends must find a way to escape the horror that seems to be only a few steps behind.

Starring: Bill Murray, Karen Allen, Carol Kane, Bob Goldthwait, David Johansen, Robert Mitchum, John Forsythe, Alfre Woodard

Charles Dickens’ classic tale A Christmas Carol has seen numerous adaptations but none are as darkly strange as the Bill Murray helmed Scrooged. As Frank Cross, he plays a television station executive known as much for his callousness and cruelty as for his money-making programming. This Christmas he’s in for a real life lesson. On the eve (Christmas Eve) of hosting a live broadcast of A Christmas Carol, Cross is visited by three ghosts who, well, you know the story…