Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas: Best Yule Movies?

This post shares the title with my colleague Alonso Duralde's charming, comprehensive and user-friendly book devoted to Yuletide movies.

Everyone's favorite family evergreens are here -- The Bishop's Wife, Elf, It's a Wonderful Life, Little Women,  Meet Me in St. Louis, Miracle on 34th Street, The Preacher's Wife and This Christmas. 

But it's the surprising titles -- Chris and Paul Weitz's About a Boy, Allen Reisner's tearjerker All Mine to Give, John Huston's The Dead, William Dieterle's noirish I'll Be Seeing You, Keith Gordon's lovely wartime parable A Midnight Clear, Danny Boyle's hearthwarmer Millions, Gillian Armstrong's off-center Starstruck, that make Duralde's book such a gift.

Particularly loved his inclusion of The Apartment and Desk Set, films highlighting that quaint mid-century American institution, the three-Martini Christmas party.

This year, I have a hankering for George Cukor's Holiday (1938), with wonderful performances from Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and Lew Ayres, Penny Serenade (1941), George Stevens' tearjerker with Grant and Irene Dunne, Bell Book and Candle (1958) in which Kim Novak bewitches James Stewart during the holidays,  and The Holiday (2007), Nancy Meyers' gingerbread about a house swap between Londoner Kate Winslet and Los Angelena Cameron Diaz. Your favorite holiday films?