Rockin’ around the Christmas tree at the Christmas movie stop! That’s right: You’ve reached the North Pole of movie recommendations, where our toymakers (read: film critics) have been hard at work sifting through titles all year long.

It’s easy to think of holiday movies as the one area of cinema audiences have permission to practically forget about the rest of the year. With a limited window between Thanksgiving and Christmas, most film lovers can only make time for a handful of seasonally appropriate screenings before New Year’s snaps our attention back to awards season and the big Best Picture contenders. Plus, with new yuletide offerings hitting theaters and streaming platforms in a steady flurry throughout December, there’s only so much time to enjoy Christmas classics while staying current on new holiday fare.

Selection is made even more complex when you get into the Christmas genre’s inexplicable tendency toward gatekeeping.