Traditions make the holiday season what it is. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. A treasured decoration hanging in a place of honor on the tree. The annual viewing of Stanley Kubrick’s psycho-sexual thriller Eyes Wide Shut.
In all likelihood, your annual holiday watchlist contains more “down the middle” selections like A Christmas Story or Elf or Gremlins. Whether you stick to those or don’t mind venturing outside the lines, Milwaukee Film’s “Season’s Screenings” series has something you’ll like in the 29 movies that will run at the Oriental Theatre from Nov. 27 to Jan. 1.
With some films showing on several days, we thought it might be helpful to break up the list by genre so you can find exactly what you’re in the mood for. That was easier for some movies than others (some might argue the animation in Polar Express is horror-adjacent), but the complex nature of the list is what sets it apart from the vanilla holiday screenings we tend to expect this time of year.
Something else Milwaukee Film threw in the mix to spice things up is one of their increasingly frequent special visitors on hand to watch one of their films. The lucky individual this time around is Whit Stillman, who wrote/produced/directed Metropolitan, the 1990 story of wealthy young socialites during debutante season in Manhattan.
As Stillman himself noted in a release about Milwaukee Film’s holiday series, “I have to confess that when we made Metropolitan, we didn't realize we'd be making what some would later embrace as a ‘Christmas movie.’ But it is one, and we're delighted that that has served as a pretext to bring the film this December to Milwaukee's beautiful Oriental Theatre.”
Stillman will stick around for a Q&A after the screening, tickets for which are available now on the Milwaukee Film website, along with all of the films in the series.
Season’s Screenings holiday film series
Comedy
- A Christmas Story — Dec. 13 (7 p.m.), Dec. 14 (6:30 p.m.)
- Carol — Dec. 21 (3:30 and 6:30 p.m.)
- Elf — Dec. 21-22 (1 p.m.)
- Gremlins — Dec. 5 (9 p.m.), Dec. 6 (9:15 p.m.), Dec. 7 (9:30 p.m.)
- Metropolitan (with Whit Stillman Q&A) — Dec. 8 (4 p.m.)
- National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation — Dec. 14-15 (4 p.m.)
- Polar Express (in 3D) — Dec. 14-15 (1:30 p.m.)
- Planes, Trains & Automobiles — Nov. 28 (4, 6:30 and 9 p.m.)
- Tangerine — Dec. 25-26 (9:30 p.m.)
- Tokyo Godfathers — Dec. 19 (6:30 and 9 p.m.)
Romance
- The Apartment — Dec. 28, 30 (6:30 p.m.)
- Love Actually — Dec. 27 (3:30 and 6:30 p.m.)
- Meet Me in St. Louis — Dec. 13 (4 p.m.), Dec. 15 (6:30 p.m.), Dec. 16-18 (7 p.m.)
- The Shop Around the Corner — Dec. 28-29 (1 p.m.)
- When Harry Met Sally — Dec. 31 (4 and 6:30 p.m.)
- You’ve Got Mail — Dec. 28-29 (3:30 p.m.)
Drama
- Eyes Wide Shut — Dec. 12 (6:30 and 9 p.m.)
- Fanny and Alexander, Episodes 1 & 2 — Dec. 7 (noon)
- Fanny and Alexander, Episodes 3 & 4 — Dec. 7 (3:30 p.m.)
- Fiddler on the Roof — Dec. 25-26 (3 and 6 p.m.)
- The Godfather — Dec. 1 (2:30 p.m.)
- The Godfather Part II — Dec. 1 (6 p.m.)
- Good Time — Dec. 27 (9:30 p.m.), Dec. 29 (6:30 p.m.)
- It’s a Wonderful Life — Dec. 20 (3 p.m.), Dec. 22 (3:30 and 6:30 p.m.), Dec. 23-24 (6:30 p.m.)
- The Last Waltz — Nov. 27 (7 p.m.)
- Little Women — Dec. 6 (4 p.m.), Dec. 7 (6:30 p.m.), Dec. 9 (7 p.m.)
- Phantom Thread — Jan. 1 (4 and 7 p.m.)
Horror/Thriller
- Black Christmas — Dec. 13-14 (9 p.m.)
- Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 — Dec. 20-21 (9 p.m.)
