Classic holiday movies hitting Duluth theaters – Duluth News Tribune

DULUTH — The holidays are all about traditions, and for many people, those traditions include revisiting favorite seasonal movies. It’s now easy to do so from the comfort of your living room, but two Duluth movie theaters are offering opportunities to catch Christmas classics on the good old-fashioned big screen. What’s more traditional than that?

Here’s a guide to what’s playing in 2025. Check the

Marcus Duluth Cinema

and

Zeitgeist Zinema

websites for specific showtimes.

Zeitgeist Zinema, Nov. 29-30 and Dec. 6-7

This sweet, funny take on Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella was always poignant for Muppet fans: It was the first movie starring Jim Henson’s beloved characters to be produced after Henson’s 1990 death. Henson’s son Brian directed “Christmas Carol,” with Michael Caine playing Ebenezer Scrooge completely straight.

It became a touchpoint of many millennials’ childhoods, and remains the most watchable big-screen “Christmas Carol.” If you go to see it at the theater, though, you may be surprised at how many people laugh at the gags as though they’ve never seen them before. There must be at least a few people out there who still haven’t.

Contributed / Universal Pictures

Marcus Duluth Cinema, Dec. 5-11

Some would say there was really no reason to make any other screen adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ 1957 book “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” after the absolutely perfect 1966 TV special narrated by Boris Karloff. Universal Pictures, however, had 528 million reasons to green-light this animated reboot: just over half of them being domestic box office dollars, and the remainder being international box office dollars.

Benedict Cumberbatch voices the title character, with Pharrell Williams tagging in for Karloff as narrator — and Tyler, the Creator contributing a song, to the continuing bafflement of hip-hop fans.

Contributed / New Line Cinema

Marcus Duluth Cinema, Dec. 5-11

“Elf” is the kind of movie every producer hopes for: right idea, right actor, right time. An unblinking, unwinking Will Ferrell absolutely nails the role of Buddy, a North Pole elf who ventures out to find his dad. He’s given a pitch-perfect counterpart in Bob Newhart as an older, calmer elf. Jon Favreau’s movie also benefits from sterling production design, including a monochromatic Santa’s workshop that nods to the previously best-known elf entertainment: the stop-motion “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

The result is the best child-in-an-adult-body movie ever — apologies to “Big” and “Freaky Friday.”

Contributed / Universal Pictures

Marcus Duluth Cinema, Dec. 12-18

Amid all the hubbub over

the 50th birthday of “Jaws,”

you can be forgiven for missing the fact that 2025 marks another cinematic milestone anniversary: 25 years ago, Jim Carrey hit screens in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

Carrey’s casting in the role seems, in retrospect, so inevitable that if director Ron Howard hadn’t stepped up, this movie might have spontaneously generated itself. It turned into one of the highest-grossing movies of Carrey’s career to date — would you have guessed the top two are “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” and “Bruce Almighty”? While Carrey is the marquee attraction, it’s Howard’s touch for genuine feeling that made this movie more durably appealing than, well, “Bruce Almighty.”

Marcus Duluth Cinema, Dec. 12-18

From the standpoint of 2025, when computer-generated actors are

threatening to take work from real ones,

2004 seems like a very long time ago. “The Polar Express” is a textbook illustration of “the uncanny valley,” the phenomenon where a representation is too realistic to seem cute or stylized — but not accurate enough to be accepted as real. For many people, the human characters in this movie are simply too unsettling to watch.

The fact that “The Polar Express” is still being screened may be a testament to the draw of trains, especially in the snowy season, and that is certainly something Duluthians can appreciate. Will we someday get a “Christmas City Express” movie starring Tilly Norwood and Ken Buehler? Until that day, the next-best thing is this movie starring Tom Hanks and Tom Hanks (and Tom Hanks, and Tom Hanks, and Tom Hanks and Tom Hanks).

Contributed / Warner Bros.

Marcus Duluth Cinema, Dec. 12-18

Quentin Tarantino once argued that after a movie uses a pop song in an iconic scene, other filmmakers should back off using that song forever. What Tarantino did for “Stuck in the Middle With You” and “You Never Can Tell,” director Jeremiah S. Chechik achieved with … Christmas lights. “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” used an over-the-top home lighting display so memorably, the name “Clark Griswold” is now applied to any person who taxes the power grid each December.

Anything but subtle, “Christmas Vacation” hit the sweet spot with its combination of lowest-common-denominator gags and the exasperated vulnerability of Chevy Chase — an actor not known for that quality before accepting his status as one of America’s definitive dads.

Zeitgeist Zinema, Dec. 13 and 20-21

In the 1980s, “It’s a Wonderful Life” was the prime exhibit in debates over the practice of colorization. Cinephiles were horrified: Would the entire body of black-and-white film be subject to digital desecration?

The answer turned out to be no, and although you can still find colorized versions of this movie, the default today has gone back to Frank Capra’s black-and-white original. It’s not the lack of color that makes “It’s a Wonderful Life” hard to watch, it’s the film’s bracing take on Jimmy Stewart’s despairing protagonist. Despite the movie’s seemingly happy ending, its message is stark: In life, you don’t get a redo.

Contributed / Paramount Pictures

Zeitgeist Zinema, Dec. 16

The entertainment industry has been completely transformed over the past four decades, and yet Richard Donner’s Reagan-era satire still bites. Don’t movies like “Violent Night” (2022) and “Red One” (2024) seem like they were dreamed up by Frank Cross, Bill Murray’s cynical TV executive?

This “Christmas Carol” reimagining also stands out for the superb supporting cast, including Bobcat Goldthwait as an underling who gets coldly canned and Carol Kane as the Ghost of Christmas Present. The most iconic scene, though, comes at the conclusion as a redeemed Murray vamps over the end credits and tries to talk moviegoers into singing along with “Put a Little Love in Your Heart.”

Contributed / Warner Bros.

Zeitgeist Zinema, Dec. 18 and 20-21

Joe Dante’s “Gremlins” was originally a summer release, and its horror elements are appropriate for Halloween … but fundamentally, it’s a Christmas movie. The gremlins drop the needle on Johnny Mathis’ rendition of “Do You Hear What I Hear?” before commencing their homicidal mayhem, and the movie’s use of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” sparked a career renaissance for singer Darlene Love.

Beyond the festive surroundings, the movie holds up on a surprising number of levels. It’s the rare film that manages to be both incredibly campy and genuinely scary. If Dante had directed “Return of the Jedi,” you would have really believed those Ewoks took down a legion of stormtroopers.

Contributed / 20th Century Fox

Zeitgeist Zinema, Dec. 23

A hit Minneapolis stage production called “A Very Die Hard Christmas” ended its decade-plus run in 2024, and it’s safe to say the question it posed has now been definitively answered: yes, Virginia, “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie. As fans like to say, it just doesn’t feel like Christmas until Hans Gruber has plummeted from Nakatomi Plaza.

Aside from its seasonal relevance, the movie — in which Bruce Willis has to rescue revelers at his estranged wife’s company Christmas party — is considered one of the most inventive and influential action movies of all time. It’s Willis’ peak performance, with Alan Rickman making an unforgettable film debut as terrorist mastermind Gruber.