The Two Popes: Netflix’s final big prestige play of the season features two giants of contemporary acting, Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, as (respectively) conservative Pope Benedict and liberal future Pope Francis. Anthony McCarten’s screenplay uses their colliding ascensions to the position as the framework for a vibrant, thoughtful debate on the place and future of the church, while director Fernando Meirelles adroitly balances the heaviness of material with a lightness of tone (most of the good gags serve to remind us that, Pope or not, these men are flesh and bone). Hopkins is wonderful as ever (“The trouble he gets into,” he chuckles, while unwinding with his favorite canine crime show), but Pryce is a revelation, summoning the simultaneous impulses of duty, desire, hesitancy, and regret.

A Very Murray Christmas: Director Sofia Coppola and her Lost in Translation star Bill Murray re-teamed for this one-of-a-kind riff on the old holiday variety specials, in which Bob Hope or Frank Sinatra or whoever would gather a cast of their famous friends, sing a few carols, do a couple of sketches, and call it a night. Murray and Coppola’ s riff is, unsurprisingly, a bit more complicated than that, sending up the conventions of such phony showbiz affairs while indulging in bit of seasonal melancholy (and, yes, cheer).

White Christmas: But if you’re gonna watch a Christmas movie, y’know, watch a Christmas movie. This 1954 musical comedy romance from director Michael Curtiz (who also helmed a pretty good little movie called Casablanca) jumps off of the title tune, which star Bing Crosby first sang in Holiday Inn, to tell the story of two Army-buddy entertainers doing a Christmas week gig at their old commanding officer’s resort, and falling in love, and getting into trouble, etc. Look, nobody watches White Christmas for the plot; queue it up for Crosby and Kaye’s chemistry, the unforgettable “Sisters” number by Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen, and the general good vibes.

The Long Kiss Goodnight: Action writer/director Shane Black has a bit of a calling card: he loves setting his movies during the Christmas season, going back to his first big hit, Lethal Weapon. This 1996 amnesia action thriller starring Geena Davis (then the wife of director Renny Harlin) and Samuel L. Jackson is, true to form, chock full of Yuletide, with little touches like a Christmas light-ed action scene and a holiday parade that leads directly to Davis accidently blowing her cover.