Is your family a drama? Here are the best movies to release tension before Christmas Eve dinner

The first title on the list is the most recent release from Norwegian director Joachim Trier, whom you may know from ‘The Worst Person in the World’ or from the list of iconic stories he brings together in his “Oslo Trilogy.” ‘Valor sentimentala’ tells about two sisters who, after the death of their mother, reunite with an absent father – a renowned film director – who returns to their lives with a proposal: to capture the dramatic family story in his new film and ask his own daughter to star in it. A family drama in the purest Bergman style, raw and honest, like life itself, but with a tenderness and narrative delicacy that are already a trademark of the Trier house.

Alexander Payne signs this gem of cinema that earned Da’Vine Joy Randolph her first Oscar for best supporting actress for her performance as Mary Lamb, the unforgettable head chef at Barton Academy. The film, set in the 1970s, features a strict teacher (Paul Giamatti) at a New England boarding school who is forced to supervise a group of students who can’t go home for Christmas.
‘The Holdovers’ represents an ode to the “circumstantial family” and is perfect for empathizing with what Christmas can represent for those who live it away from home, either because they are far away or because that home no longer exists.

The film that revolutionized British cinema due to its sensitivity and the courage of its director, Charlotte Wells, who made her feature film debut with this very personal retrospective journey to her childhood. In it he shares a kind of fragmented memory about the vacation of a young father (Paul Mescal) with his 11-year-old daughter (Frankie Corio) in a Turkish resort. It will be familiar to anyone who has ever spent a summer in the Mediterranean during their childhood, and will encourage you to pick up the video camera, on these special days, to treasure a memory of the time shared.

If you are a film lover, just saying that this film is the cinematographic result of Spielberg’s own semi-autobiography, should be enough for you, if you have not seen it already, to reserve the afternoon of December 25 to see it. A family portrait, told through the eyes of Sammy Fabelman, a young man deeply passionate about cinema, who discovers in the seventh art his tool to delve deeper into his family’s history. A “lifetime” film, which treasures the personal story, with fictional parts, of one of the great masters in the history of cinema.

What about the material assets of a family? What place is given to a house as an absolute witness of family memory? This Spanish comedy-drama narrates the journey of three brothers who return to the humble family country house, after the death of their father, to decide what to do with the home. The film addresses the universal theme of grief as the culmination of love, and has an ensemble cast that makes it very worthwhile.

One of the best titles in Spanish cinema in recent years with an exquisite choral cast. Montse (Emma Vilarasau) is overjoyed because she has finally managed to bring the whole family together in her mansion on the Costa Brava to spend the weekend. She has been divorced for a long time, her ex already has another partner and her children live their lives without paying much attention to her. Even so, Montse is determined that nothing ruin the meeting. This movie has everything we like about a good family drama, we just hope that your family gatherings these days don’t end the same.

Sorda is the first Spanish feature starring a deaf actress, with a narrative that avoids simplistic stereotypes and delves into the real experience of Ángela (Miriam Garlo), a deaf woman who is pregnant with her first daughter with Héctor (Álvaro Cervantes), her hearing partner. The film portrays the challenges of motherhood, from the sensory and emotional experience of a deaf mother, and its impact on the couple’s relationship. Beautiful and, at the same time, overflowingly raw.

Starring Ewan McGregor and his daughter Clara McGregor, ‘Bleeding Love’ is a road movie that chronicles the journey of a father with his daughter through New Mexico, after she is on the verge of dying from an overdose. Along the way, they confront old wounds, grudges, and the generational inheritance of addiction. An intimate story that delves into the edges of a complicated parent-child relationship, but full of love, to the sound of Leona Lewis’ great two-mile song.

This light family comedy could not be missing from the list. During the Stones’ annual Christmas gathering, Meredith Morton (Sarah Jessica Parker) meets her boyfriend Everett’s (Dermot Mulroney) family for the first time. Humor, conflict and drama intermingle as Meredith tries to survive and integrate into a chaotic and emotionally… complex environment.
Furthermore, this “family gem”, which is already part of Christmas pop culture, offers us to enjoy the enormous Diane Keaton to say goodbye to the year in which she left us.

The recent and controversial Golden Lion in Venice, which marks the return to the contemplative gaze of director Jim Jarmusch (Paterson). It is a film with a triptych structure, which explores the dynamics of the same family, but in three different settings: the United States, Dublin and Paris. One of the main reasons to encourage you to see it is its stellar cast, which includes the already regular in Jarmusch’s films, Adam Driver, and the magnetic Cate Blanchett, among others. Its premiere in Spain will be on December 24.