What to Watch Over the Holidays? 5 Movies and Shows Perfect for Family Movie Night
Meow meow, hi everyone! First off, happy new year~ How did your new year go? Every single year I end up arguing with my family over what movie to watch, and not every film is really suitable for everyone to watch together, so… that’s exactly how today’s post came to be! Today I’m going to recommend 5 movies that are perfect for the whole family to enjoy together over the new year, so let’s dive right in!
And then I kept putting it off until now… but I guess it still counts as the new year, right!?
Most of today’s picks are Taiwanese dramas, because I feel like hardly anyone talks about them, but I really love the way they tell their stories, and the writing always feels so heartfelt. So personally, I highly recommend them~~
Heads up! There are some minor spoilers below, so read at your own discretion!
5 Movies Perfect for Watching with Family #1 – A Boy Named Flora A (Hua Jia Boy Grows Up)
A Boy Named Flora A leans toward an everyday, slice-of-life kind of storytelling. There’s no especially fancy or quirky premise or plot setup, but it’s ordinary and fun, while still capturing the whole life of ordinary folks, the kind of things every one of us will run into at some point. Through the way the film is arranged, it lets us watch the entire story unfold from an outsider’s perspective.
What I find most interesting about this drama is watching “Big Sis” (the grandma) go from being critically ill, to a brief rally, and then critically ill again, with all the bustle and quiet at home, and the fighting over the family inheritance. Through this main storyline, it slowly reveals each character’s background and all their tangled loves and grudges, which is exactly the feeling this drama is going for.
Finally, I really love one line at the very end: “In the end, the person closest to Grandma turned out to be the family’s migrant caregiver.” It struck me deeply, quietly voicing the rawest truth that nobody wants to accept. I highly recommend giving it a watch.
5 Movies Perfect for Watching with Family #2 – Cape No. 7
The second movie is a super good one that we’ve kind of forgotten about! I personally love it so much, and even though I only recently pulled it back out to rewatch it, I was still deeply moved by the story.
The plot revolves around two main threads. One is Aga and the band thrown together at the last minute, and the other is a bundle of 7 love letters that, over 60 years, were never actually sent. At the start of the story, those 7 letters are just plain narration plus a voiceover. But the further you watch, the more you can feel how these two parts are so different and yet so alike. The story’s ending lands on the confession and the love letters finally being placed into the old woman’s hands, which is the climax of the whole plot and its most moving moment, and then it wraps up cleanly without dragging things out. Honestly, so good.
That said, because of the way the plot is structured, it’s a tiny bit hard to follow at the beginning, so you might need a little patience at first, and you may even have to watch it a second time to fully grasp the cause and effect of everything. Also, since it’s an older movie, the picture quality is a bit rough, so you might have to bear with that a little.
5 Movies Perfect for Watching with Family #3 – More Than Blue: The Series
“Who says a sad story can’t have a happy ending?” This is the sweetest yet most heartbreaking line in the show. Wang Bohan and An Yiqi are coworkers at a record company, working to figure out who holds the copyright to a certain song. That song comes from two songwriters who have already passed away, the lyricist K and the composer Cream. K’s father suffered from leukemia, and during one episode behind the wheel, he had an attack and accidentally crashed, killing Cream’s parents and younger sister.
After that, his worsening illness combined with the huge compensation he owed weighed on him until he couldn’t breathe, and in the end, that mental pressure caused him to pass away too. Of the two families, only K and Cream were left. Because they had both lost their families, they grew close and fell for each other, but… they had no idea the disaster was far from over. One day, while K was riding his motorbike, he discovered that he… well, you’ll have to watch the rest yourself. The highlights of this drama are the little thoughtful gestures the two of them make for each other, plus how the story develops afterward and the choices each protagonist ends up making. It’s a bit unexpected, but the more you think about it, the more it warms your heart.
5 Movies Perfect for Watching with Family #4 – Tears on Fire (The Fire God’s Tears)
I’m sure a lot of people have heard of Tears on Fire! It’s time to go back and revisit it once more~ Tears on Fire is about all the dangers our firefighter heroes face during rescues, the unfair treatment they receive, and all the nonsense they have to put up with. For example, fires often draw a crowd of onlookers, which can easily slow down the rescue, and some people who don’t know anything pretend they do and keep demanding that the firefighters spray water.
In every episode, you work alongside these firefighter heroes who put their own safety on the line, experiencing their daily lives. Sometimes it’s only from an outsider’s point of view that you realize how hard and helpless their situation really is. The plot also cleverly weaves in each character’s past, the dreams they’re striving for, and the helplessness of reality. The whole thing is tightly paced and never boring, and by the end you’re definitely going to bawl your eyes out!!!
That said, because each character has a different background, it can be a little confusing at the start, but as the plot moves along, each question gradually gets answered, so it’s not too much of a brain-buster.
5 Movies Perfect for Watching with Family #5 – My Buddies the Four Ghosts
This is another one that had me crying buckets. I’ve watched it twice, and both times I cried until I couldn’t see straight. The main character is a hot-blooded young man who got scammed out of all his savings in a business deal. Because he was drowning in debt, he spent every day thinking about how to end his own life, yet every attempt failed.
After one resuscitation, he suddenly discovers he can see “Them,” and there’s no avoiding it no matter how hard he tries. Apparently they have some unfulfilled wishes, and the only way to get rid of them is to complete those wishes. As the protagonist slowly fulfills them one by one, he gradually climbs out of the gloom of wanting to end it all, but in the end he inadvertently uncovers a past he had long since forgotten.
The whole story is told in a really comedic way, and it uses the possession gimmick to make the protagonist do all sorts of funny and ridiculous things, and then it lands a critical hit straight to your heart, ahhh~~ The ending really had me bawling~
Okay! That’s it for my recommendations today, but in a few days there’ll be a part two coming out, so look forward to it! If you like my posts, feel free to hit like and save~ And if you want to see more, do hit follow too! See you in the next post.