Summary
The Holiday Movies that Made Us is a satisfactory experience, but it’s worth just watching the movies, rather than wondering how they came to be.
Netflix documentary series The Holiday Movies that Made Us season 1 was released on the platform on December 1, 2020.
If you have seen The Movies That Made Us and The Toys That Made Us, then this Netflix series is essentially the rehashed format for Christmas time. Spanning two small episodes, The Holiday Movies that Made Us provides the audience with an insight into how two classic holiday movies were made.
While watching the first episode, which looks at the processes behind Elf, I did wonder if having a documentary series about Christmas movies was worth our time — could we not just watch the movies and keep the magic contained? But then again, seeing how they managed to acquire Will Ferrell‘s services, and the imagination behind hiring that comedian, is fascinating in itself.
The Holiday Movies that Made Us explores everything; from the technicalities of the set to the special effects and the commercial implications of taking a risk with a film like Elf. The second episode looks into The Night Before Christmas, so cinephiles will enthusiastically click that chapter with ease, curious to see the thought process behind Henry Selick’s and Tim Burton’s vision.
The Netflix series truly captures the importance of holiday movies and why the creators always have a special investment in making them. It isn’t easy to imagine a scrooge directing a festive movie and The Holiday Movies that Made Us demonstrates the love and passion one has to have to embrace one. The only contestable issue with the documentary series is that two movies are not enough to encapsulate how these “made us”. Instead, they’ve given us a couple of slices of festivities to give us an idea of how two classics were made.
The Holiday Movies that Made Us is a satisfactory experience, but it’s worth just watching the movies, rather than wondering how they came to be.
