The 5 TV Shows and Movies to Watch Over the Holiday Week

This week:

• Your holiday week family escape plan.
• The biggest TV finale of the year.
• A holiday treat to us all.
• An important Timothée Chalamet update.
• A great time to be a hockey fan.

Your Holiday Week Watch Guide

A holiday hangover knocking you out? Need an escape from the mayhem of family and their eggnog toots? Or, more excitingly, finally have some peace and quiet to take advantage of?

Whether you’re lucky enough to have time off this holiday week to relax or you’re excited about the glut of good entertainment that typically floods the end of the year, we’re offering our pick of the five TV shows and movies to watch, with one caveat: We limited this list to projects that are new and buzzy.

Song Sung Blue

A movie in which Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson are in a Neil Diamond tribute band is one of those laughably cynical, “What, did AI come up with this?” ideas that make it all the more remarkable that the film exists because it’s based on a true story.

Moreover, Jackman and Hudson are so genuinely entertaining that I feel guilty for ever being skeptical about the film’s entertainment value. These are two of the most charismatic movie stars we have, and they’re singing Neil Diamond songs. In what way would this not have been crowd-pleasing?

There is, though, a layer to this true story that turns all of the “hands touching hands…” cheer on its head. This portion of the film might not be for everyone, but it also delivers Hudson’s best screen performance since Almost Famous.

Heated Rivalry

If you’re not up to date on the gay hockey romance series Heated Rivalry, then you must not be in the 200-mile radius of New York City, where people can hear me spending 13 hours a day screaming at them to watch it.

In the weeks since the show premiered on HBO Max, it has transcended going viral because of its sex scenes to becoming the biggest show airing right now: Its stars are being splashed across every major publication, and its viewers have quickly come around to the fact that, outside of being incredibly hot, the show has become legitimately good.

Episode 5 essentially broke the internet, with moments so swoon-inducing they seemed to have thrown even the most jaded audience members off their axes. Most encouragingly, as the series builds in popularity, its fanbase has revealed itself not just to be siloed to queer viewers, but to span all demographics. That’s a pretty impressive shot on goal. (Did I do that sports wordplay right?)

Emily in Paris

It’s essential that, as humans, we evolve past our biases and embrace change. I am humble enough to announce my own transformation, from a person who thought the popularity of Emily in Paris marked a cultural swandive into the abyss of creative inanity…to being, like, hey, this show is kinda delightful. (Not every evolution needs to be that profound.)

The Netflix hit is performing a vital function: being sufficiently entertaining television, at this point comfortable in its bizarro, eye-popping costumes; Tower of Babel’s worth of international accents; and a web of relationships requiring an FBI task force to keep track of.

Season 5, with its jaunt to Rome, has been a soothing respite and necessary distraction from the stress of the holidays and all the [gestures foolishly] stuff going on out there. Watch it while folding laundry, while scrolling through Instagram, while wrapping presents, while writing your weekly pop culture newsletter...whoops, definitely not doing that right now. Sometimes all you want is a pretty show with pretty people that requires only a fraction of your pretty brain.

Marty Supreme

After setting a new box office record in limited release, Marty Supreme is now open nationwide, just in time for those for whom nothing says Christmas and the holidays like watching Timothée Chalamet play ping pong and go down on Gwyneth Paltrow. Cinema, baby!

The series of words “Timothée Chalamet ping pong movie” still stops me in my tracks every time I read them—and I’ve seen the film, so I know it’s real. I also know that it’s so good. You’re shot out of a cannon with nothing to hold onto but Chalamet’s shoulders (and get a good grip, because they’re slight!) as his character hustles and grifts his way through calamitous schemes on his self-imposed journey to become the world’s greatest table tennis athlete.

Yes, Chalamet really could win an Oscar for this one.

The Testament of Ann Lee

This is a weird-a-- movie. There’s not a lot of eloquence in that description, but how else would you shorthand a film about a founder of a religious sect in the 18th century who fancies herself the second coming of Jesus, which is also kind of a movie musical.

Still, The Testament of Ann Lee works because it is anchored by Amanda Seyfried’s suitably rapturous performance. There are a lot of ideas swirling in this one, and Seyfried skillfully grabs them all, isolating each as its own thread while still weaving together a tapestry that almost makes this movie really work.

Plus, Seyfried has been so delightful, down-to-earth, and effortlessly funny on the press tour that she makes the case that, if not Ann Lee, at least she is worth worshipping.

We’re All Coming to the Cottage

It’s fitting that this newsletter is publishing on Dec. 26, the day after the Christmas celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, because we now have another way in which to measure eras of time that are “B.C.” and “A.D.”: There is now “Before Cottage” and “After Dad.”

When you read this, the Heated Rivalry finale will be on HBO Max, and, with it, the grand finale of the week in which the show’s fans have incessantly been screaming “I’m coming to the cottage” in honor of the penultimate episode’s thrilling cliffhanger ending.

I will not spoil what happens in the episode, other than to say it was not a minute in when I first cried; we do, actually, get to see Ilya and Shane together at the cottage; and it is one of the most refreshing, intimate, and, in both, casual portraits of gay men in love I’ve seen on TV.

I’m also quite exasperated, if I’m being honest. First, when this show started airing, I realized I needed to find myself a hockey player to date. Now I have to find a hockey player who happens to have a luxury cottage on a gorgeous Canadian lake, too?

All of Whoville Is Shook

Just when all the big Oscar hopefuls have already screened for critics and the buzziest TV series have aired their season finales, a surprise contender makes a late-breaking case for the best acting performance of 2025.

May I offer up: Céline Dion as the Grinch.

In a video posted on her social media, Dion inexplicably is dressed as the grumpy green Dr. Seuss creation—face prosthetics and all—and, donning an impressive Grinchian voice, delivers a holiday monologue.

The thing is: She nails it. She’s so funny and fully committed. But of course she is. She’s Céline Dion, and she just scene-stole Christmas.

Does He Need to Be Doing All That?

With award season voting upon us and our end-of-year box-office dollars up for grabs, stars are getting creative about the ways they are promoting their movies.

Ariana Grande hosting Bowen Yang’s final Saturday Night Live episode? Brilliantly emotional! Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson went Christmas caroling. That’s cute! Timothée Chalamet doing, uh…what exactly is Timothée Chalamet doing?

His Marty Supreme press tour has been called “unhinged,” and thus far has featured a “leaked” fake Zoom meeting in which he pitched outlandish marketing stunts to an unamused team and flamed rumors that he was a masked British rapper—and then debunked them by guesting on a rap with the real guy.

He garnered even more attention by being the first person to stand atop Las Vegas’ Sphere, which was made to look like a ping-pong ball, to promote the film. It was a baller move that was slightly neutered by the fact that he looked like he was staring the personification of terror directly in the face, and shouted back at it like he was attempting to yell a message to a pilot through a plane’s running engine.

My favorite response to this simultaneously cool-and-cringe moment came from Amanda Seyfried, who, referencing her Ann Lee character, wondered on social media whether this meant she needed to show off her film by actually levitating.

It Really Is Everywhere

Not only did a scene from Heated Rivalry just take place in real life at a Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens game, but the Bruins’ official social media account made the connection. To the gay hockey show. Progress!

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What to Watch This Week:

Goodbye June: Kate Winslet’s directorial debut could be the new Family Stone. (Now on Netflix)

Song Sung Blue: This is a Kate Hudson fan club. (Now in theaters)

Emily in Paris: Sometimes you just want a little confection. (Now on Netflix)

What to Skip This Week:

Stranger Things: A release on Christmas Day and the episodes aren’t even good? (Now on Netflix)