Christmas movies with a message

There are so many Christmas films, they now fill a dozen categories: Christmas horror ("Slay Ride"), Christmas comedy ("Home Alone"), Christmas gross-out comedy ("Bad Santa") and Christmas romance ("Holiday Inn").

For this article, we asked members of the Deseret News religion team to choose a Christmas film that embodies the original Christmas message of good will — films that might be considered classics and not just popular entertainment. We wanted to showcase movies that have become more burnished and poignant as they've aged.

Here are four films that help define Christmas — this year, and every year:

"It's a Wonderful Life"

"I suppose it would have been better if I'd never been born at all."

"What'd you say?"

"I said I wish I'd never been born!"

— George Bailey, to his guardian angel, Clarence

Though it may be difficult to convince a generation raised on iPods and Technicolor that this black-and-white classic is worth watching, Jimmy Stewart's depiction of self-sacrifice, eventual despair and personal redemption through the love of friends and family remains a "must-see" every year.

The tiny town of Bedford Falls and a loving family nurture George Bailey as a child, providing him the foundation for what everyone assumes he will become: a high-profile and powerful businessman destined to make his hometown proud. But family loyalty and a call to civic duty keep him tied to the townspeople, who couldn't afford a shot at a better life were it not for his determination to keep the town's only savings and loan open at all odds.

As he watches his brothers and friends garnering fame and fortune elsewhere, George continues to shelve his personal ambitions for the good of others, resisting attempts to get him to "sell out" and put himself first for a change. When the savings and loan's viability is threatened after a relative misplaces its cash reserve, George's world comes crashing down, and he contemplates suicide. His guardian angel intervenes. When George says he wishes he'd never been born, Clarence uses the opportunity to show him the starkly dark version of what life would be like in Bedford Falls if he had never lived.

Meanwhile, family and friends have rallied, putting out the word that George is in trouble and gathering cash from throughout the tiny town on Christmas Eve. George learns of the wealth he has created in personal relationships when those people lift the man who has spent his life providing opportunity and hope for them.