How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)

A picture book you can finish before your cocoa cools became 105 minutes of movie, mostly because Ron Howard gave the Grinch a sad school flashback nobody asked for. The Whos are worse than the book’s version, too: loud, greedy and shopping like it’s a sport, so the Grinch kinda has a point. Then there’s the look. The Who makeup is so elaborate that the whole town seems carved out of candle wax. And still, Jim Carrey under all that green fur is a one-man holiday riot. He reads his daily schedule out loud, with wallowing in self-pity penciled in like a dentist appointment, and his scenes with Max the dog are the warmest in the movie. Anthony Hopkins narrates the rhymes like they’re Shakespeare, and it somehow works. It made $350.2 million worldwide on a reported $123M. A 5.1 because Carrey is a gift and the movie around him is overstuffed wrapping paper. $9,691 says you write your own Grinch schedule this week and block out an hour to stare into the abyss.

What works: Jim Carrey’s rubber-faced, muttering Grinch is a fully committed comedy performance, and his scenes with Max the dog give the movie its heart.

What doesn’t: The added backstory and greedy Whos pad a short story into a long movie, and the heavy Whoville makeup is more unsettling than magical.

Who it’s for: Families who want a December movie night with a big comic performance, and Carrey fans who can quote his muttered asides.