7 Days After Christmas, Benedict Cumberbatch's Underrated Holiday Movie Is Still Surprising on Streaming

1 week ago 21

A red carpet image of Benedict Cumberbatch.

Ryan O'Rourke is a Senior News Writer at Collider with a specific interest in all things adult animation, video game adaptations, and the work of Mike Flanagan. He is also an experienced baseball writer with over six years of articles between multiple outlets, most notably FanSided's CubbiesCrib. Whether it's taking in a baseball game, a new season of Futurama or Castlevania: Nocturne, or playing the latest From Software title, he is always finding ways to show his fandom. When it comes to gaming and anything that takes inspiration from it, he is deeply opinionated on what's going on. Outside of entertainment, he's a graduate of Eureka College with a Bachelor's in Communication where he honed his craft as a writer. Between The IV Leader at Illinois Valley Community College and The Pegasus at Eureka, he spent the majority of his college career publishing articles on everything from politics to campus happenings and, of course, entertainment for the student body. Those principles he learned covering the 2020 election, Palestine, and so much more are brought here to Collider, where he has gleefully written on everything from the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes to Nathan Lane baby-birding sewer boys.

In 2025, the Grinch was just about everywhere, from the typical airings of the classic Dr. Seuss special and the Jim Carrey live-action adaptation to Walmart commercials featuring Walton Goggins as the green grouch and a themed meal at McDonald's for the holiday season. Yet, even with Christmas over and the calendar flipping to a new year, he's still hanging around. The most underrated version of the classic story, 2018's The Grinch starring Doctor Strange's Benedict Cumberbatch, remains on Netflix's global film charts seven days after the holiday's end. Heading into the weekend, it sat at #4 on the platform, sandwiched between the Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin romance Me Before You and the latest Knives Out movie, Wake Up Dead Man.

The Grinch is Illumination's spin on the familiar tale, spotlighting the titular mean one's lonely existence atop Mount Crumpet with his dog, Max. Like the original animated special and the story it's adapted from, he has a deep hatred of Christmas and plots to ruin it for all the Whos down in Whoville when they decide to make this year's holiday the biggest, brightest, and noisiest yet. He gets a Santa costume, a sleigh, and some gadgets to help pull off the ultimate holiday heist and steal Christmas. However, the Despicable Me studio's version, directed by Scott Mosier and Yarrow Cheney, also explores the life of Cindy Lou Who (Cameron Seely) and her overworked single mother, and gets to the root of why the Grinch hates Christmas so much. Although not significantly different from its predecessors, the subtle changes it does make add more richness to the green villain's growth and redemption.

At the time, The Grinch was another blockbuster hit for Illumination, celebrating the holidays with a cool $540 million, the largest box office haul ever for a Christmas movie and for a Dr. Seuss movie. Despite its success and somewhat warm reception from critics, it hasn't quite become the holiday mainstay that its two predecessors have. There's still plenty to like about the adaptation, including a solid cast around Cumberbatch that includes Rashida Jones, Kenan Thompson, and Angela Lansbury, with Pharrell Williams narrating and Tyler, the Creator delivering an original song.

Illumination Returns to Theaters in a Big Way in 2026

Illumination doesn't have another holiday movie on the horizon, but 2026 will be a busy year for the studio. On April 3, Mario and Luigi will be back in theaters for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, taking Nintendo's flagship video game plumbers to the stars in an adventure based on their beloved 2007 Wii outing. Not only will it feature the returning cast of Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, and Kevin Michael Richardson that spearheaded the first animated blockbuster, but it will also introduce two big new names to the fold in Brie Larson as Rosalina and Benny Safdie as the mischievous Bowser Jr. Beyond that, the studio also has a new installment in their original spin-off series, Minions 3, though little has been revealed about the little yellow creatures' next adventure.

The Grinch is now available to watch on Netflix. Stay tuned here at Collider for more on the biggest streaming hits on television and film.