Any time of year is a good time to revisit your favorite films on DVD, Blu-ray, 4K UHD, or whatever platform you can find them on. Autumn, however, is the time of year when I tend to watch the same twenty-five films year after year as time permits.

I break those film into six phases: early autumn, Halloween, Election Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and pre-Christmas.

For early autumn I like Douglas Sirk’s quintessential 1950s masterpiece All That Heaven Allows best, with Sam Mendes’ American Beauty, and Todd Haynes’ Far from Heaven not far behind. All three are filled with lush autumnal colors including ever-present fallen leaves.

By the time she made All That Heaven Allows, Jane Wyman had received four Oscar nominations and one win. She probably came as close to receiving a fifth nomination for this film as she would have for any other. She is at her best as the middle-aged widow whose grown children try to distract her from falling in love with hunky gardener Rock Hudson by giving her a TV set for Christmas. It doesn’t work!

Kevin Spacey received his second Oscar and Annette Bening her second nomination for 1999’s American Beauty, which exposes the rot under the beauty of suburban America. They are both terrific as is the supporting cast in this Best Picture Oscar winner.

Todd Haynes’ 2002 Far from Heaven gives us a little of both the nostalgia of All That Heaven Allows and the rot of American Beauty as Oscar-nominated Julianne Moore traverses the local bigots as she deals with life in 1950s suburbia which takes her from confused latent homosexual husband Dennis Quaid to sensitive black lover Dennis Haysbert.

My Halloween tastes run the gamut from childhood trick-or-treating in Meet Me in St. Louis, To Kill a Mockingbird, and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial to classic 1930s horror from the likes of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein, and The Bride of Frankenstein to the more modern psychological horror of Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist.

Yes, I know there’s no trick-or-treating in To Kill a Mockingbird, but the sub-plot involving unseen neighbor Boo Radley plays very much like the tricks played on little Margaret O’Brien in Meet Me in St. Louis. I can’t watch one without thinking of the other.

Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has been filmed numerous times but never more brilliantly than in the 1931 version with Fredric March in an Oscar-winning performance. The same is true of Frankenstein, but never more deliciously than in James Whale’s 1931 version with Boris Karloff and its even better 1935 sequel with Elsa Lanchester as The Bride of Frankenstein.

1968’s Rosemary’s Baby and 1973’s The Exorcist have never been topped in the realm of horror films in the modern era

Election Day wouldn’t be Election Day without a spin of Spencer Tracy running for reelection in John Ford’s The Last Hurrah.

Veterans Day is a time of reflection on those who served with an emphasis on those who were forever damaged by their service. It doesn’t get more real than the plights of World War II survivors, paraplegic Marlon Brando in 1950’s The Men and blinded Arthur Kennedy in 1951’s Bright Victory, or Vietnam survivors, paraplegics Jon Voight in 1978’s Coming Home and Tom Cruise in 1989’s Born on the Fourth of July. Kennedy, Voight, and Cruise were all nominated for Oscars for their richly observed performances, with Voight winning.

Watching Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in 1947’s Miracle on 34th Street is often more fun than watching the current parade on Thanksgiving, which is the traditional start of the Christmas season.

It’s an under-observed holiday as far the movies go, but if I want more, I will go to Woody Allen’s 1986 film Hannah and Her Sisters for laughs, or Jodie Foster’s 1995 film Home for the Holidays for its take on a dysfunctional modern family.

As we get closer to Christmas, it’s time to check in with Rosalind Russell in 1958’s Auntie Mame as she fails at being a Macy’s salesclerk and other jobs but succeeds at life in her great Oscar-nominated performance.

Then it’s on to Barbara Stanwyck as a petty thief in 1940’s Remember the Night and a fashionable home and gardens writer in 1945’s Christmas in Connecticut. Both films have her turning her life around, albeit in different ways with Fred MacMurray, Beulah Bondi, and Elizabeth Patterson in the former, and Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet, S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall, and Una O’Connor in latter.

1947’s The Bishop’s Wife ends on Christmas Day but spends most of its time leading up to the day as angel Cary Grant comes to earth to sort out the lives of bishop David Niven, his wife Loretta Young, professor Monty Woolley, and parish bully Gladys Cooper.

Two films I like to watch as the season changes from fall to winter are The Lion in Winter and The Apartment, both of which take place on Christmas Day but neither of which are feelgood Christmas movies and are therefore not ones to watch on the day itself.

1968’s The Lion in Winter takes place in 1183 as England’s Henry II and his estranged wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, battle over which of their three sons should succeed him. The film earned Katharine Hepburn the third of her four Oscars as Eleanor and Peter O’Toole the third of his eventual eight nominations as Henry. They are thrilling to watch as are Anthony Hopkins, John Castle, and Nigel Terry as their sons and Timothy Dalton as the young king of France.

Billy Wilder’s 1960 Oscar winner The Apartment begins before Christmas and ends on New Year’s Eve, but its Christmas scenes are its most poignant. Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine have arguably never been better, and Fred MacMurray is memorable as an entitled cad.

This week’s new releases include Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris and the Blu-ray release of Rachel, Rachel.