5 Ways to Beat Holiday Entertainment Boredom with MGM+

Holidays are times we spend with our close family, and that is especially true for Christmas. Sadly, a lot of U.S. troops won't make it home to be with family, and for the rest of us, the Christmas-New Year holiday space is a special (and temporary) break from reality. So let's be honest: Do we really want to spend all of it with those people? We're all going to need some "me time," and we need to consider how we're going to use it: a 50th showing of "A Christmas Story" or "Miracle on 34th Street"? I would rather work a CQ desk with the Ether Bunny.

Read: 6 Holiday War Movies to Get You Through Christmas

Of course, Military.com regularly monitors Netflix, Amazon Prime and Paramount+ to keep viewers updated on the best military movies and shows on those big streamers. But there is another streamer that doesn't get as much attention as it probably should: MGM+, which started its life as Epix in 2009 before rebranding in 2022. Ever since, it's been quietly awesome, with classic war movies and original series that might make you reconsider canceling immediately after the seven-day trial.

1. MGM War Movie Classics

Not to get too deep into film history here, but MGM and the family of studios and companies it bought and sold along the way include United Artists and Samuel Goldwyn, and these companies made some of your favorite war movie classics, including "A Bridge Too Far," "The Great Escape" and "Paths of Glory."

2. The Not-So-Classics

Sometimes you just want to watch Chuck Norris fight David Carradine. Or watch that guy in "Robocop" melt in toxic waste. You might want to discover that Dolph Lundgren was a much better villain in "Universal Soldier" than in "Rocky IV." Movies don't have to be good for us to love them, and Hollywood is great at making terrible movies to love. MGM+ is a great home to "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man."

3. Spy Series -- A Lot of Them

If you love spy stuff, someone at MGM is looking out for you because the streamer has a handful of original spy series. "Condor" is a Cold War-era spy story based on the Robert Redford movie "Three Days of the Condor," and its source book, "Six Days of the Condor."

There's also "A Spy Among Friends," starring Damien Lewis ("Band of Brothers") and Guy Pearce ("Memento"), which is about Britain's real Cold War double agent, Kim Philby. Finally, MGM offers "Berlin Station," a spy series set in the present day, which feels like a missed opportunity to make a show about the Stasi, but no one asked me.

4. Historical War Shows

War shows are inherently filled with conflict, which means drama, which makes for good television, no matter where or when the story is set. MGM has series based on an Arthur-like king ("The Winter King"); Lakshmibai Newalkar, who led a rebellion against the British East India Company ("The Warrior Queen of Jhansi"); and British Special Forces in World War II North Africa ("Rogue Heroes"), just to name a few.

5. Docuseries

Netflix may have perfected the docuseries, but MGM has some bangers that might interest American history buffs. There's "Enslaved," a chronicle of 400 years of human trafficking, led by Samuel L. Jackson. "Fiasco" shows us how the Iran-Contra operation went down.

But the series "Slow Burn" might take the cake. It details how outspoken Martha Mitchell, wife of Richard Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, started the fire that consumed his presidency. It's worth a watch and a reminder to tie up all those loose ends when you're engaging in a criminal conspiracy.

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