Paramount+ Just Added Adam Sandler’s Critically Panned Holiday Classic

Adam Sandler is one of the biggest names in comedy, the actor bringing his distinctive brand of goofy, relatable humor to iconic movies like Happy Gilmore, The Waterboy, and Big Daddy. But throughout his decades-long career in Hollywood, he’s had his fair share of box office bombs and critical flops, and now fans can revisit the actor’s infamous early 2000s holiday bomb on Paramount+.

Less than a decade after writing and performing “The Chanukah Song” on Saturday Night Live, Sandler wrote and starred in a Hanukah movie that went wrong is just about every way possible, and it’s now streaming on Paramount+. Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights, starring Sandler as Davey Stone, a party animal who must referee a youth basketball league during the holiday season in order to avoid jail, joined Paramount+ on December 1st. The movie was a failure in just about every sense, only grossing about $23 million worldwide and earning a dismal 13% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and a rotten 50% audience rating.

Eight Crazy Nights Is a Holiday Flop That Is Still Worth a Watch

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To put it bluntly, critics, and most viewers, hated Eight Crazy Nights when it was released in 2002 and in the years that followed. The movie was described as “a nearly unwatchable waste of time” and a “poorly executed” attempt at a Hannukah movie. Much of the uproar boiled down to the movie’s humor, which is crude and often juvenile, something typical of Sandler’s style. The humor and the songs didn’t quite mesh with traditional holiday themes, and the movie’s shift from bizarre, gross-out comedy to genuinely sad moments can be jarring, and some of the characters just aren’t all that likeable.

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There’s a lot wrong with Eight Crazy Nights, but its underlying message of grief, redemption, and finding family and belonging have made it a holiday classic – not to mention the fact that it’s a rare animated film centered on Hanukkah, a holiday often overshadowed by Christmas in media. The movie uses its over-the-top silliness and Sandler’s signature, often juvenile humor as a Trojan horse for sincere messages, and the beautiful hand-drawn animation is reminiscent of other classic TV holiday specials. Even if it wasn’t universally acclaimed and is still mostly viewed as a bad movie, Eight Crazy Nights has carved out a dedicated cult following as a beloved, if quirky, Hanukkah staple for many.

Other Holiday Movies Now on Paramount+

Paramount+ is spreading the holiday cheer this December after plenty of holiday-themed titles joined the library on December 1st. In addition to Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights, Paramount+ subscribers can now stream beloved holiday titles like A Christmas Carol (1984), Ernest Saves Christmas, and both the 1947 and 1994 versions of Miracle on 34th Street. Other holiday titles now streaming on Paramount+ include A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas, Angel Falls Christmas, Christmas Cupid, Once Upon a Christmas Wish, and This Christmas.

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