25+ Christmas movies of all time

Even if you have the tendency to plunge right into Christmastime and enjoy each and every sugary, peppermint-flavored synapse-sapping cliché, you can still be a mild Grinch-type this time of year if you are considering Christmas cinema in general. And each year, streaming services churn out another batch of inexpensive Christmas romcoms featuring long-dead TV celebrities you haven’t thought about in a decade, all hoping for just the right amount of ironic clicks to score a hit. So much so that it can even turn a proper neophile clad in an ugly wool sweater into a rolling Scrooge.

However, we all have those films that we throw on each December as a way to remind ourselves that this most wonderful of seasons is just around the corner. Perhaps it is one of those unavoidable television staples such as It’s a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Story. Or maybe something a little more low-brow like Elf or Home Alone. Or perhaps it is nasty and raunchy—a crooked or bad Santa. Hell, maybe it crosses the line into terrifying, like Black Christmas. Around this time of year, regardless of what your personal cup of warm cocoa happens to be, there are a ton of legitimately great Christmas movies—as this list of the best of them all proves, you don’t need to be a dripping caramel colored in order to get into the festive spirit.

1. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

• Film
• Drama

Laced with whimsical digs, gallons of goodwill, and a parallel story that should raise the eyebrows (and chill the spine) of every Black Mirror episode, the noble fight of a small-town saint (James Stewart, in his most iconic role) versus the concept of Christmas as charity is set in stone.

Infused with fairy tale narration, generous handfuls of goodwill, and an alternate ending that would gag the twisted boot of a Black Mirror episode, this ode to the work of a small-town do-gooder (James Stewart in his most beloved role) solidifies Christmastime as the season of altruism.

2. Die Hard (1988)

• Film
• Action and adventure

On par with: Is a hot dog a sandwich? and ‘Is cereal a soup?’ Looking back, this is obviously one of those goofy internet screeds that feel so old that your eyes roll every time it fires up again, so we’ll just put this to bed right here: Yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Come on: it is on Christmas Eve. On the soundtrack is also the timeless ‘Christmas in Hollis’ by Run-DMC. Or that it is really a secret remake of It’s a Wonderful Life (yes, some have made that argument). Sure, you can and should watch John McTiernan’s action classic all year round—but for our money, celebrating the season to the sound of machine-gun fire, C4 explosions, and Alan Rickman’s accent beats the jingle out of sleigh bells any day.

3. Gremlins (1984)

• Film
• Fantasy

There are many Christmas gifts that come with instructions—but none as ominous as this one: do not expose to bright light, do not get wet, and most importantly, do not feed after midnight. Joe Dante takes a well-meaning gift and makes it a nightmare in this horror comedy. And a heartbroken Phoebe Cates recounts the saddest Christmas story of all time.

4. Elf (2003)

• Film

Fair enough: Will Ferrell’s overgrown child persona does seem custom-made for this comedy about a brawny Goliath elf looking for his dad in New York City, and the film isn’t all about the yucks. The story embraces goodwill towards the man with so much heart and soul put into it that in a genre that has lost a lot of it to generic saccharinity, this is one truly sweet modern Christmas movie.

5. Bad Santa (2003)

• Film
• Comedy

This Christmas raunch-fest is certainly sustained by a one-joke idea — it basically amounts to ‘guy in Santa suit swears a lot.’ But Billy Bob Thornton — who plays a Santa with an unsuspected, surprising stretch of kiddy heart — takes the idea farther than a bad guy should probably go and creates some legit Christmas spirit by befriending a bullied child too cruelly named Thurman Merman.

6. Home Alone (1990)

• Film
• Comedy

Written by John Hughes, this rollicking holiday classic is basically Straw Dogs for Kids. So what if everyone is in the wrong, from Catherine O’Hara’s neglectful mom to Macaulay Culkin’s sadistic moppet to Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci’s vengeful crooks? You could put the John Williams score on repeat and the coldest hearts would thaw; life-changing concussions would heal; grief would become a distant memory.

7. A Christmas Story (1983)

Who would have believed that this strange early ’80s slice of life from the director of Black Christmas and friggin Porky’s would end up nipping at the heels of It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street as America’s favorite holiday movie? For decades, Bob Clark’s nostalgia-infused comedy was a sort of borderline cult film, and rightfully so: it’s kind of weird. But it is the kind of weird that most families are, and few films actually acknowledge. It’s a lifetime and an experience that comes off as a series of vignettes, like the rusty home videos that come out every year after at least a couple of cups of eggnog—making it infinitely rewatchable, and with the frequency that this film airs on TV each December, you’ve probably seen this one enough times that the yuletide memories of little gun-loving Ralphie Parker are starting to blur with your own.

8. Edward Scissorhands (1990)

• Film
• Fantasy

An early example of a Johnny Depp that hinted there was more to him than cheekbones (we might even say too much cheekbone if we aren’t afraid to be a little rude), the titular character is a goth-addition giving a pain-and-pathos-filled performance. And what other context does Tim Burton’s suburban fantasy need to be nearly as touching without Depp’s sad-eyed hero at its center—or Christmas—a time of acceptance, charity, and Winona Ryder dancing around ice sculptures?

9. The Snowman (1982)

• Film

Kids in America had Charlie Brown and his pathetic Christmas tree. Meanwhile on British TV was this silent cartoon about a boy who had one wonderful night with a flying snowman only to be taught that real happiness is temporary. Merry, er, Christmas? This UK holiday classic is definitely a little morbid, but it’s also totally magical, with a reminder to savor those happy moments because nothing (and no one) lasts forever—which, in and of itself, is a beautiful thought.

10. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005)

• Film
• Comedy

This is a clever crime comedy with an outstanding performance from Val Kilmer as a private eye hired to provide a prop background for small-time crook Robert Downey Jr. when he hits Hollywood. Hilarity-wise, it has as many wrinkles as it leaves belly laughs, with Michelle Monaghan wearing a sexy Santa coming off as one of the break-out turns.

11. A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)

• Film

As much of a holiday perennial at this point as the story of Kris Kringle himself, this perennial based on the Peanuts comic has sent viewers into joyous spasms of tipping their heads for close to 50 years now. The most enduring of its accomplishments is the breezy jazz score by Vince Guaraldi—funny and beautiful like a snowflake tumbling through the sky.

12. Batman Returns (1992)

• Film
• Action and adventure

The dark second shot at The Caped Crusader by Tim Burton (making it a slight improvement over his original 1989 blockbuster) is fueled by an uncharacteristically fierce performance by Michelle Pfeiffer (the most she has seemed to have put in in her career) as Catwoman. In case you forgot, Gotham is blanketed in snow and in the midst of crowning its Ice Princess. Things do not end up well for the beauty queen—or for anyone else, really—this particularly grim Christmas.

13. Scrooged (1998)

• Film

Bill Murray is great at smug, snarky cranks, so at least the casting of Murray in the role of the Scrooge figure in this A Christmas Carol-set modern-day satire was genius. Long before his turn as grouchy weatherman Phil Connors in Groundhog Day, Murray is a heartless TV exec by the name of Frank Cross who the cosmos decides could use a little detour into holiday cheer and benevolence. And he is not the only inspired piece of casting — also look for Carol Kane as the surprisingly bruising Ghost of Christmas Present and New York Dolls’ David Johansen as the cabbie Ghost of Christmas Past.)

14. 8 Women (2001)

• Film

Whether that be singing, dancing, or over-emoting on Christmas, you name it: When those eight women are Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Béart, Virginie Ledoyen, Firmine Richard, Fanny Ardant, and Ludivine Sagnier, they can do whatever the hell they want.

15. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)

• Film
• Action and adventure

These days, you might associate it more with the classic SNL ‘Lazy Sunday’ skit (‘Pass the chronic—what?—cles of Narnia’), but it is a snowy dreamworld of magic based on the C.S. Lewis novel. There is a Father Christmas and (played by Tilda Swinton) a White Witch.

16. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

• Film

Style Points The cuddliest in Christmas afternoon movies, this original stars Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle, who has to prove he’s really Santa Claus — not least to a little girl (a young Natalie Wood) who’s lost the true meaning of Christmas.

17. In Bruges (2008)

• Film
• Comedy

Both sad and hilarious, the breakthrough feature by writer/director Martin McDonagh (In Bruges) follows two mismatched hitmen (Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson) who, following a hit gone wrong, are forced to spend the holidays hiding out in a Belgian tourist town. This dark crime comedy is the film for you if your Christmas movies tend to be dwarf and dour.

18. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

• Film

It hosts a romantic subplot that serves up a scathingly jubilant salute to young, fortuitously discovered love—the soul-cleansing closing number from this holiday showstopper from German-expat genius Ernst Lubitsch about the plight of a society of neurotic, underpaid, unappreciated shop girls—is an archetypal fusion of some of his brilliantly buoyant shooting style, his delicately functional layering of snappy, bright-crisp comedy, and bracing substance.

19. Carol (2015)

• Film
• Drama

For especially ahead of their time households, it has already become a Christmas tradition. The challenge of turning an oft-overlooked 1952 Patricia Highsmith premise about clandestine lesbian love into a reflection of universal romance is a considerable one, especially for director Todd Haynes, working for the first time with material by a screenwriter other than him. After seeing Rooney Mara in a Santa hat, you can never go back.

20. The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

• Film
• Family and kids

Michael Caine as ScroogeMickey, Gonzo the Great as Charles Dickens, Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit—just three of countless reasons to adore this funny, tender-hearted adaptation of the timeless tale. It is (really) one of the more true-to-the-book versions, even with Muppets.

21. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

• Film
• Animation

As for the film itself, there is something so wonderfully charming about the best stop-motion work, and this lovely musical (about a slightly unsuccessful Halloween-Christmas merger) ranks right up there with the old Rankin/Bass Xmas toons. Could a suitably darkly pleasant mayhem only have been created by Tim Burton, the project’s patron-producer?

22. Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)

• Film
• Comedy

No one ever thought ugly Christmas jumpers were cool like they do now. Which is why we can never really blame our heroine—Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger)—for her somewhat less than joyful reaction to spotting her romantic interest, Mark Darcy (a fabulously stilted Colin Firth), in a cheesy Christmas sweater featuring the world’s largest reindeer face. But it does get this crisp romantic comedy-drama about the trials of modern-day romance, as well as the dangers of an affair with a caddishly charming Hugh Grant, underway.

23. You’ve Got Mail (1998)

• Film

Nora Ephron’s The Shop Around the Corner remake is a fairytale about booksellers battling and is just as much a dreamy ode to New York’s Upper West Side as it is a dream of love. The sad Christmas scenes with Harry Nilsson’s Remember will have you hitting the ice rink or spending some money on children’s literature, and the Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks chemistry turns a corny into a classic.

24. Trading Places (1983)

• Film
• Comedy

Top-billed Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd at the height of their power in the ’80s, this big hit farce is basically It’s a Wonderful Life for the Wall Street greed years. One is a street hustler, the other a commodities broker, and both become pawns to some rich bastard callous wager. With Aykroyd in the George Bailey role, the film takes Christmastime to drag him back from the literal ledge for revenge in a, uh, gorilla.

25. Arthur Christmas (2011)

• Film
• Action and adventure

The son of Sant Arthur has Christmas every day of the year. In this hilarious animation by Sarah Smith, the awkward child leaves the North Pole on some sort of assignment with reindeer and comedic elves. Voices by James McAvoy and Jim Broadbent.

26. A Christmas Carol (1938)

• Film

John Leach and Eric Bowers joined the list of those readers not acquainted with Dickens Nov 14, 2023, 11:09 AM EST This version of the well-told Charles Dickens tale is one of the best, with Reginald Owen as Ebenezer Scrooge and Gene Lockhart as Bob Cratchit. Watching the snow in black and white is strangely reassuring.

27. Holiday Inn (1942)

• Film
• Drama

A real 40s boot duct tape cheerer, this musical takes Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby singing and dancing to win over the babes. The premise is straight out of Broadway: they are a holiday musical troupe, performing on every holiday from Easter to Christmas. It was also on the film that gave an Academy Award to the now classical song ‘White Christmas’.

28. Christmas Evil (1980)

• Film
• Horror

But before Silent Night, Deadly Night, there was another slasher featuring a Santa-suited psycho on a rampage. This is that movie. John Waters is such a superfan that he actually did a full-length audio commentary track for the 2014 Blu-ray re-release of the movie.

There was actually a horror film before Silent Night, Deadly Night in which a Santa wears Santa clothes and murders people. This is that movie. A Megafan, even John Water himself recorded a literal length of the movie commentary for the Blu-ray re-release back in 2014.

and snarling Santas, it’s a wildly inventive, even heartwarming affair from the Finnish wilderness.