The Best Christmas Movies Ever. A List.
Consider this a regifting! Here's my post from last year, only this time it's free.
Note: Merry Christmas or whatever to you and whatever you might celebrate! I figured Christmas movies, like Christmas songs, can cross a lot of groups in a magical Venn diagram, so I’m reposting this (without the poll — last year “A Charlie Brown Christmas” won handily). Feel free to add new or first time comments.
There are a lot — frankly, too many — Christmas movies in the world and, separately, movies with the Christmas season as a back drop, but thankfully there aren’t as many movies as there are songs, which I already dutifully whittled down for your seasonal listening pleasure:
But make no mistake, as passionate as I am for all kinds of classic and original Christmas songs, my tolerance for Christmas/Holiday movies is a lot shorter, so this list will in turn be shorter. I’m sure it will also be more hotly debated. And I have no doubt your list is probably different than mine. Feel free to drop your Top 5 or Top 10 list in the comments, especially because other people may want some suggestions (if watching Christmas/Holiday moves is their jam). I’m just a lot more confident that my list is going to kick your list’s ass.
I wonder if, looking at the headline to this post, your brain subconsciously thought of “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” or “Home Alone” or “Love, Actually” instead of that animated classic. Or maybe “Die Hard” was the first title that popped up — or “It’s A Wonderful Life.”
I’m curious about what our likes and dislikes say about us and our approach to the holiday itself.
Anyway, mittens off! Let’s throw down on this shit right now.
I look at Christmas movies in three distinctive categories: Animated kid/family based ones; classic old school black and white ones and the more modern ones like “About A Boy,” “Love, Actually,” “Elf,” etc. As usual, your mileage will vary.
Here’s my list — I’m only going with a Top 5 because I think this is an iron clad, undisputed list and arguments for other movies, especially when you get to the the eighth and ninth spots, well, could be a little watered down. Unlike Christmas songs, there’s a finite number great ones. I’ll follow it with an even more narrow poll. I look forward to your own suggestions in the comments.
It’s A Wonderful Life. As the kids used to say, “fight me.” I don’t care if you think this Frank Capra gem is overly sentimental or not. I love it. Always have. Years ago when I was just starting out, the Stanford Theater in Palo Alto had access to the restored cut, financed by David Packard who purchased and rehabilitated the classic theater before and clearly had a soft spot for “It’s A Wonderful Life,” as do so many people. It’s quite a spectacle to watch that movie in a theater, especially one equipped with a Mighty Wurlitzer Organ. I loved the name Zuzu so much that I wanted to use it for our first kid — but Zuzu also kind of sounds like a stripper name so we opted for Zoe instead. We decided on that while watching “It’s A Wonderful Life” on Christmas Eve at the Stanford, years before we were even ready for a kid. Now, 22 years later, I still call her Zoe Zuzu. (I also think Jimmy Stewart’s drunk scenes in this movie are hilarious, especially when he’s mad about his dilapidated old house and the number of kids he’s got.)
A Charlie Brown Christmas. Hall of Fame, first ballot. It’s such a great anti-consumerist movie (and contains my favorite line, from Charlie Brown’s younger sister: “All I want is what’s coming to me; all I want is my fair share.” And it’s got the greatest soundtrack ever. I’m listening to Vince Gauraldi right now.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I mean, it’s got everything — meanness, redemption, a cute dog, the best Dr. Suess verbiage and a blast of colors and cute faces. I’m going with the heavyweights here, not getting cute with some surprise esoteric picks.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I’m a sucker for all things (okay, most things) Rankin-Bass and I’m particularly attuned to their oddest and most consistent character trait — meanness. I’m forever laughing that Santa is basically a non-stop dick in this movie. But look, this movie has Yukon Cornelius, Hermey, the Island Of Misfit Toys AND the Abominable Snowman. It rules. It’s tremendous. All the yelling at the elfs is just a bonus and Santa being a grouchy old fuck is just the cherry on top.
A Christmas Story. Just when you thought a great post-classic-era Christmas movie couldn’t be made, this appeared. It’s perfect. Disagree and I’ll shoot your eye out with a BB gun.
(Also, with a very deep archive of useful stories, this gem of a Substack would certainly make a good gift and you a thoughtful gift giver):
Look, I probably could have hit a Top 10 without much effort, but I didn’t want to pad the list with, say “Miracle On 34th Street” — which is excellent and should be on a Top 10 list — or a personal late-era animated special, “Olive, the Other Reindeer.” The former is an easy pick and the latter is probably too obscure and hard to find.
I love all Aardman Studio movies and I probably could have wedged one of those in there, but that might have been cheating?
The two animated films that hurt the most to leave off my Top 5 list, and would have been No. 6 and No. 7, are “The Year Without Santa Claus” and “Santa Claus Is Coming’ To Town” — two more Rankin-Bass greats (in my book) but also two that don’t have the same impact on the culture that “Rudolph” did, and are, quite honestly, just super weird in their storytelling. That said, Heat Miser and Snow Miser are cult heroes and appeared in “The Year Without Santa Claus” (another movie where Santa is kind of a jerky whiner). “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” has two legendary elements — Sombertown, one of the greatest creations ever; plus Bugermeister Meisterburger, a sadistic grumpy old bastard, who seems like the worst choice ever for a children’s special — he bans toys, arrests kids and makes them work like slaves. It’s insane; I love it.
OK, look, you’ve probably got a lot of choices — the old black and white Hollywood gems are solid picks, and people with great taste will summon up “The Muppets Christmas Carol” and we might break triple digits with people who love “Die Hard” and “Home Alone.” I look forward to movies I forgot that made your list and maybe should have made mine and those films I haven’t seen or maybe didn’t consider a Christmas movie. I’m sure you’ll tell me.
One last short story: I was so excited to bring my kids to see “Polar Express” when it first came out (well, my son was just a baby so he had to stay home and I brought Zoe). We got there early. Indulged in candy and popcorn. Then the movie started. Short version: All that weird CGI rendering scared the bejesus out of her and she started crying and looking away from the screen almost immediately. We made it like 15 minutes and left.
OK, have at it. Happy holidays.
In no particular order:
A Christmas Story. My family and I saw it in its original theatrical run where it bombed, and I had to spend the next ten years trying to convince the other kids at school that this movie a) existed, and b) was really good. Thankfully I was saved once Ted Turner started running A Christmas Story on TNT. Because I've seen it so many times, I wait for specific line readings like little presents, particularly the way Miss Shields says, "I want you to write...A THEEEEME," with a cutting side-eye. Or Jean's Shepherd's voiceover on "Flick? Flick who?"
A Charlie Brown Christmas. I'm an atheist and it's my favorite because it has the guts to be specifically about the birth of Jesus, in a sea of specials that elide it in the name of controversy avoidance. It maintains the spirit of Peanuts (Charlie Brown is clinically depressed! The world is absurd!) while also bringing a lot of joy into the mix.
White Christmas. I love the New England-by-way-of-Hollywood set design of the 1940s and 1950s (see also: Lucy and Ricky Ricardo's Connecticut house). I love every single thing Rosemary Clooney wears. I love Mary Wickes. And the harmony on "Snow."
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. This is really more of my parents' favorite than mine, but we saw its theatrical run at a very old Madison movie theater while on a college visit and a bat flew around in front of Chevy Chase's face during the early scene where Clark and Ellen are talking and he's trying to read a magazine with sap-sticky fingers from the Tree Adventure. So we watch it every year, but luckily no bats (or squirrels) have gotten into the house.
Pulling out old Black & White chestnuts, Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Marjorie Reynolds & Virginia Dale in Holiday Inn! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034862/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_holiday%2520i
Another on I love to come back to is the 1955 Humphrey Bogart & Peter Ustinov classic We're No Angels https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048801/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_we%27re%2520no
While Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is packed with wonderfulness and mean, I still have to step up and fight for A Year Without Santa Clause.
Shane Black's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang with Robert Downey, Jr, Michelle Monaghan and a spectacular Val Kilmer is a true piece of Christmas joy!
...and Die Hard IS a Christmas movie.