I’m sure this list will spark some disagreement. That’s okay. This is a factual list of the best Christmas movies. There is no opinion here, only truth… unless I forgot one.
10. Love the Coopers
I watched this in full for the first time last night, and I don’t know why it isn’t talked about more. John Goodman, Diane Keaton, Alan Arkin, Ed Helms, Olivia Wilde, Anthony Mackie, Marissa Tomei, Timothée Chalamet, Amanda Seyfried, Pete from The Office, and freaking Steve Martin narrating. Plus it’s funny.
9. Scrooged
I’m an English major, so I do enjoy Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, but I love Bill Murray even more, so this take on the classic book makes the top ten no problem.
8. The Polar Express
While I will always maintain that it is often overrated in how good it actually is, I think The Polar Express earns its top ten spot from the soundtrack alone. Josh Groban singing “Believe” makes any movie ten times better.
7. How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
No, not the Jim Carrey version from 2000. You can go fuck yourself if you think that’s a good movie. I’m talking about the classics here, and the original cartoon is the only Grinch movie that should ever be in this conversation.
6. The Year Without a Santa Claus
Heat Miser and Snow Miser songs? C’mon. It doesn’t get more classic than that.
5. A Christmas Story
This movie is filled with some of the most well-known lines of all time. “Oh fudge!” “You’ll shoot your eye out,” and “Fra-jee-lay, must be Italian,” are just the mainstream ones that pop into my head.
4. Elf
Elf is the only Christmas movie with more quotable lines than A Christmas Story. Will Ferrell is hilarious. The only reason it’s not higher on the list is that we’re forced to stare at his bulge through the elf tights for the first half of the movie. Then again, maybe that’s why it’s so high.
3. Home Alone
I think the only arguments I’ll have surrounding this pick is that it’s not higher on the list, so I’ll just defend my placement and say that it’s not better than the next two, and that’s factual.
2. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
John Hughes owned the 80s, and he sure didn’t miss with this one. I’ll go to my grave on the fact that this is the funniest Christmas movie ever made. This is one of the two movies I watch every single year at Christmas.
1. Die Hard
Dedicated family man John McClain saves his wife’s company Christmas Party. Don’t ever try and tell me it’s not a Christmas movie. And don’t ever try and tell me it’s not the best one ever made.
