Christmas Movies Ranked

Everyone has a favorite Christmas Movie. For some it’s A Christmas Story. For others, it’s It’s a Wonderful Life. For my Mom, it’s White Christmas. There isn’t a wrong answer to the question, and every year, we get new ones that just become someone’s new favorite. Just in the last few weeks, we had The Holdovers, Dashing Through the Snow, and Silent Night. As for me, I too have my favorites (obviously). The issue though is whittling it down to just 5.

Honorable Mentions: Spirited (as time moves on, this one may move up the list), Muppet Christmas Carol (my Sister-in-law’s favorite), Home Alone, The Holdovers, Batman Returns.

5. The Nightmare Before Christmas – Starting off the Top 5 is a movie that would also be in my Top 5 of Halloween movies if I were to do that (maybe next year). While this could be classified as a movie for either holiday, this at its heart is a Christmas movie. The plot is the mayor of Halloween Town wanting to do Christmas instead. Chaos follows. If you just ignored them being in Halloween Town, it is an obvious Christmas movie. What sets this apart for me is two-fold. First, Danny Elfman’s soundtrack. There are so many bangers in this one. “What’s This?”, “This is Halloween”, and “The Oogie-Boogie Song” are all classics, but there really isn’t a bad song in the movie. Elfman did an exceptional job creating all the songs that really have held up since the movie premiered 30 years ago. The other side of this movie I love is that it is stop-motion. Stop-motion animation really gives this movie such a unique look that. Just the feeling when watching the movie that what you see on the screen is an actual thing and not just a drawing really is something special. As I’ve gotten older and looked into filmmaking more and more, I’ve come to the realization that stop-motion is one of the most demanding and rewarding forms of filmmaking. We live in an era where CGI is king, but when we get something new like this, usually from Aardman, it is something to pay attention to.

4. Die Hard – You either believe Die Hard is a Christmas movie, or you are wrong. If it wasn’t one, why do I have an advent calendar of Gruber falling down Nakatomi Plaza, one floor for each day? This isn’t just one of the best Christmas movies, it’s one of the best action movies period. It has one of the best Alan Rickman roles that doesn’t include him teaching potions to wizards. It also has one of the most quoted lines (you know what it is). The quality of the Die Hards went down as each sequel came out, but the original will always be a classic. A Christmas classic.

3. How the Grinch Stole Christmas – We have now had 4 versions of Dr. Seuss’s 1957 classic. There was the live-action one with Jim Carrey, the Illumination one voiced by Cumberbatch, and a terrible horror version two years ago. Before all of those, though, was the 1966 classic. It’s the only version that Dr. Seuss actually got to watch. For this one, we get the great Boris Karloff as the Grinch and Narrator. This is the definitive version, and they got it right the first time. Another plus is it’s an efficient 25 minutes long. I don’t need the plights of Cindy Lou Who or the backstory of the Grinch explained to me. I just need him to be mad, steal everything, and have his heart grow. I’m a simple man. One last point, this is the origin of the song “You’re a Mean One, Mr Grinch”. There have been attempts to make a new version, but none of them can take out the king.

2. Rankin/Bass Doubleheader – I know. This is my first rankings post and I’m already cheating. The truth is though that when I watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, I’m usually watching The Year Without a Santa Clause very soon after. These two are iconic for a reason. Rudolph, to my knowledge, is the first Christmas movie I watched when I was a kid. As I got older, my appreciation of Rank/Bass movies have only grown. As I brought up with Nightmare, stop-motion animation is such a cool form of animation. While Nightmare had its gothic look, the Rankin/Bass universe has its own look. You know it when you see it. On to what I like about them specifically. For Rudolph, I might be one of the few people who has Hermey as their favorite character. Anybody could pick the main character, but it takes a certain kind of person to take the elf as theirs. As for the other movie, I may or may not have Funkos of the Heat Miser and Snow Miser, and place one or the other on a shelf at my place depending on the time of year. If it isn’t clear by now in this post that I love stop-motion, well, the next movie hammers it home.

1. Elf – This is it. My all-time favorite Christmas movie. It isn’t truly the Christmas season until I’ve watched it at least twice in December (halfway there this year). In my opinion, this is the best role Will Ferrell has ever played. His naive personality throughout the movie just works, and it works fantastically opposite James Caan. Was there a better person to play Papa Elf than Bob Newhart? Everyone in this movie knew the assignment, and while this kind of movie with this cast could easily come up with a snarky, more sarcastic movie, the movie itself is such a nice movie for everyone. Deciding to make the North Pole look like the Rankin/Bass universe was genius. That decision naturally brings in fans that miss those movies. My friends have heard me more than once saying “ Hope you find your Dad” in the tone of voice as Mr Narwhal. As much as I love this one, I don’t want an Elf 2. It has been rumored, but we have already survived the letdown of Anchorman 2. Let’s leave this Ferrell classic alone.

So, those are my favorite Christmas movies. Leave a comment below what your favorite one is. I’d love to talk about more of them, but this post has already been long enough. If you excuse me now, I’m off to watch Elf again.