There are plenty of yearly holidays celebrated throughout the world, and many of the biggest ones have movies attached to them.
There are movies thatcapture the spirit of Valentine’s Day, there are movies that are best watched around Easter, thehorror genre is intrinsically tied to Halloween, and 2023 even graced cinema with a noteworthy Thanksgiving film, appropriately titledThanksgiving.
But no time of the year gets represented quite as often in cinema as Christmastime, perhaps owing to the fact that it’s a holiday which - alongside New Year’s Eve - concludes every single year.
Image by Federico Napoli
There are distinct visual elements of Christmas (snow, colors like red and green, warm clothing, etc.)
that look good on screen, and it’s a time of year when many have time off work, which gives people more time to watch movies.
More free time means more Christmas movies getting made each and every year, because there’s clearly a real market for them.With such a vast ocean of Christmas movies, it can be difficult to seek out some of the very best, but that’s what the following intends to do.
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It’s a ranking of iconic Christmas movies and a few offbeat titles that capture a Christmas feel while also being a little subversive or unexpected, all ranked below from great to greatest.
55’Holiday Affair' (1949)
Directed by Don Hartman
Holiday Affairstarred bothRobert MitchumandJanet Leigh, with the former being best remembered fora villainous role he played in the 1950s, and the latter most well remembered for playing an infamous horror movie victim in the early 1960s.
This one is a good deal more wholesome than eitherThe Night of the HunterorPsycho, though, not to mention also a Christmas movie.
Here, the plot revolves around a young woman a widow being torn between two potential partners, both being very different when it comes to their personalities and professional lives.All this romantic turmoil, which is sometimes played for laughs and sometimes for drama, is shown taking place around Christmas, giving an otherwise fairly standard old-fashioned rom-com a bit of a holiday flair for some extra charm.
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54’The Ref' (1994)
Directed by Ted Demme
Awell-made comedic crime flickthat just so happens to take place on Christmas Eve,The Refis all about the clashing of some highly flawed characters, in turn allowing the audience to mostly laugh at their misery.
The antagonist is a burglar who takes a family hostage, but said family members generally arent a whole lot better or more sympathetic, given how dysfunctional the family unit is.
Image via Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
The premise ofThe Refisn’t executed quite as well as it might’ve been if sayThe Coen Brothershad tackled it, or tried to make something similar, but there are decent laughs here for those who like their humor kind of bleak.
Also,theres always a time and a place for anti-Christmas movies; ones that arent all about cheerinessand promoting a sense of wholesomeness, soThe Refis recommendable for anyone after a holiday film with a little more edge.
53’It Happened on Fifth Avenue' (1947)
Directed by Roy Del Ruth
LikeHoliday Affairand some other soon-to-be-mentioned movies,It Happened on Fifth Avenuewas one of a surprising number of well-received Christmasmovies that came out during the 1940s.
Image via Allied Artists
There might even be enough to make the argument that the decade was a particularly strong one for holiday-themed movies overall, particularly in the post-World War II years of the 40s.
It Happened on Fifth Avenuecombinesa Christmas aesthetic and setting with some reliably breezy screwball comedy, following a group of people who move into an abandoned mansion around Christmas because they have nowhere else to live.
It does explore some fairly serious issues, but is generally comedic, too, intending to keep spirits high while telling a story about a series of unlikely yet ultimately heartwarming connections at the end of one year, and the start of another.
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52’Joyeux Noel' (2005)
Directed by Christian Carion
A World War I film primarily in French,Joyeux Noelwas based on a real-life event that happened during the wars early stages: specifically, the end of 1914.
It involved an unofficial truce happening on the Western Front around Christmastime, allowing soldiers to not only getsome reprieve from the wars horrors for the holiday season, but to also get to know the previously faceless soldierson the other side of the conflict.
It’s a movie about a small moment of holiday peace, feeling bittersweet because, as viewers will be aware, fighting did start up again in time, and the war continued to be fought until it ended in 1918.Joyeux Noelworks quite well and proves undeniably emotional, with its cast also being interesting, especially because two prominent actors here Diane KrugerandDaniel Bruhl both went on to star in anotheracclaimed war movie later in the 2000s.
Image via Sony Pictures Classics
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51’Remember the Night' (1940)
Directed by Mitchell Leisen
Another well-liked Christmas movie that saw its release perhaps confusingly in early 1940, in turn just missing the holiday season,Remember the Nightinvolves love, family, comedy, and drama, all set around the holiday season.
It involves two people played byBarbara StanwyckandFred MacMurray, who were both also the leads inDouble Indemnity unexpectedly falling in love, despite being on other sides of the law.
Essentially, Stanwycks character is a shoplifter, and MacMurrays character is the assistant district attorney who is in charge of prosecuting her, but things are undeniably complicated by that whole aforementioned falling in love thing.
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Its the sort of premise that probably wouldnt sustain a movie nowadays, but it works well enough as a product of its time.It is naive and somewhat charming in a way that movies 80+ years old sometimes get away with, and much of its success can beattributed to writer Preston Sturges, who went on to direct his own films from the early 1940s onwards, too.
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50’The Santa Clause' (1994)
Directed by John Pasquin
It might not rank as one ofthe very best movies of 1994,butThe Santa Clauseis at least something of an iconic Christmas movie, and a reliably family-friendly one, too (well, for the most part).
The premise is admittedly a little bizarre, though, given its premise involves a family man accidentally knocking the real Santa Claus unconscious one Christmas Eve, forcing him to take on the mantle of Santa so that the rest of the night’s presents can get delivered on time.
Things play out as you’d expect, with a simple story about family and finding newfound purpose in life during middle age, along with getting in tune with the Christmas spirit once more.The Santa Clausehas sequels that can be skipped, but the original holds up pretty well for what it is, and though its Christmassy visuals and messages are in-your-face, it does all ultimately feel sincere and good-natured.
49’While You Were Sleeping' (1995)
Directed by Jon Turteltaub
ThoughWhile You Were Sleepingis a cheesyromantic comedy, in many ways, cheese is good as part of a balanced diet, and sometimes, it’s okay to indulge a little around the end of the year (that’s what New Year’s resolutions are for, anyway).It goes hard on Christmas aesthetics and an overall holiday feel, telling a story about mistaken identity and a love triangle that develops unexpectedly between a woman and a pair of brothers.
If you want to be critical,While You Were Sleepingis schmaltzy and predictable, and perhaps corny, too.
Image via Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
Again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, and it all depends on what you want out of a holiday-themed movie.
Those who like their Christmas movies a little subversive or edgy in some ways should think about staying asleep for this one, but those in the mood for the opposite may well want to wake up forWhile You Were Sleeping.
48’Krampus' (2015)
Directed by Michael Dougherty
double-check not to getKrampusmixed up withKrampus: The Reckoning, which came out the same year and probably only exists so people would get the two films mixed up, and perhaps accidentally watch the latter.Krampusis the real Krampus movie of 2015, though, make no mistake, and is an overall funny, weird, and oftentimes unsettling horror-themed Christmas movie about a folklore monster that’s said to be the opposite of Santa Claus.
While Santa is said to give gifts to well-behaved children on Christmas, the titular Krampus is a legendary creature that punishes children who’ve been naughty rather than nice.
At the center ofKrampusis a dysfunctional family, the members of which haven’t exactly found themselves in the Christmas spirit, which sets the monster after them.
It’s probably more of a comedic dark fantasy movie than a truly terrifying work of horror, but it’sfun overall for those who are after some mild scares come Christmastime.
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47’Lethal Weapon' (1987)
Directed by Richard Donner
Lethal Weaponprimarily functions as a buddy comedy/action movie, and a fairly good one at that, but it does also work as a Christmas film, at least in part.
It has a familiar premise for those who are well-versed in the kinds of breezy action flicks popular in the 1980s and ’90s, with a mismatched pair of cops initially clashing and then learning to work together as they take on a complex case that involves murder and a possible drug ring.
Agood chunk ofLethal Weaponplays out a little while before the holiday period, and then it memorably ends on Christmas Day.
It’s one of those possible holiday movies that doesn’t wholeheartedly embrace the most wonderful time of the year, but flirts with it a little and can still qualify for those who are feeling generous with their definition of what a “Christmas movie” is.
It’s also just a good movie, so if it can be enjoyed any time of the year, why not around the end of December?
46’Christmas Bloody Christmas' (2022)
Directed by Joe Begos
Plenty of Christmas movies embrace a family-friendly feel, in the spirit of being inclusive and all for the holidays, butChristmas Bloody Christmascertainly isn’t one of them (if you couldn’t already guess from the title).
Image via Universal Pictures
Not only is it a gleefully violent Christmas-themed movie, but it also might well hold the record for themost profanity featured in a single Christmas film, asit contains close to 500 F-bombs, despite being less than 90 minutes long.
Anyone afraid of movies that embrace violence, bad language, and other adult content to an arguably gratuitous extent might want to stay away fromChristmas Bloody Christmasand the ridiculous slasher thrills it provides.
It takes gory violence and other things not often associated with the holiday period and makes everything as extreme as possible, resulting in something that could well be a bloody good time for those in the mood for such a thing.
Image via Channel 83 Films
