From Home Alone and Elf to classics like Miracle on 34th Street, we’ve made our list of great holiday films and checked it at least twice. Now, to all you nice boys and girls out there, we present the 50 Best Christmas Movies ever!
Christmas has come to represent different things to people over the years, and the movies here reflect that in kind. If you’re traditional and feeling nostalgic, you’ll be pleased to see where It’s A Wonderful Life and Holiday Inn made it on our list of top holiday films. If this time of the year reminds you of sitting around the TV, eagerly awaiting those annual specials, look out for A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. There’s horror (Black Christmas), comedy (Trading Places), horror and comedy (Gremlins), and even a superhero covered in tinsel somewhere (Batman Returns). For those with an independent streak to celebrate, check out Tangerine and Carol. Meanwhile, Netflix has made great strides in the Kris Kringle quadrant with The Christmas Chronicles and Klaus. And if Christmas means traveling somewhere you don’t want to be, stuck in a building with people you don’t like, have we got the ultimate movie for you: Die Hard! Ho ho ho, now we have a complete list of great Christmas movies.
Wondering how we put this Christmas movie list together? Every movie on the list is Fresh and plays around with the spirit of Christmas and the holidays as a central theme. Then we sorted them all by Adjusted Tomatometer, which factors in release year and a movie’s number of reviews, to make the ultimate list of holiday films that melted even the most cynical critics’ hearts.
And now you’re ready to enter a wonderland of cinematic history, with the 50 Best Christmas Movies ever!
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I was hoping for a more kid-oriented list (as isn’t that what xmas is about?) so I know what to watch with my kids – but clearly not the right sort of list – otherwise things like Polar Express, Scrooged, Grinch etc. would be on it…. But that aside – A Christmas List that has In Bruges and NOT Home Alone?!?! …. Madness.* Not a very good christmas list for anyone I think.
*In Bruges a great film.. but a ‘Christmas film’?!? Hmmm.
i had to look twice, but can’t believe Scrooged (1988) wasn’t on the list.
Agreed! This is my favorite Christmas movie, hands-down!
Christmas Vacation
The Family Stone and White Christmas! ♥
Home Alone? The Grinch? Jingle All the Way? Just to name a few…
Just terrible I tell ya.
Are you on crack? No Christmas Vacation – are you kidding me? I think I’ve lost all confidence in Rotten Tomatoes. I’ll never trust one of your rankings again.
personally, I look at these lists just for my own amusement anymore. I’ve come to believe that folks that publish lists like these make choices they think make them look intelligent and above the “nonsense” that turns on dopes like the rest of us. This list is as good an example of that as any I’ve seen. No “Home Alone”? No “Christmas Vacation”? What a joke!
This list is invalid for three reasons:
1) “The Nightmare Before Christmas” is a Halloween movie, NOT a Christmas movie. Source: Tim Burton.
2) You neglected to include the animated version of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”
3) You put “A Christmas Story” at number 11 and that over-rated slop fest “Its a Wonderful Life” at number one.
“Over-rated slop fest”? You’re entitled to your opinion, a lot of people think Frank Capra’s movies are cheesy. I think Christmas is the perfect venue for his brand of corn. To me, trashing “It’s a Wonderful Life” is like kicking a puppy.
I admire your ability to resist nausea
I admire your ability to think you are so above it all. Kudos, tough guy.
“Its a Wonderful Life” flopped in its initial release. It didn’t become a so-called classic until it was handed over to television and re-run ad nauseum year after year. Its like a commercial: endless repeats makes one inured to how cloying and sickly sweet it is and fools people into think it might actually be good.
Well, some people at least.
The A Team got ratings too, a fact which did not keep it from, being garbage. Of course, you seem to prefer ridiculous wish-fulfillment fantasies over realistic stories about real people whom you write off as dumb, nerdy, dorks and lament they they are not beaten up more.
Geez, you still busy bashing It’s a Wonderful Life? What a bizarre thing to need to do. Patrol a movie forum to make sure you get your licks in.
Whereas stalking people who patrol a movie forum seems to strike you as perfectly reasonable.
Well, less unreasonable, certainly, than going around repeating some jejeune “it’s so played out” trope about the most beloved Christmas movie of all time.
Brilliant use of the “I know you are but what am I” retort. 1st graders everywhere must live in fear of your ready wit.
Your comebacks are as trite and uninspired as the movie you are defending.
Oooooh, double dis!! Strong work, soldier!
Stalking requires more than one reply.
Agree 100%. Christmas Story sucks. Big time.
Gets up off the mat? He tried to kill himself 15 minutes in. Fortunately, an angel intervened, and he didn’t end up abandoning his family before Christmas like the spineless piece of human garbage he is.
“A Christmas Story” is an overrated slop fest
A Christmas Story wasn’t about sentiment. Its a Wonderful Life was about nothing but sentiment; sloppy, cloying, manufactured sentiment.
Dang, did you put ANY thought into that response?
The Ref? Love Actually? Christmas Vacation?
This list some is some bullshit.
The Ice Harvest. Mob/comedy. I laugh everytime Billy Bob Thorton and John Cusack debate the spaciousness of Mercedes trunks.
On my film blog I’ve produced my own list of the 101 Christmas Movies You Must See Before You Die, shares some films from this list but has many more interesting and lesser known titles that I recommend if you’re looking for something different to watch this year – http://cuemarks.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/101-christmas-movies-you-must-see.html
Most of these are not xmas movies. Films like the lemondrop Kid and Christmas In Connecticut should be in and things like Die Hard, Stalag 17 really dont belong in this list
Clearly you have not seen Die Hard to know that it is in fact a Christmas Movie, In fact, probably the best action Christmas movie out there. But the list doesn’t have Home Alone 2, so it is garbage
How the heck could Home Alone 2 not be on this list.
The Ref should have been #1 on this list. Guess you never heard of it. Your loss.
Great one! Absolutely love it!
Christmas Vacation is a classic and full of funny one liners and scenes
And Home Alone is awesome
Jim Carrey’s Grinch and Christmas Story….. the old ,Santa Claus – The Movie was good , with Dudley Moore , and The Santa Clause-
How are half these considered Christmas movies, Die Hard is fine, but In Bruges? Really?
I was baffled by that one as well. Not entirely familiar with the climate in Bruges, but I’m not sure that movie even took place in winter let alone Christmas.
Forget In Bruges — Stalag 17?! Seriously?
The list is pretty absurd overall. Half the movies are nothing like Christmas movies. Just because it is December in a movie does not make it a Christmas movie.
The Thin Man should be on this list if Die Hard is.
Love Actually?
Very loose definition of Christmas movie here. Scrooge with Alastair Sim should be high on the list. And where’s White Christmas? I love the Apartment and Stalag 17, but they’re not Christmas movies by any stretch of the imagination. Snow does not a holiday movie make. Is Christmas central to the theme of the movie? That’s what should define the genre. I’d add Charlie Brown Christmas to this list, but not Die Hard, c’mon. How about some standards?
Now I have a machine gun Ho-Ho-Ho?
So they didn’t include some movies that had part of a Christmas plot line but they did include Batman?
Love Love LOVE Miracle on 34th Street. Such an amazing movie.
Releasing a movie in December doesn’t make it a ‘Christmas movie’. At least eight of these movies have nothing to do with Christmas. That’s the problem with the internet – no quality control
Some of these are not even Christmas movies! If a movie has one Christmas scene or just mentions Christmas but it doesn’t center around Christmas then it is NOT a Christmas movie! In Bruges? Really? It’s one of my favorites BUT it is not a Christmas movie.
Ths list sucks. Batman??? Nightmare Before Christmas, Gremlins = Weird! To name a few missing Polar Express, Home Alone, Family Vacation, White Christmas, Scrooged.
XMAS VACATION, HANDS DOWN THE BEST XMAS MOVIE EVER FOLLOWED BY SCROOGED THEN GREMLINS..
To me, it’s 1970’s “Scrooge”, the Leslie Bricusse musical with Albert Finney. I just love it, and don’t see how you missed it. And I usually don’t like musicals. “Scrooge” is free on Youtube. See it.
Wtf half of these movies are not even Christmas movies they just take place in the winter
The Great Rupert, also called A Christmas Wish. This is right there with Miracle on 34th Street.
No Love Actually?
Love that movie!
Wow this list left off some goodies that are much more of Christmas Classics than some listed. White Christmas, Home Alone, and even The Grinch. I hate critics, so out of touch with the actual audience.
a Christmas story #1
The Ref?
Not one of my favorite Christmas films are here ?
Love Actually, White Christmas, Joyeux Noel, The Preacher’s Wife, Jack Frost….
The Family Man.. I watch it every year.
Love Actually?
You missed “To live and die in L.A.”
NL Christmas Vacation??? Not in top 10??? How can A Christmas Story not be in the top 10???
I’d have Mixed Nuts instead of In Bruges and I’d include Merry Christmas (1984) on the list somewhere
Isn’t Christmas Suppose to Be About JESUS?
Rotten Tomatoes just lost ALL credibility from its editors. What drunken, delusional moron tossed together this stinking heap of garbage they call a list? Lots of these aren’t even Christmas movies! They’re just movies that happen to be set around the holidays! Hell, that makes JURASSIC WORLD a damn Christmas movie!
They leave off CHRISTMAS VACATION??? Home alone 1 & 2? The Grinch? Jingle All the Way? Four Christmases? THE SANTA CLAUS?? …THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL?!?!?!
I feel bad for the friends and family of whatever tasteless, cheerless Scrooge made this sad excuse of a list. They need to go watch some actual Christmas classics.
Oh please…this list is crap. Home Alone and Christmas Vacation are two of the BEST Christmas movies of all time and nowhere on the list. Really? I’m done.
I would also add Fred Clause….I always liked that movie too.
Well Mr Joseph12034″I know hot put silly control characters in my internet name”
has got some real issues hasnt he? Worried about the F bomb in a movie but quite happy to insult everyboy here with some choice language, then accuse people of being “scum”, “crap”,”crappy” “crap” again and then “crap” again,thn £crappy” again.
Happy Xmas Joseph.
“Christmas with the Kranks”, especially the part where he gets botox and has his eyebrows done, hilarious.
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiyr7nV6_zJAhWD7RQKHf7kA5kQFggjMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt0388419%2F&usg=AFQjCNGRSjCbEerCoVLrnbcH5k5Tf1lmmQ&sig2=Qp7mf-T-P-fOKMh_y2siUA
Jamie Lee Curtis looking “FINE!!”