Best Christmas Movies Statistically Speaking

Can't make a Christmas movie list and not include 1946's It's A Wonderful Life
Can’t make a Christmas movie list and not include 1946’s It’s A Wonderful Life

Want to know the Best Christmas Movies  statistically speaking?  Well that is what you are going to get here!  Our movie database has ranked over 36,000 movies using box office grosses, critic reviews, audience voting and award recognition.

So a quick search through our database showed over 100 Christmas movies.  The following table shows the Top 100 Christmas Movies from that search.

34 of the 100 Christmas movies crossed the $100 million adjusted domestic gross mark.  So they were all box office hits.

59 of 100 Christmas movies had an Critic/Audience Rating of 60% or better.   17 of the 100 Christmas movies received at least one Oscar® nomination (all categories)….with 3 of the movies winning at one least one Oscar® (any category).  Three of the movies on the table earned a Best Picture Oscar® nomination.

One of our favorite ....Christmas Vacation starring Chevy Chase.
One of our favorite ….Christmas Vacation starring Chevy Chase.

Christmas Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews, and awards.

Christmas Movies Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort Christmas Movies movies by the stars of the movie
  • Sort Christmas Movies movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Christmas Movies movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Christmas Movies movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Christmas Movie received.
  • Sort Christmas Movies movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score.  UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.

The Great Debate...is Die Hard a Christmas movie or not?
The Great Debate…is Die Hard a Christmas movie or not?

So there you go…..our Top 15 Christmas Movies Statistically Speaking. Have we forgotten a movie? ….probably…..our database is big…..but it only has ranked about 15% of all the movies ever made.  So we know we do not have all of the Christmas movies ranked.  But we fell this is a pretty good list….and ultimately it is our way to say…we hope everybody has a wonderful and safe holiday….and thanks for all the support on our webpages over the years.  So it is almost time for me, the 6 year old, and the 9 year old to sit down and watch Bruce Willis kill some terrorists, step on broken glass and blow up a massive building….nothing better than watching Christmas movies with the kids on Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas everybody!

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Check Out Steve’s 75 Movie Christmas You Tube Video

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147 thoughts on “Best Christmas Movies Statistically Speaking

  1. I’ll take the first 2 they are my all time favs especially Miracle on 34th Street which I can watch over and over and it never gets old. What fantastic acting. William Frawley aka Fred Mertz, the incomparable Edmund Gween (Academy award well deserved), Natalie Wood (so cute), Maureen O’Hara, John Payne, Gene Lockhart (the judge). In my opinion the best Christmas movie ever and never to be equaled.

    1. I agree with you 100%….I was glad that this two all-time classics out performed all the new movies. Actually classics took the top 4 spots. One comment said that Meet Me In St. Louis should be included too. If I included that movie too…the entire Top 5 would be movies made before 1954. Thanks for the comment. Hope you have a great day.

    1. Hey Bill….I have been searching for a box office number for Babes in Toyland for many years. The MGM ledgers do not include the movie…..it is not listed on any of the big hits of the year charts….so far the best I have come up with is it was “moderately successful”…not sure what that means number wise. It’s 78.33% critic/audience rating would be right there with Bishop’s Wife in 7th place…..the search continues. Actually Laurel and Hardy box office numbers are some of the hardest to find. I wish BoxOfficeMojo had started in 1935 rather than 1995. Thanks for the suggestion.

  2. Wonderful Life, all time great Christmas movie, ” I was saving this for a divorce, if ever I get a husband”

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