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

For comments….all you need is a name and a comment….please ignore the rest.

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147 thoughts on “Best Christmas Movies Statistically Speaking

  1. Just added 83 Christmas Movies to this page. Most of those movies came from a Steve e-mail…..so thanks for that Steve. So hope you enjoy our expanded Xmas movie page.

    1. Thank you Dan….and the same to you and your family. We are right in the middle of Christmas Eve here…..though….it is the quietest one we have had for years….as it is just the four of us….WoC is working on some UMR stuff….I am trying to catch up on comments….and our little girls are watching How The Grinch Stole Christmas….a pretty relaxing evening. How yours is going well as well.

  2. Hi Bob, many thanks for reviewing my Christmas Special, appreciate the very generous rating (ooh), info, trivia and comparison. Cheers!

    Glad you liked the posters and stills.

    That first picture of the 4 dancing girls is from the film Mean Girls (2004) which wasn’t a Xmas film but I wanted to use that still in the video. You might know them from other films – Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried and Lacey Chabert.

    So, White Christmas is your all time favorite Christmas film eh, nice. I think it did make the top 10 on the video. It’s not one of my favorite musicals to be frank with you but I do watch it now and then. Bing and Danny have been in better films.

    A few months ago Bruce Willis was adamant that Die Hard was ‘not’ a Christmas film to the disappointment of many fans who consider it the greatest Xmas movie ever made. If you ever watch the film again you’ll find that the Xmas theme runs all the way thru the film to the very end. Even Alan Rickman’s iconic villain reminds his henchmen that “it’s Christmas” and “to be of good cheer” in one scene. 🙂

    My next video will be out in early January and I have no idea what the subject is.

    Till then a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

    1. HI STEVE

      Thanks for the feed back on my Christmas movies post and for your season’s greetings to me.

      I admit it can be hard to draw the line at what’s a Christmas movie and what’s not but certainly I wouldn’t regard a movie with a slasher unremittingly killing off virgins as within the spirit of what Xmas is supposed to be about. There’s definitely nothing feel-good about that kind of movie though I liked Black Christmas [1974] as a horror film.

      Also I greatly enjoyed the posters that you provided for the slasher films in your 75 so I am glad you put in the horror films concerned

      I’m sure you’ll watch a few movies over Christmas and I hope you have a good time with them. If one heeds the Brexit scare stories we may not have a Christmas next year!

  3. It has been some time since I have seen Die Hard and Batman Returns but I would not tend to classify them as Christmas movies .The classic 1974 horror movie Black Christmas is all about a slasher who never wished any of his victims “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Deanna’s Christmas Holiday was in effect a bleak Maugham tale about a good woman who fell into prostitution

    I rate your video 99% and have listed the top 15 posters in each of two parts and the top 14 stills overall. Best 15 POSTERS in entries 75-38 (1) Ernest save Christmas (2) Jack Frost (3) Bad Santa 2 (4) All I want for Christmas (5) Santa Clause the Movie (6) The Grinch 2018 (7) Christmas Chronicle (8 and 9) two for 2009’s a Christmas Carol (10) Home Alone 2 (11) Polar Express (12 and 13) two for Carey’s Grinch (14) Deck the Halls and (15) Escape Clause.

    Best 15 POSTERS 37-1 (1) One Merry Christmas (2) Family Man (3) raunchy Bad Santa (4) 1938 Christmas Carol (5) Bishop’s Wife (6) National Lampoon’s Xmas Vacation (7) Muppet’s Xmas Carol (8) Trading Places (9) Holiday Inn (10) White Christmas (11) Christmas Story (12 & 13) both for Edward Scissorhands (14) Meet Me in St Louis and (15) 2nd one for It’s a Wonderful Life.

    Best 14 STILLS Overall (1) Sir Dickie’s Miracle on 34th (2) Carey’ Grinch (3) Love Actually (4) Rise of Guardians (5) Culkin reading Playboy (6) Sir Maurice with Muppets (7) Gremlins (8) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (9) lobby card for White Christmas (10) Night Before Christmas (11) Miracle on 34th Street 1947 (12) Sim’s Scrooge (13) the very opening “girlie” one! And (14) It’s a Wonderful Life.

    You and the Work Horse agree on 3 of the Top 4 best reviewed Xmas movies. In ranked order his are 1/Wonderful Life 2/Die Hard 3/Miracle on 34th Street 1947, 4/Christmas in Connecticut and yours are 1/Wonderful Life 2/Meet Me in St Louis 3/Miracle on 34th Street 1947 and 4/Die Hard. “A plague on both your houses” because my own ranked four are 1/White Christmas 2/Wonderful Life 3/Meet Me in St Louis and 4/Robert Mitchum’s 1949 Holliday Affair

    1. Great post Bruce, cheers. 62 seen out of 75 is impressive, my tally 33, Flora’s 23.

      I was originally going to make this a Top 100 but had second thoughts, the video would have been too long and viewers would have just skipped to the end. I thought that list might come in useful for you since you can add as many films as you like to your charts at the UMR. Flora recommends a few Xmas themed movies in her comment.

      I haven’t seen Christmas Chronicles yet, it’s on Netflix. Maybe tomorrow. Thanks for the comment, share and vote, always appreciated.

  4. Just added Steve’s epic Christmas video….to this page. Our massive comment on his 75 movie video.

    “Merry Christmas…only 2 days to go. Your epic 75 movie Christmas Video makes my 17 movie UMR page look so small…lol. I appreciate the e-mail with the additional Xmas movies….I might…get that done today….and make my Xmas page as impressive as your Xmas video. Mmmmm…..a tally. Movies 75 through 60. Seen 14 of them. No favorites but the kids like to watch #68 Jingle All The Way every Xmas. Movies 59-50. Seen 7 of them. We really liked #52 The Christmas Chronicles…Russell was awesome as Santa.

    Movies 49-40. Seen 7 of them. #45 The Santa Clause is easily my favorite of this bunch. Movies 39-30. Only seen 6 of these movies. #31 Elf…way too low…the best Xmas movie in the last 20 years. #34 The Family Man is a good one to watch with kids. So far my tally is 34. Movies 29-20. Seen 8. #25 Love Actually- one of my all-time favorite movies. #21 Home Alone…watched every year in my house..first Xmas movie of 2018 watched.

    Movies 19-9. #18 Christmas Vacation…my favorite Xmas movie. So if #15 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is on the list…then I can happily guess a Mr. McClane is coming to the party. Seen 8 of the 9 here.
    Top 10. Seen 8 here…somehow I have not seen #2. #10 White Christmas….finally saw this one last year. #9 A Christmas Story….classic classic. #6 A Nightmare Before Christmas…Sam’s favorite movie. #4 Die Hard….I agree it is a Xmas movie #3 Miracle on 34th Street…my mother-in-law’s favorite movie. #1 It’s A Wonderful Life…no arguments here. So that is a total of 62 seen…or 82.66%. Good job. Voted up and shared.”

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