Holiday Movies

[TheLeviathan]

Some friends and I were talking holiday movies and the opinions on a particular film generated a spirited discussion.   So before I bias the sample by identifying it, I am curious if you fine folks have a Top 5 "must watch faves" and a bottom 5 "I don't see what others see" movie dregs of the season.  Go!

[Mike Sixel]

I don’t rewatch stuff much……but if either of the first two die hard are on, I’ll watch.

Scalzi does comfort watch lists every year…..which are not holiday movies….

[Parfigliano]

Die Hard is a Xmass movie.

[The Great Hambino]

I'm including made-for-tv-classics as movies here

Must Watch:

1. Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer

2. Bad Santa

3, Grinch (60s tv version)

4. Elf

5. White Christmas (the Bing Crosby one)

I Don't Get It

1.  It's A Wonderful Life (utterly depressing until like the last five seconds)

2. A Christmas Story (I guess you had to be there)

3. While You Were Sleeping (my wife doesn't even let me make fun of it)

4. Hot Frosty (at least my wife let me make fun of it)

5. No others come to mind, so I'll use this slot to mention that that "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time" is the worst song ever

[TheLeviathan]

14 minutes ago, The Great Hambino said:

I'm including made-for-tv-classics as movies here

Must Watch:

1. Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer

2. Bad Santa

3, Grinch (60s tv version)

4. Elf

5. White Christmas (the Bing Crosby one)

I Don't Get It

1.  It's A Wonderful Life (utterly depressing until like the last five seconds)

2. A Christmas Story (I guess you had to be there)

3. While You Were Sleeping (my wife doesn't even let me make fun of it)

4. Hot Frosty (at least my wife let me make fun of it)

5. No others come to mind, so I'll use this slot to mention that that "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time" is the worst song ever

We overlap a lot!  I will say more later but I just wanted to express two huge points of agreement:

"Simply Having" is pure trash.  McCartney's fame has forced us all to endure that travesty.

I am also not A Christmas Story guy.  It's fine.  Quotably meh.

[ashbury]

45 minutes ago, The Great Hambino said:

5. No others come to mind, so I'll use this slot to mention that that "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time" is the worst song ever

If Mariah Carey* ever did a cover of it, the universe would likely collapse in on itself from the sheer awfulness.

 

* I believe "All I Want For Christmas Is You" is a perfectly reasonable holiday song, and the people who hate it are reacting to Carey's vulgar performance of it.  Yes, that's the Christmas hill I would die on.  Try Robyn Adele Anderson and Von Smith's version and decide for yourself.

[Mike Sixel]

Big fan of A Christmas Story!

[Vanimal46]

Home Alone, Home Alone 2 Lost in New York, Elf, The Santa Clause, and Frosty the Snowman as Christmas classics. 

Christmas Vacation, Spirited - Apple TV flop with Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, Miracle on 34th Street, Candy Cane Lane - Amazon Prime flop with Eddie Murphy 

Controversial take... I have never seen Die Hard.

[ashbury]

Chuck Jones's Grinch is the indispensable one for my holiday viewing pleasure  If a teevee show doesn't count, then I guess It's A Wonderful Life.  Most contrarian for me I guess would be Elf - Will Farrell is hilarious when he's being funny,  but his "warm" persona always hits me as snide, even when I'm assured it's not.

[TheLeviathan]

1 hour ago, Vanimal46 said:

Home Alone, Home Alone 2 Lost in New York, Elf, The Santa Clause, and Frosty the Snowman as Christmas classics. 

Christmas Vacation, Spirited - Apple TV flop with Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, Miracle on 34th Street, Candy Cane Lane - Amazon Prime flop with Eddie Murphy 

Controversial take... I have never seen Die Hard.

That.....is wild.

[TheLeviathan]

So the conversation centered on Jim Carey's "The Grinch".  I find that movie gross and a really ugly bastardization of the story.  It's overly long.  Full of unnecessary, jarringly out of place humor.  The makeup on the Whos is disturbing.  It's just awful.  I much prefer the 2018 version or the original.  (Carey also has, by far, the worst version of A Christmas Carol)

My top 5 - Home Alone, Klaus, Elf, Muppet's Christmas Carol, and probably National Lampoons.

My hot takes are Carey's Grinch is awful.  Both Lennon and McCartney are responsible for two of the absolute worst songs on rotation during this season.  Christmas movies need to do more than take place at Christmas time - Die Hard and Hook don't count.  Gremlins does.  Spirited was the biggest wasted potential of any Christmas movie I've watched.

[Squirrel]

I always like watching one of the older ‘A Christmas Carol’ movies. The Alastair Sim one is most classic for me. If I have time to actually see a live production, even better.

I also like seeing some of the older TV classics, although I don’t make a point to watch them every year - Frosty, Rudolph and Grinch. And no one mentioned ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’? Truly classic, as well as the Vince Guaraldi soundtrack.

While van has never seen Die Hard, I have never seen ‘A Christmas Story’ or ‘Elf’ all the way through. They don’t do it for me.

I like ‘Home Alone’ but I find ‘Home Alone 2’ a bit too gratuitous for me.

I also like ‘Meet Me in St. Louis’ and ‘Holiday Inn’ this time of year, although I wouldn’t classify either as strictly Christmas movies, but maybe Christmas adjacent.

[Vanimal46]

1 hour ago, TheLeviathan said:

That.....is wild.

I see it's now available on Amazon Prime so I will add it to the list to watch and report back

[gunnarthor]

Charlie Brown Christmas is the goat.

For all it's obvious problems, the wife and I both enjoy Love, Actually. 

[Mike Sixel]

11 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

So the conversation centered on Jim Carey's "The Grinch".  I find that movie gross and a really ugly bastardization of the story.  It's overly long.  Full of unnecessary, jarringly out of place humor.  The makeup on the Whos is disturbing.  It's just awful.  I much prefer the 2018 version or the original.  (Carey also has, by far, the worst version of A Christmas Carol)

My top 5 - Home Alone, Klaus, Elf, Muppet's Christmas Carol, and probably National Lampoons.

My hot takes are Carey's Grinch is awful.  Both Lennon and McCartney are responsible for two of the absolute worst songs on rotation during this season.  Christmas movies need to do more than take place at Christmas time - Die Hard and Hook don't count.  Gremlins does.  Spirited was the biggest wasted potential of any Christmas movie I've watched.

I don't think, and I'm not kidding, you are hard enough on Careys Grinch. 

[The Great Hambino]

1 hour ago, gunnarthor said:

Charlie Brown Christmas is the goat.

For all it's obvious problems, the wife and I both enjoy Love, Actually. 

Love, Actually has grown on me from unwatchable to annual viewing tradition.  Its watchability has grown on me over time more than any other Christmas movie. Maybe any other movie, period

[nicksaviking]

13 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

So the conversation centered on Jim Carey's "The Grinch".  I find that movie gross and a really ugly bastardization of the story.  It's overly long.  Full of unnecessary, jarringly out of place humor.  The makeup on the Whos is disturbing.  It's just awful.  I much prefer the 2018 version or the original.  (Carey also has, by far, the worst version of A Christmas Carol)

My top 5 - Home Alone, Klaus, Elf, Muppet's Christmas Carol, and probably National Lampoons.

My hot takes are Carey's Grinch is awful.  Both Lennon and McCartney are responsible for two of the absolute worst songs on rotation during this season.  Christmas movies need to do more than take place at Christmas time - Die Hard and Hook don't count.  Gremlins does.  Spirited was the biggest wasted potential of any Christmas movie I've watched.

Agree, but dispute the Die Hard point. The soundtrack used and sampled no less than six Christmas songs, the score was Christmas sounds (sleighbells, hand bells, glockenspiels, instrumental ho-ho-hos), the sets were Christmas decorated, Christmas was specifically referenced about a dozen times and it had the most over-used Christmas theme of all time: the main character fighting adversity to reunite with his family. It was capped with the Christmas miracle of snowing in LA with the stolen money and bearer bonds gently showering everybody below the blown up skyscraper, which was 100% intentionally highlighted by the film makers.

If the caveat is that Christmas movies need to be PG family friendly, then no, I guess it's not. By any other metric, it absolutely has to be.

[The Great Hambino]

11 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Agree, but dispute the Die Hard point. The soundtrack used and sampled no less than six Christmas songs, the score was Christmas sounds (sleighbells, hand bells, glockenspiels, instrumental ho-ho-hos), the sets were Christmas decorated, Christmas was specifically referenced about a dozen times and it had the most over-used Christmas theme of all time: the main character fighting adversity to reunite with his family. It was capped with the Christmas miracle of snowing in LA with the money and bearer bonds gently showering everybody below the blown up skyscraper, which was 100% intentionally highlighted by the film makers.

If the caveat is that Christmas movies need to be PG family friendly, then no, I guess it's not. By any other metric, it absolutely has to be.

This argument is convincing enough for me to change my mind about Die Hard being a Christmas movie as opposed to an action thriller that happens to take place on or around December 25th.

And if Christmas movies need to be PG, then I don't know what to call Bad Santa

Or another underrated Christmas gem: Anna and the Apocalypse.  On paper, a Scottish zombie apocalypse high school musical comedy doesn't scream "Christmas" but that movie delivers on every level

[nicksaviking]

7 minutes ago, The Great Hambino said:

This argument is convincing enough for me to change my mind about Die Hard being a Christmas movie as opposed to an action thriller that happens to take place on or around December 25th.

And if Christmas movies need to be PG, then I don't know what to call Bad Santa

Or another underrated Christmas gem: Anna and the Apocalypse.  On paper, a Scottish zombie apocalypse high school musical comedy doesn't scream "Christmas" but that movie delivers on every level

Have to say I've never heard of it. While high school and musical give me pause, Scottish zombies absolutely pique my curiosity. I'll look for that one.

[The Great Hambino]

9 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Have to say I've never heard of it. While high school and musical give me pause, Scottish zombies absolutely pique my curiosity. I'll look for that one.

I'm also not normally a fan of when High School and Musical get lumped together, but the vibes on this are very different.  Closer to Community's parody of that show (also a Christmas gem)

It's currently available on Prime

[TheLeviathan]

1 hour ago, nicksaviking said:

Agree, but dispute the Die Hard point. The soundtrack used and sampled no less than six Christmas songs, the score was Christmas sounds (sleighbells, hand bells, glockenspiels, instrumental ho-ho-hos), the sets were Christmas decorated, Christmas was specifically referenced about a dozen times and it had the most over-used Christmas theme of all time: the main character fighting adversity to reunite with his family. It was capped with the Christmas miracle of snowing in LA with the stolen money and bearer bonds gently showering everybody below the blown up skyscraper, which was 100% intentionally highlighted by the film makers.

If the caveat is that Christmas movies need to be PG family friendly, then no, I guess it's not. By any other metric, it absolutely has to be.

You make a compelling argument sir!  May have flipped me on that.

[TheLeviathan]

2 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

I don't think, and I'm not kidding, you are hard enough on Careys Grinch. 

I found a kindred spirit.  That movie f-ing sucks AND it ruins an otherwise wonderful message.

[TheLeviathan]

13 hours ago, Squirrel said:

I always like watching one of the older ‘A Christmas Carol’ movies. The Alastair Sim one is most classic for me. If I have time to actually see a live production, even better.

I also like seeing some of the older TV classics, although I don’t make a point to watch them every year - Frosty, Rudolph and Grinch. And no one mentioned ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’? Truly classic, as well as the Vince Guaraldi soundtrack.

While van has never seen Die Hard, I have never seen ‘A Christmas Story’ or ‘Elf’ all the way through. They don’t do it for me.

I like ‘Home Alone’ but I find ‘Home Alone 2’ a bit too gratuitous for me.

I also like ‘Meet Me in St. Louis’ and ‘Holiday Inn’ this time of year, although I wouldn’t classify either as strictly Christmas movies, but maybe Christmas adjacent.

Frosty/Rudolph/Charlie are all on our regular rotation.  They just don't crack my top 5.

[TheLeviathan]

59 minutes ago, The Great Hambino said:

This argument is convincing enough for me to change my mind about Die Hard being a Christmas movie as opposed to an action thriller that happens to take place on or around December 25th.

And if Christmas movies need to be PG, then I don't know what to call Bad Santa

Or another underrated Christmas gem: Anna and the Apocalypse.  On paper, a Scottish zombie apocalypse high school musical comedy doesn't scream "Christmas" but that movie delivers on every level

That is a recommendation I am checking out!

[nicksaviking]

I watched Home Alone for the first time in a long while last Christmas. Previously I hadn't realized how slow it was to build up. Everyone remembers the Battle at McCallister Mansion, but that's only like the last 15 maybe 20 minutes of the movie. 

Also, the best Christmas Carol movie is the 1951 version. George C Scott was pretty good as scrooge, but his movie was only OK. Sorry Muppets and Michael Caine. To be fair to the Muppets, that movie came out when I was too old to still like Muppets, but too young to appreciate it with my kids.

[The Great Hambino]

3 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

That is a recommendation I am checking out!

I gave it another watch today.  Not as funny as I had remembered but still pretty enjoyable.  A lot will depend on how much you enjoy the juxtaposition of cheery musical numbers with cartoonishly gory zombie violence.  It's (Shaun of the Dead - 20% humor) + (High School Musical - 40% lameness) + Christmas

[Squirrel]

8 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

I watched Home Alone for the first time in a long while last Christmas. Previously I hadn't realized how slow it was to build up. Everyone remembers the Battle at McCallister Mansion, but that's only like the last 15 maybe 20 minutes of the movie. 

Also, the best Christmas Carol movie is the 1951 version. George C Scott was pretty good as scrooge, but his movie was only OK. Sorry Muppets and Michael Caine. To be fair to the Muppets, that movie came out when I was too old to still like Muppets, but too young to appreciate it with my kids.

Yeah! Another vote for Alastair Sim! I thought the 1984 George C. Scott to be pretty good. Wasn’t a fan of Patrick Stewart’s version.

[nicksaviking]

8 hours ago, Squirrel said:

Yeah! Another vote for Alastair Sim! I thought the 1984 George C. Scott to be pretty good. Wasn’t a fan of Patrick Stewart’s version.

Didn't even realize there was a Patrick Stewart one. Seems like he'd be a great choice for the role, but looking at IMDB, yeah, maybe we can moratorium on making new versions of this story. At least for the next couple of decades. Wow, looks like there's a new version out every other year.

[Craig Arko]

2 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

Didn't even realize there was a Patrick Stewart one. Seems like he'd be a great choice for the role, but looking at IMDB, yeah, maybe we can moratorium on making new versions of this story. At least for the next couple of decades. Wow, looks like there's a new version out every other year.

You might find ‘Carol for Another Christmas’ interesting. Commissioned by the United Nations, written by Rod Serling, with a top cast led by Peter Sellers. It’s the Christmas Carol story, set in a pre-nuclear holocaust world. Streaming on several platforms during the season.

[Vanimal46]

On 12/9/2025 at 10:45 PM, TheLeviathan said:

That.....is wild.

I bailed on the NFL game way early and watched Die Hard. Definitely a good movie, one that I could see being a repeat watch during the holidays. It's aged well with of course non-stop action and funny moments to break up the action scenes