It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas: The top 30+ holiday movie memories

Christmas movies trigger a load of feelings and memories, some magical, some less so. Here’s the top Christmas crackers movie list.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (1): Dudley Moore gives an appealing turn in Santa Claus: The Movie (1985) as the head elf Patch, sidekick to Santa Claus (David Huddleston). Real deer were trained to pull the sleigh!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (2): Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1996 Christmas present Jingle all the Way is an agreeable seasonal action comedy that jingles enough bells.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (3): Frank Capra’s big-hearted and richly enjoyable 1946 It’s a Wonderful Life remains a timeless joy.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (4): Hitchcock’s favourite actor Cary Grant (Suspicion) makes an awkward fit as an angel in The Bishop’s Wife (1947).

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (5): Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo as Clark and Ellen welcome in a disaster-strewn Griswold-style Christmas in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (6): Macaulay Culkin stars as cheeky Kevin McCallister, in John Hughes’s 1990 mega-moneymaker Home Alone.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (7): Macaulay Culkin is back as cheeky Kevin McCallister and Harry and Marv turn up again in Home Alone 2, plotting a huge holiday heist.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (8): Jim Carrey is at his hilarious best as Dr Seuss’s famous curmudgeon in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000).

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (9): A little boy gets a ticket to ride aboard a magical steam train to meet Santa at his home in The Polar Express (2004).

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (10): The hilarious Will Ferrell brings enormous Christmas cheer as Buddy, a six-foot-three North Pole elf, who comes to New York City to find his real dad, in Elf (2003).

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (11): The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) is delightful, dark and deliriously inventive all the way.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (12): In Bad Santa (2003), Willie T Soke (Billy Bob Thornton) and his tiny Little Helper sidekick Marcus (Tony Cox) take jobs as Santa and his Elf to rob department stores on Christmas Eve.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (13): The 1940 romcom The Shop Around the Corner is a Christmas delight, telling the story of two employees (Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart) at a Budapest leathergoods store in the lead-up to Christmas.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (14): The Snowman (1982) is a must-see perennial on UK TV every Christmas. 

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (15): Mel Smith voices Father Christmas (1991) in a charming Raymond Briggs companion piece to The Snowman (1982).

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (16): The young Janet Leigh and Robert Mitchum are charming in the 1949 Christmas romantic comedy film Holiday Affair.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (17): White Christmas was 1954’s most successful film and it is now perhaps the most famous Christmas movie.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (18): The 1974 Canadian shock suspense thriller Black Christmas is gorily gruesome and greatly gripping, in its now classic holiday horror story.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (19): Christmas is a time for peace on earth, goodwill to mankind, going to the movies – and of course having ghastly office parties – well it used to be in the 2016 Office Christmas Party.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (20): The 1942 gift film Holiday Inn. Irving Berlin became the first artist to present himself with an Academy Award when he won for the song ‘White Christmas’.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (21): The 1952 British drama The Holly and the Ivy stars Ralph Richardson and Celia Johnson as a Norfolk rector and his daughter struggling to keep their family in good spirits over the Christmas holidays. Happy Christmas everyone!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (22): The 1949 true story comedy drama Come to the Stable stars Loretta Young and Celeste Holm as French nuns who build a children’s hospital in Bethlehem, New England. 

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (23): The 1954 British film The Crowded Day stars Joan Rice and John Gregson in a multi-drama about the lives of six female big-store shop assistants at Christmas. 

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (24): Netflix’s first original gay Christmas movie Single All the Way follows perpetually single Peter, who convinces his friend to act as his boyfriend when they visit his family for the holidays. This LGBTQ+ Christmas movie is a feel-good treat. Jennifer Coolidge is hilarious as Peter’s flamboyant Auntie.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (25): The touching 2005 wartime drama film Joyeux Noël [Merry Christmas] is based on the WW1 Christmas truce of December 1914.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (26): A Christmas Carol (1984) with George C Scott pulling all the stops out as Ebenezer Scrooge.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (27): Scrooge [A Christmas Carol] (1951) with a perfectly cast Alastair Sim giving a marvellous, bravura performance as Ebenezer Scrooge: ‘I believe the world is becoming a very hard and cruel place.’

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (28): Reginald Owen proves ideal as the mean and miserly Ebenezer Scrooge in the treasured antique 1938 American version of A Christmas Carol.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (29): Michael Caine makes his musical movie début as the singing curmudgeon and super-miser Ebenezer Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (30): The 1945 screwball comedy Christmas in Connecticut is a deliciously sugary and very amusing Yuletide movie, starring Barbara Stanwyck.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (31): British actor-manager Seymour Hicks co-writes the screenplay and plays the old Victorian grouch Scrooge in the 1935 UK film version.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (32): ‘What the Dickens have they done to Scrooge (1970)?… They’ve put him in a big, big musical.’ Risky advertising, huh?

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (33): Bill Murray gives a splendidly sour star turn as Frank Cross, a Scrooge-like American TV executive in Scrooged (1988).

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (34): The Santa Clause (1994). ‘Down the chimney? You want me to take the toys down the chimney into a strange house, IN MY UNDERWEAR?’ – Scott Calvin (played by Tim Allen).

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (35): The 1948 black and white film noir thriller Cover Up stars Dennis O’Keefe, who also co-writes the screenplay, with its murder mystery unfolding in the Christmas season.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (36): The monster 1988 blockbuster hit Die Hard is sometimes named as the greatest action thriller of all time. Its seasonal setting includes it in the top Christmas crackers movie list.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (37): Ben Affleck is drawn into blackmail, robbery and murder in Reindeer Games (2000). Starting with a dead Santa on a car hood, the Christmas setting is well used, visually, story wise and on the soundtrack. 

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (38):  Make the Yuletide Gay humorously explores what happens when college student ‘Gunn’ Gunnunderson’s boyfriend Nathan unexpectedly shows up for family Christmas. Though Gunn is openly gay at school he is not to his family. The amusing, clever script puts a fresh spin on a typical coming-out gay comedy.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (39): Dashing in December centres on Wyatt, a New Yorker who returns to his hometown at the holidays to convince his Mom to sell the family ranch. When he meets handsome ranch hand Heath, there is some friction to begin with, but a romantic connection soon emerges. Expect gay cowboys, a predictable storyline and festive fun in this stereotypical LGBTQ+ Christmas movie

Final top four Christmas films

Final top four Christmas films: (4): It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).

Final top four Christmas films: (3): Scrooged (1988).

Final top four Christmas films: (2): A Christmas Carol (1984).

Final top four Christmas films: (1) Scrooge [A Christmas Carol] (1951) with Alastair Sim.

‘God bless us, every one!’ Happy holidays!