What Are the Best Christmas Movies of All Time?

How did we choose these Christmas movies?

There is no official ranking of Christmas movies, so every "best of" list is a judgment call. Ours rests on three checks we can show you.

First, staying power. A Christmas movie earns its place by coming back every December, not by a big opening weekend. Many of the films below are decades old and still turn up in holiday TV schedules, repertory screenings, and family traditions.

Second, outside recognition. Nine of our 25 picks are on the National Film Registry, the Library of Congress list of films preserved for their cultural, historical, or artistic significance ^[2]. Those nine are The Shop Around the Corner, Meet Me in St. Louis, It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, White Christmas, A Christmas Story, Die Hard, Home Alone, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. A Registry spot is not a quality score, but it is a strong signal that a film has lasted.

Third, range. A good list should work for a room of six-year-olds and for two adults who want something sharper. So we sorted the picks into four groups: classics, family films, comedies and romances, and alternative picks.

Release years, runtimes, and most ratings in this guide come from Wikidata, a free and open database ^[1]; ratings Wikidata does not record were checked on the official MPA ratings site ^[5]. We do not use review scores, and we do not say which service is streaming a film, because that changes every few weeks.

Which classic Christmas movies should you watch first?

If you only watch one film from before 1960, make it It's a Wonderful Life (1946). Frank Capra's drama follows George Bailey, a small-town banker who believes his life has been a failure, until an angel shows him what his town would look like without him. It is the clearest example of why old Christmas movies still work: it takes despair seriously before it turns hopeful.

From there, the classics split into two moods.

Romance and comedy. The Shop Around the Corner (1940), directed by Ernst Lubitsch, is about two bickering coworkers in a Budapest gift shop who do not realize they are each other's anonymous pen pals. It is gentle, funny, and set in the rush before Christmas. Miracle on 34th Street (1947) puts a department store Santa on trial over whether he is the real thing, and it is still one of the best courtroom comedies of its era.

Musicals. Holiday Inn (1942) pairs Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire at an inn that opens only on holidays, and it introduced the song "White Christmas." White Christmas (1954) reuses that song in a bigger, color production with Crosby and Danny Kaye; the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in its 2025 class ^[4]. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) is only partly a Christmas film, since its story runs across a full year, but its winter section introduced "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."

A practical tip: these films were released before the modern rating system. They are generally mild, but they reflect the attitudes of their time, so preview them if you are watching with young children.

What are the best Christmas movies for families?

Family picks are the biggest group on our list, and the strongest ones have something for adults too.

• A Christmas Story (1983): A boy in 1940s Indiana wants one gift, a BB gun, and every adult tells him he will shoot his eye out. It is narrated with the dry humor of an adult looking back, which is why parents laugh harder than kids. Rated PG.
• Home Alone (1990): An eight-year-old is accidentally left behind when his family flies to Paris and has to defend the house from two burglars. The Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in 2023, noting that it drew significant public support ^[3]. Rated PG. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) repeats the formula in Manhattan.
• The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992): Michael Caine plays Scrooge straight while the Muppets handle the comedy. It sticks closely to the shape of the Dickens story, songs aside. Rated G.
• The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993): A stop-motion musical about the king of Halloween Town discovering Christmas. It works in October and December, and it joined the National Film Registry in 2023 ^[3]. Rated PG.
• The Santa Clause (1994) and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000): Two big-studio comedies built around a star, Tim Allen and Jim Carrey. Both lean on slapstick, and both are rated PG ^[5].
• Elf (2003): Will Ferrell plays a human raised by elves who travels to New York to find his father. It is probably the easiest film on this list to pick for a mixed-age group. Rated PG.
• The Polar Express (2004): A performance-capture adventure about a boy riding a train to the North Pole. Young kids tend to love it; some adults find the animation style odd. Rated G.
• Arthur Christmas (2011) and Klaus (2019): Two newer animated films that are easy to miss. Arthur Christmas, from Aardman, imagines Santa's Christmas Eve delivery as a high-tech family business. Klaus is a hand-drawn-style origin story for Santa, released by Netflix in 2019. Both are rated PG.

What are the best Christmas comedies and romances for adults?

These five picks are for when the kids are in bed.

Scrooged (1988) moves A Christmas Carol to a cynical television network, with Bill Murray as an executive who gets the three-ghosts treatment. It is rated PG-13 ^[5]. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989) is the definitive "everything goes wrong at the family Christmas" comedy, and its lights-on-the-house sequence is its best-known scene. It is also rated PG-13 ^[5].

For romance, Love Actually (2003) follows a large cast of loosely connected Londoners in the weeks before Christmas. It is divisive: some viewers love the ensemble, others find several storylines dated. Love Actually is rated R ^[5]. The Holiday (2006) is easier to like: two women swap homes in England and Los Angeles over the holidays. It is rated PG-13.

The Holdovers (2023) is the newest film on our list and the one we expect to join the regular rotation. Directed by Alexander Payne, it follows a strict teacher, a student, and the school's cook who are stuck on campus over the 1970 Christmas break. It is funny and sad in equal measure, and it is rated R.

Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?

Yes, in our view, and the argument is mostly about setting. Die Hard (1988) takes place during a Christmas Eve office party in a Los Angeles tower, and the holiday is part of the plot rather than background decoration. It is also one of the nine films on our list that are on the National Film Registry ^[2].

The other side of the argument is that it was released in July and plays like a summer action film. Both points are true. What settles it for us is that people keep choosing to watch it in December, which is how every other film on this list earned its place.

If you like the idea of a Christmas movie with an edge, two more fit:

• Gremlins (1984): A small creature given as a Christmas present comes with three rules, and breaking them goes badly. It is rated PG, but some scenes frighten younger kids, so preview it first.
• Violent Night (2022): David Harbour plays a Santa who has to fight a team of mercenaries holding a wealthy family hostage. It is rated R.

How should you plan a Christmas movie marathon?

Runtime is the detail most marathon plans forget. Most family picks run about an hour and a half, while the longest picks on our list, such as It's a Wonderful Life, Love Actually, and The Holdovers, run over two hours. That makes a simple plan easy: short films early, long films after the kids go to bed.

A sample lineup for one evening could look like this:

1. Late afternoon: The Muppet Christmas Carol (under an hour and a half) for the youngest viewers.
2. Dinner: Elf or Home Alone (each well under two hours), which work for every age.
3. After bedtime: It's a Wonderful Life or The Holdovers (each over two hours) for the adults.

Two more tips help. Check the rating of each film before you start, since the family picks and the alternative picks are very different. And if you plan to stream, check availability the same week, because Christmas titles move between services and rental stores often during the season.