Guest blog: Ben Lamb
Senior Lecturer in Media at Teesside University, Dr Ben Lamb offers insight into what makes the most magical, moving and memorable Christmas movies.
Picture the scene. You’ve gone home for the winter vacation and are snuggling under a blanket on the sofa with your nearest and dearest in your Christmas jammies. You have hot chocolate in one hand and the snow begins to fall outside your window. You’re in your happy place.
But as you pick up the remote control, you are all overwhelmed with the choice of festive flicks across Prime, NOW, Disney+, Netflix and more.
To help you beat the scroll, I’m taking a look at what makes a great Christmas film. It’s not an exact science, but usually we expect some magic, a true love to reveal itself, perhaps a moral epiphany and, ultimately, a heap of Christmas cheer.
With that in mind, here are my top ten picks…
10) Black Christmas (1974) – view on Prime
It seems a little left field to include a gruesome horror in this list, but more adult content has been a growing trend in recent years.
Be it the axe-wielding Santa of Violent Night (2022), the gothic tones of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) or even the Germanic legend of Krampus (2015), more unsettling tales of Christmas are emerging within Hollywood films. But I’m revisiting a chilling, Canadian classic.
Black Christmas certainly isn’t for the faint-hearted, as the story follows a group of sorority sisters whose festive vacation is hijacked by a murderous stalker. It made history as the first ever slasher horror to utilise point of view shots from the perspective of the killer.
Who says Halloween has to have all the fun when it comes to the horror genre?
9) Elf (2003) – view on NOW
This is a marmite film – Will Ferrell generally has a habit of dividing audiences and his yellow tights don’t help matters. But there is something refreshing about this story.
Ferrell plays Buddy, a human being who is raised as an elf at the North Pole. After discovering the truth behind his excessive height, he travels to New York City to find his birth father and brings some much-needed Christmas cheer with him.
Elf injected what was fast becoming a tired genre with a certain vitality. Its carefree nature and joke-per-minute ratio is guaranteed to fill up 90 minutes with childish escapist glee. It gets the balance right between being funny yet cool without being too didactic or sickly sweet.
I’d be sitting on a throne of lives myself if I said it wasn’t our go-to when the extended family can’t settle on a film. Although, I’m glad they decided to shelf the sequel.
8) Home Alone (1990) – view on Disney+
It would not be Christmas without a John Hughes flick, let’s face it.
Home Alone brings every parent’s worst nightmare and every child’s fantasy to life, forcing us to ask how our youngest would cope if they were incidentally left behind from the all-inclusive Christmas holiday.
And there is something truly thrilling about an 8-year-old boy fending for himself and protecting his home by outsmarting the neighbourhood thieves.
As you watch Macaulay Culkin trick his tormentors with paint cans on string, glass decorations and even a flamethrower, you’d be right in thinking – they don’t make ‘em like they used to.
7) Jingle All the Way (1997) – view on Disney+
I’ve only included this one because it never ceases to amaze me just how far it continues to be passed through the generations.
Everyone’s favourite muscle man, Arnold Schwarzenegger, plays a determined father trying to find a highly sought after Turbo Man action figure for his son on Christmas Eve.
Surprisingly, the movie was considered to be a flop when it hit cinemas in 1997. Yet its outlandish humour and the fact it doesn’t take itself too seriously seems to resonate.
The film highlights the commercialisation of the holiday, the stresses that come with giving the perfect gift, and the importance of family togetherness. Add in the drunk reindeer and you’ve got yourself a Christmas classic, sort of.
6) The Holdovers (2023) – view on NOW
What kind of list would this be without providing something new that you have likely missed?
Paul Giamatti does what he does best playing a cantankerous and grouchy alcoholic teacher with no obvious redeeming qualities.
However, tasked with babysitting a group of disaffected pupils with nowhere to go over the holidays leads to him forging an unlikely bond with a brainy but damaged troublemaker and with the school’s head cook, who is dealing with the loss of her son.
It’s a heart-warming tale that encourages us to rediscover our humanity and focus on what we hold in common rather than what divides us.
5) Groundhog Day (1993) – view on Prime
Technically speaking, Groundhog Day is a Thanksgiving movie. But it’s hard to think of a film that better encapsulates the true spirit of Christmas.
Bill Murray stars as a self-absorbed weatherman who finds himself living the same day over and over opposite Andie MacDowell. His bleak situation forces him to contemplate his attitude towards life.
It argues that we can only grow in life if we drop the materialistic cynicism and forge true and meaningful relationships with those around us.
Hear hear!
4) White Christmas (1954) – view on Prime and NOW
What do The Holiday (2006), Love Actually (2003), Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), and Last Christmas (2019) all have in common? They are all effectively rehashes of the original and best Christmas romcom of all time – White Christmas.
Song and dance double act Bob and Phil fall in love with musical sisters Betty and Judy, and the four work together to save a failing inn from bankruptcy.
Cheesy? Perhaps. Dated? Almost certainly. But what kind of a holiday are you having if you cannot listen to the dulcet tones of Bing Crosby – the main character and the greatest Christmas crooner the world has ever seen?
3) Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) – view on Prime
No Christmas film list should be completely dominated by English language films. After all, the original stories of St Nicholas date back to a fourth-century Greek bishop from Myra, now Turkey.
On Christmas Eve in Finland, Santa Claus’ tomb is unearthed in an archaeological dig. Soon after, children start disappearing.
There is something gripping and terrifying yet enchanting about this David vs Goliath story, which suggests some legends are not worth revisiting. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is certainly a rare treat in terms of tension and special effects.
2) Die Hard (1988) – view on Disney+
Hear me out…
It’s true that this Bruce Willis blockbuster was a 1988 summer release that just happens to be set at Christmas. But look beyond the time of year it is set. This is the ultimate tale of good overcoming evil – one rogue cop stopping greedy German terrorists in their tracks with festive cheer, Christmas tunes, and plucky helpers.
In essence, Die Hard is the story of a man returning home to his estranged wife and children and dropping his endless obsessions with masculinity and work and rediscovering who he really is. What can be more of a moral story than that?
“Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho.” What a line!
1) It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) – View on Prime and NOW
Nothing will ever beat this timeless classic.
“Where’s The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) on this list?”, I hear you cry. The answer is right here.
The sheer genius of this film is how the formula of the age-old Charles Dickens classic is turned right on its head. Rather than protagonist George Bailey being a miserly Scrooge-like figure, he is in fact a humble, selfless family man down on his luck who feels he has nowhere to turn. However, his guardian angel shows him what things would have been like if he had never been born.
It invites us all to pause for a moment, take a step back and evaluate what really matters. There was no term for mental health back in 1946, but it is a story that comes to terms with the pressures we all feel from time to time and calls for us to reach out to those who may be struggling this season.
It’s no easy watch, but stick with it. By the end, it is the quintessential feel-good picture. And if you enjoy it, then you’ll love the harder to seek out 1940s melodramas: The Shop Around the Corner (1940), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) and Miracle on 34th Street (1947). All are well worth your time.
Tell us what your favourite Christmas film is and why in the comments…
So great to hear that you’re going to be watching our festive film recommendations, Fatima. If the romance film genre also interests you, you should watch this space in February…
I love your choices. They take you from horror to adventure to comedy and thrills too.
I’m going to give it a go… I’m a huge movie buff and this list looks great.
Thank you for the time you spent creating this. I’m sure it will be worth the watch.