Mike’s Top 10 Christmas movies must-list
I love Christmas. It’s my favorite time of the year for a number of reasons. The first being that I am usually off work for almost two weeks. The second is that when you live in Arizona, the nice, cool temperatures in late December are a beautiful and welcomed relief.
And I just love the spirit and traditions surrounding the holiday. Despite being in a hurry all the time with shopping and preparations for family get-togethers, most people have a kinder, more helpful attitude this time of year.
With the normal traditions like Santa Claus, presents and Christmas carols comes my OWN traditions:
- Watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy all in one sitting.
- Doing a movie marathon day (or two) at the local theater to catch up on all the Oscar hopefuls
- Lots of napping
But I never get through the holidays without re-watching some of my favorite Christmas and Holiday movies and below is my list of the 10 best in my very important, highly-regarded opinion.
I hope you enjoy the list, it took me quite awhile to make sure it had just the right stuff on it.
Enjoy!
Mike’s Top 10 Christmas Movies
10. Home Alone
It’s hard to believe this movie came out in 1990, but it was a fun little film with a very young Macaulay Culkin, and I’m happy to admit that I enjoyed it. It’s a good classic to show the future kiddies someday. I doubt I’ll watch it again until those kids do come, but it holds a special place as a good X-mas film.
9. Bad Santa
This isn’t much of a re-watcher for me, I saw it once and I’d like to see it again ONE more time. But the fact remains, this movie was flat-out the dirtiest, politically-incorrect-est and most hilarious Christmas movie I’ve ever seen. The humor was so wrong that has to remain an X-mas classic forever.
Billy Bob Thorton is a drunk, cigarette-smoking department store santa, and you can guess where it goes from there.
The amazing thing with this movie is that I don’t think I even knew about it until my wife turned it on 4-5 years ago and said, “You’ve never seen A Christmas Story????” Nope, I hadn’t. Now I can’t imagine Christmas coming without it.
From the lamp shaped like a woman’s leg, to the BB gun, to the tongue on the lamp post all the way until the eating Christmas dinner at a Chinese restaurant…this movie is great holiday fun. You can always catch it on the 24-hour marathon Christmas day on TBS.
For some reason, my brother and I loved this one growing up. Probably because we were two weird kids that watched “The Ten Commandments” about 20 times, but who knows for sure. All I know is that I practically have all the music in this movie memorized and it isn’t Christmas without seeing Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye sing “The General…”
Except possibly for hearing me sing…”Sisters…sisters…there were never such devoted…“…erm, okay, enough Mike.
Not exactly a Christmas movie, but it has the best New Years moment of all-time, so I’m tossing it up there. This would also make #1 on any list I had for romantic comedies or chick-flicks or whatever. Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan (back when Ryan was young and had original lips) lit up the screen, with their discussions on men and women, the spectacular orgasm scene in the restaurant and “Pecaaan piiiieeeeeeeeee.”
Not to mention some great writing. I could post the entire New Year’s speech Harry makes to Sally, but it’s pretty long, so chew on this excerpt:
“I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”
Funniest movie ever made about Christmas. Slicked up sleds, a billion lights, Christmas trees through windows, family photos with “cupping” and blown-up cats…Chevy Chase rocks and this is a classic must-see. Not to mention the plethora of memorable quotes like this one:
Bethany: “Is your house on fire, Clark?”
Clark: “No, Aunt Bethany, those are the Christmas lights.”
This film from 2003 became an instant favorite around Christmas time. Granted, it’s not exactly family-friendly with the nude stand-in storyline (Unless you see the TV version, which totally cuts out that entire story), but it’s still one of the more heart-tugging holiday movies I’ve seen. With a massive cast that includes Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Liam Neesom, Bill Nighy and Alan Rickman, you can’t go wrong.
“If you really love Christmas…come on and let it snooow….”
3. Die Hard
My list wouldn’t be complete without the best action movie ever made, which also happens to occur 
around Christmas time, so therefore it makes it onto my list. Bruce Willis is hilarious and funny, but also a butt-kicking one-man show who defeats a group of thieves in a skyscraper during his wife’s company party.
Alan Rickman stars as the villain, which is where I first saw one of the better actors of our time.
If you don’t think it’s a Christmas movie, listen to the music at the end, or view my evidence below, taken from a dead body wearing a Santa hat with a note attached:
“Now I have a machine gun…Ho, Ho, Ho.”
2. The Office: Christmas Party
What, a TV show on a top 10 movie list? Get over it, that’s how I roooooooooll.
So I know, it’s not a movie, but this is one of my favorite Christmas moments of all-time. I still mark it down as my favorite Office episode to date and I have a feeling it will stay there. There is so much going on in this one that even watching it a few times you see new things.
“Maybe I should have taken the iPod….ohhhh shooot.” - Kevin
From the opening moments with the “We’ll sell it to charity. That’s what Christmas is all about” line, to the final scene with Meredith, you really wont find anything funnier.
And the lame drum roll please……….
Don’t ask me why, this movie isn’t even set around Christmas at all until the end, but it will always hold a special place in my heart around this time of year. It’s got a great message and has some superior acting in it from Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.
No matter what happens, I try watch this movie every Christmas. And don’t give me the colorized version, the plain ol’ black and white works best.
I’ve seen the movie countless times, and I will see it many more, yet I doubt there will be a time where I wont have teary eyes at the end.
—
So that’s the big Top 10 Christmas movies list and I hope you agreed with them. I’d love to hear some others that aren’t on my list, that are favorites of yours. I suspect some people will have A Nightmare Before Christmas up high.
Comments
Eric, just about to head to bed and saw your comment.
I do agree with you on The Family Stone, although I’m not sure how many top 10 lists it would make. But it was very good, I liked it a lot, but man, it was tough getting past Sarah Jessica Parker’s stiff character portrayal.
Mike - You beat me to the punch! I have a similar list that I plan to reveal within the next week or so. Agree with most of your choices, but I would have ranked A Christmas Story higher. Love that you put The Office in there - best episode ever!
Steven’s last blog post..Top 100 Movies: No. 71 - Bull Durham (1988)
Good list, but I’d take out Harry Met Sally and Diehard (both great movies, just not xmas ones) and insert Elf and the Santa Clause. Family Stone was much better than I expected, like it alot actually. And love Love Actually, alltime classic even if it’s for adults only. Bad Santa? wow, so good, yet so bad.
‘everytime a bell rings, an angel gets it’s wings’
Scott’s last blog post..The Daddy Wars
Awww, Scotty, Die Hard is a Christmas movie 
Anyways, I poured over a lot of top 10, top 25 lists in making mine, just to make sure I didn’t miss out on a movie I forgot about, and Die Hard was all over most lists
But I agree about The Santa Clause, it was another choice I thought about. I did like the first one. And for some reason, I didn’t think Elf was that great to warrant a top 10 list.
Another one, not sure if anyone remembers it, was One Magic Christmas, way back when, like the early 1980’s…it had a sad story, but was one I’ve always rememebred.
@ Steven - Sorry Steven, You can still do your list, I really look forward to seeing what you pick. Glad you liked the Office pick.
“You’re the expert, is this enough to get 20 people plastered?”
“15 bottles of Vodka? Yeah, that should do it.”
Sorry Steven, lol, I know two of you who run movie blogs, and I just had a total brain fart
I corrected it…my humble apologies.
Besides “It’s a Wonderful Life”, “Elf” is my favorite Christmas movie. I cannot stop laughing, Will Ferrell is a comic genius. He played a innocent boy elf trapped in the real world so well. So many funny parts! If you didn’t really get it the first time then watch it again! It’s kinda like most of Will’s movies, where they get funnier the more you watch them. And I won’t even put “Little Women” into the Christmas movie category because I love it so much it doesn’t even compare.
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I absolutely agree with Love Actually. One of my all-time favorites.
I’d also like to throw my own hat into the ring, with a wonderful little movie called The Family Stone. Check into it if you haven’t seen it. It has plenty of awesomeness, even though it has its share of not-so-awesomeness. But still definitely worth a watch.
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