All Christmas Movies (That I have seen) Ranked

 

     Christmas is my absolute favorite time of year! There are so many things that contribute to making Christmastime so joyous and magical, one of which is the amazing films we watch year after year with our families, spouses, and sometimes even just ourselves. Christmas movies come in all shapes and sizes: comedies, rom-coms, animation, Claymation, musicals, etc. So in preparation for the season, and all the film-watching that accompanies it, this seemed like a great time to reminisce on all the wonderful Christmas movies I've seen over the years (35 of them) and rank them from worst to first.

     For the record, I don't think any of these movies are bad. Some are just more rewatchable and excite me more than others.

     

     Tier 1: Don't Need to Rewatch It or Would Only Rewatch it with my Kid

#35. Nestor the Long-Eared Donkey

Of all the Claymation entries I just feel this is the weakest and most boring. This is a 25 minute movie that follows a donkey named Nestor who is an outcast due to his oversized ears. Nestor ends up becoming a hero by way of helping Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem where Jesus is born. It's cute and you do feel badly for Nestor at times and I appreciate the religious tones but that's about all this one has going for it.

#34. Jack Frost

This is the other Claymation movie that I'm just not that fond of, but is slightly more interesting than Nestor the Long-Eared Donkey, and it's considered a Christmas special even though the plot actually had nothing to do with Christmas. In this movie, Jack Frost falls in love with a human woman named Elisa whom he rescues after she falls through cracked ice into a frozen lake. Jack asks Father Winter if he can become human in order to be with Elisa. Father Winter offers him a chance but informs him that he must obtain a house, horse, pot of gold, and wife by the first sign of spring. After successfully obtaining the former 3 items, Elisa falls in love with another and Jack becomes at peace with his true calling of becoming a spirit again.

#33. Love Hard

 This is one I threw on one night when I was up late and bored and had nothing better to watch. The main character is the writer of a bad-date column named Natalie who gets catfished by a man named Josh and tricked into flying out to his hometown to spend the holidays with him and his family. Upon learning that the photos Josh used belong to his childhood friend who lives in the same area, Josh and Natalie cut a deal where Natalie will pose as Josh's girlfriend to appease his family while Josh will set up Natalie with the friend seen in the photos. In typical Rom-Com fashion, Natalie ends up developing feelings for Josh and the two end up together. It wasn't bad, but there's no reason I'd watch it a second time.

 #32. A Boy Called Christmas

A Boy Called Christmas is Netflix's attempt at an origin story for Santa Clause and Christmas. The story follows a boy named Nikolas and his pet mouse Miika in their quest to find Nikolas' father and the legendary village of Elfheim. The movie gets points for being creative and visually stunning and a unique take on the Santa origin story and how Christmas came to be, but it's not something I'm dying to watch a second time.

#31. Frosty the Snowman

There are a PLETHORA of Christmas movies tied to a popular Christmas song (Rudolph, Grinch, White Christmas, Santa Clause is Coming to Town) including this one. In the cartoon based off the popular tune, Frosty is brought to live after a rabbit names Hocus runs off with the (unknown the time) magic hat of struggling magician Professor Hinkle. The Rabbit brings the hat to a group of school children who have built a snowman, and just as the song suggests, the children place the hat on his head which brings Frosty to life. The plot then revolves around the kids trying to help Frosty reach the North Pole and find Santa as temperatures in the city rise and threaten to melt him while Professor Hinkle follows the company in hopes of retrieving the magic hat back. There's nothing wrong with it per say, it's just clearly geared towards children, but it's hard to not sing along.

Tier II: Rewatchable, but not a Classic

#30. Rudolph's Shiny New Year

Immediately following the events of the original Christmas classic, this sequel is about finding Happy the Baby New Year, who has gone missing and if he is not found by New Years it will be December 31st forever (not the worst thing in the world, but hey whatever). A vulture named Eon the Terrible also hopes to find and kidnap the baby before the good guys, as his prophesized death is January 1 at which time he will freeze and disintegrate and he sees keeping the calendar on December 31 as a way to prevent his predetermined death. Rudolph travels island to island and recruits a motley crew to help him with his quest including a knight, a caveman, and Ben Franklin. For a sequel it's not bad and it's rewatchable but it doesn't come close to the original.

#29. Home Sweet Home Alone

A Disney+ original modern remake of Home Alone, this film is funny and his it's cute moments but doesn't come close to the nostalgia of the original. The film attempts all the same themes that made the original special like the parents going on a vacation and accidentally leaving their son and the son setting a series of comical boobie-traps at the expense of two inept trespassers with financial motivations. It does attempt to switch some things up, the kid is more of an asshole and the burglars are more endearing and human in their motivations, but at the end of the day it just feels like a cash grab in a franchise that has already produced 5 films.

#28. Just Friends

This was one of Ryan Reynolds' first major roles and Anna Farris is hilarious in it as well as the psycho woman who craves a relationship after one date. The film portrays Reynolds as someone who was an overweight loser in high school but is now a slim successful womanizer working as a record producer in LA (similar to how New Girl humorously uses flashbacks of the womanizing Schmidt as an overweight geeky college student) who bumps into his high school crush (who rejected him very politely) in his hometown over the holidays. The movie is about Reynolds' character trying to exit the friend zone of the crush he is still in love with, while also humorously dodging the advances of the clingy ex. It's not the most memorable or engaging movie, but I recall getting some good laughs out of certain scenes.

#27. The Grinch

There are 3 Grinch movies that appear on this list and people can be very divided on how to rank them. Those who didn't grow up with it will probably put the 1966 version last because it's too old-timey and just a narration of the book. Others may put the live-action Jim Carrey version last because it adds in so many unnecessary characters and scenes rather than staying true to the original Dr. Seuss book. For me personally however, the most recent version also happens to be the weakest. Perhaps some of that is nostalgia and having grown up with and watched the other two more times than I can count. But to me this one isn't memorable and doesn't offer anything that you don't already get from the previous two, outside of brighter and sharper animation I suppose. 

#26 The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause

The Santa Clause trilogy is a good one but the final installment isn't near as strong as its two predecessors. Martin Short is fun and honestly a good villain as Jack Frost, who tricks Tim Allen's Scott Calvin into renouncing his position so he can become the new Santa. But this film deals with time travel and alternate realities and just lacks the charm and feel-good-ness of the first two. It's worth watching, but moreso because you care about the main characters and want to see them triumph because of the work the first two movies did introducing and developing them. 

#25. Scrooged

There have been numerous attempts of re-tellings of A Christmas Carol over the years including Disney's, the Muppets, Mickey Mouse, and most recently Spirited. This Bill Murray led version deals with a selfish TV executive lacking Christmas spirit tasked with putting on a Christmas Eve production of A Christmas Carol, who is unkind to his staff and forces them to work through the holidays. After firing some staff members and skimping out on cheap Christmas gifts for those closest to him to instead purchase more expensive high-tech gifts for the more powerful and influential people on his list, Murray's character is visited by 3 ghosts determined to help him regain his Christmas spirit and overall appreciation for life and those around him.

 

#24. Olaf's Frozen Adventure

This is a cute little Disney short in which Olaf searches to find a Christmas tradition for Anna and Elsa. After a comedy of failed attempts, Anna and Elsa come to realize and inform Olaf that he himself has been their Christmas tradition all along. It's charming and feel-good and is a fun holiday adventure with everyone's favorite warm snowman who loves hugs!

#23. The Polar Express

This movie came out the day after my 10th birthday and I remember being excited to see it because we owned the children's book of the same name, but the movie adaption is just okay. The animation/live action hybrid the filmmakers were trying to go for is weird and kind of creepy and the film just sort of feels lifeless at depressing at times. Still, it's a fun journey aboard a magical train going to the North Pole based off a book I enjoyed reading as a kid, so this tier seems fair. 

#22. Noelle

Disney+ launched on November 12, 2019, and the launch included some new never-before-seen content including this movie. It seems like each year Disney+ attempts a new holiday special, last year it was The Santa Clauses and the year prior it was Home Sweet Home Alone, but the streaming service's first entry (and the only one that isn't a sequel/remake) also happens to be its strongest. The movie has parallels to Elf, given that it involves an Elf travelling from the North Pole to a US City on a specific mission and a lot of comedy ensues. In this case Noelle (played by Anna Kendrick) is travelling to Phoenix to look for her brother Nick, the heir apparent to become the next Santa following the passing of their father, who is struggling with the new role. Some of the funniest scenes also come from cousin Gabriel, the head of tech-support at the North Pole, stepping in as the interim Santa. If you can ignore the progressive "why can't a female be Santa too" feminist tones, it's actually a very cute and heartwarming film worth more than one watch. That being said, it's clearly borrowing ideas from a more iconic Christmas classic and doesn't quite the next tier of films I would classify as classics.

#21. Christmas with the Kranks

He's much better known for his role in The Santa Clause franchise, but people often forget Tim Allen starred in another Christmas film. This is a fun light-hearted comedy where Luther and Nora Krank (Jamie Lee Curtis) decide they are not celebrating Christmas this year due to their daughter joining the Peace Corps and being out of the country. They instead intend to use the money normally spent on Christmas gifts to go on a cruise, which the couple gets a good deal on since it departs on Christmas day. This upsets the very festive neighbors, who spend the movie trying to revive their Christmas spirit. It provides some good laughs and has a feel-good ending, but pales in comparison to more famous Christmas comedies like Elf and Christmas Vacation

Tier II: Classic/Nostalgic in some way

This was an every year watch for us as kids, and for that reason it's here, but as an adult you realize it really is just a re-reading of the book with added animation. Still, there wouldn't be two remakes if not for the popularity