Welcome to mid-December, and it’s just over two weeks to Christmas (in case you needed reminding)!
This week seemed like the perfect moment to provide definitive present ideas for everyone who hasn’t even started thinking about Christmas shopping. Obviously in 2024 most of us shop online, and if the queues at my local shopping mall are anything to go by, “physical” shopping seems much quieter this year.
If you’re starting to feel festive but don’t fancy getting dressed up to go out (more about that next week) – how about curling up on the sofa and watching a classic Christmas movie.
But what are the Top Ten Christmas movies of all time?
Here we go…
10. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
An original fairy tale, story and characters created by Tim Burton. Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, is bored with his annual Halloween triumph. A chance visit to nearby Christmastown gives him an idea: he and his spooky friends will stand in for Santa this Christmas! Despite the title, it has become more associated with Halloween than Xmas and it’s a beautiful film for grown-ups of all ages can enjoy from October through New Year’s.
9. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005)
As screenwriter of the likes of The Last Action Hero’ The Long Kiss Goodnight and the Lethal Weapon series, I’ve never seen it. A two-bit thief – Robert Downey Junior – marooned in LA during the Xmas holidays gets mixed up in murder. He’s ably assisted by Val Kilmer. Not my cup of cocoa at Xmas at all.
8. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
One of the first Johnny Depp performances. Edward is a man-made creature who has got shears instead of hands, because his creator (Vincent Price) died mid-project. He sits lonely and lethal in his gloomy mansion, until the Avon Lady (Dianne Wiest) comes to call. She invites him home, and he proceeds to dazzle her family and neighbours with his flair for topiary and surreal hair-styling. With its skewed vision of suburbia, Tim Burton’s film is a visual treat. But Burton’s suburban fantasy wouldn’t be nearly as touching without Depp’s sad-eyed hero at its center – or its context of Christmas, a time of acceptance, charity and Winona Ryder, as his love interest, dancing around ice sculptures.
7. Bad Santa (2003)
So funny, this yuletide raunch-fest exists on a single joke, and it’s basically ‘guy in a Santa suit swears a lot’. But Billy Bob Thornton, in the title role, manages to stretch that much further than it should go. Thornton is Willie T Stokes, a cynical, alcoholic mall Santa with a penchant for sex with hefty women and a wholly unconcealed dislike of kids. Definitely one for me.
6. Home Alone (1990)
KEVIN!!! (Macauley Culkin) wants everyone in his giant house in suburban Chicago to disappear. When he wakes up the next day to discover his wish granted, he soon regrets it – but not before spending a few glorious days without parental supervision. Written by John Hughes, the ultimate message is about the importance of family – and of doing a headcount before rushing to the airport to catch a flight to Paris – is a classic. The best part in the entire thing is John Candy’s (largely improvised) monologue about being abandoned by his parents in a funeral home as a kid.
Home Alone is the second-highest grossing Christmas movie of all-time, behind 2018’s animated reboot of The Grinch
5. Gremlins (1984)
Gizmo the mogwai, a button-cute, furry ET clone with a dark secret: under certain circumstances, he begins breeding toothy, green id-monsters. If Kingston Falls (the setting) looks familiar, that’s because it’s the same set used to represent Hill Valley in Back to the Future – the Courthouse Square backlot at Universal Studios.
4. A Christmas Story (1983)
Back in the ’80s, who would have thought that this odd slice of life from the director of Porky’s would eventually gain on It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street as America’s favourite holiday movie? Bob Clark’s nostalgic comedy existed as a borderline cult film for decades, and no wonder: it’s pretty weird and given how often it now appears on TV every December, you’ve probably seen it enough that it’s getting easier to understand.
3. Elf (2003)
THIS should be number one.
No need to explain the plot… this is one modern Christmas movie that’s genuinely sweet.
2. Die Hard (1988)
Is this even a Xmas movie? Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Because it takes place on Christmas Eve. Run-DMC’s immortal ‘Christmas in Hollis’ is on the soundtrack. Some have even argued that it’s secretly a remake of It’s a Wonderful Life. So it’s a hi-tech thriller with a human heart, and Bruce excels in staging the murderous mayhem and violence on Xmas Eve… another one we’ve all seen too many times… EXCEPT ME!
1. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Tinged with magical passages, buckets of good will and an alternate plotline with the disturbing kick of a Black Mirror episode, this tribute to the efforts of a small-town do-gooder cements the idea of Christmas as a time for giving. James Stewart is impeccable as George Bailey.
It’s a Wonderful Life is the first definitive Christmas movie to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards – though no Christmas movie has yet to actually win the Oscar.
Onto this week and we go in with our ultimate Gift Guides for Him and Her – so get ready to shop people.
