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1
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)Our Favorite Scene:
George and Mary bickering in Mary's living room as her overbearing mother ease-drops.
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2
A Christmas Story (1983)Our Favorite Scene:
The old man giving Ralphie the greatest gift he will ever receive, an official Red Ryder, carbine action, 200-shot, range model air rifle.
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3
Elf (2003)Our Favorite Scene:
Buddy and Michael bonding after Buddy saves him from a snowball ambush.
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4
Home Alone (1990)Our Favorite Scene:
After Kevin is dragged upstairs and unleashes on Mom, "I don't want a new family, I don't want ANY family! Families suck!!"
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5
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)Our Favorite Scene:
Kris speaking and singing to the little Dutch girl in her native language, as Susan looks on with bewilderment.
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6
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)Our Favorite Scene:
Rizzo reluctantly jumping over Scrooge's tall gate, not realizing that he can fit through the bars, even after he goes back to the other side to retrieve his jelly beans.
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7
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)Our Favorite Scene:
Any scene with Aunt Bethany.
"Oh, that was fun! I love riding in cars!"
"Oh dear! Did I break wind?!""
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8
Die Hard (1988)Our Favorite Scene:
Hans Gruber running into John, as "Bill Clay," and seemingly fooling John until he tries to kill him with the unloaded gun that John handed to him.
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9
Gremlins (1984)Our Favorite Scene:
After the evil gremlins hatch and make the mistake of underestimating mom as she takes them out, one by one, in the kitchen.
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10
A Christmas Carol (1951)Our Favorite Scene:
Nasty Scrooge telling the two men collecting for the poor, "If they would rather die, they'd better do it, and decrease the surplus population." Dang!
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Buy it on DVD, Blu-ray or
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Buy it on DVD, Blu-ray or
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11
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)Our Favorite Scene:
Christmas morning, of course! Frightened kiddies are attacked by their not-so-cute dolls and toys.
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12
White Christmas (1954)Our Favorite Scene:
The four stars on the train all singing about "Snoww!, Snowww!, Snowww!, Snowwwww!, SNOWWWWWWW!"
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13
The Santa Clause (1994)Our Favorite Scene:
Santa's first night on the job, as he scolds a little girl for asking too many questions and later loses it when he has to deliver a kayak "under the tree."
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14
Love Actually (2003)Our Favorite Scene:
Jamie courting Aurelia in her hometown, as her father escorts him to her place of work, the curious townspeople follow with concern ("He's going to kill Aurelia!").
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15
Scrooged (1988)Our Favorite Scene:
The Ghost of Christmas Present. Carol Kane and Bill Murray exchange riffs and blows like true pros. Every scene with the two is LOL-funny.
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Buy it on DVD, Blu-ray or
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Buy it on DVD, Blu-ray or
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Buy it on DVD, Blu-ray or
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Buy it on DVD, Blu-ray or
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19
Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)Our Favorite Scene:
Bored and talking to himself, the Grinch fails when he tries to outsmart his own echo in his lair.
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18
The Holiday (2006)Our Favorite Scene:
Miles' hilarious serenade of iconic movie show tunes to Iris at the video store.
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16
The Shop Around The Corner (1940)Our Favorite Scene:
Alfred having too much fun giving Klara a hard time as she waits for her "mystery" date to arrive.
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17
Bad Santa (2003)Our Favorite Scene:
The end credits (sorry, we're not a fan).
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20
Christmas in Connecticut (1945)Our Favorite Scene:
Elizabeth and Jefferson struggling to put the curious cow back in the barn.
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Buy it on DVD, Blu-ray or
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Buy it on DVD, Blu-ray or
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Buy it on DVD, Blu-ray or
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Buy it on DVD, Blu-ray or
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How we came up with the Top 40 Best Christmas Movies ranking
We aggregated nearly 200 Christmas movies from these 37 original articles below, and came up with an average score based on both ranking and number of sources to get the final results, above.
Our guidelines:
- We only chose full-length movies, no animated TV specials (jump to our Animated Classics page to see all of those).
- No horror films. We did allow action and even violent movies, but for Horror/Scary Christmas Movies, head over to our "Sort of" Christmas Movies page, which has over 30 popular Christmas Horror films.
- For our reputable sources, we:
- Picked articles from the top 100+ results in Google of popular movie-centric websites from relevant search queries.
- Did not use any lists that relied on critics' or user reviews, these were all original articles that were recently written or updated - almost all of them from 2022.
- Stayed away from genre-specific or exclusive lists, such as "Top Family Christmas Movies," "Greatest Hallmark Christmas Movies," or "Best Classic Christmas Movies."
- Only used lists that RANKED the movies; we did not use lists in which the movies are in random or alphabetical order.
Here are the 37 sources we used - linked to their Best Christmas Movies articles:
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Here are the reputable sources we could NOT use, as they did not fit within our guidelines above.
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