Best Holiday Movies Ever Made

One of the best films in the Batman canon, “Batman Returns” takes place during the Christmas season. The movie, with Michael Keaton in the titular role, features a massive attack during Gotham City’s tree-lighting ceremony by a group of crazed circus performers, led by Danny DeVito’s Penguin. The movie has grossed almost $267 million worldwide.

While the entirety of “Bridget Jones’s Diary” doesn’t take place during the holidays, the romantic comedy is bookended with scenes taking place during the most celebratory time of year. Furthermore, a major theme of the film is Bridget’s holiday introspection – a state of mind familiar to many around the holidays.

In this version, the classic Charles Dickens story is retold by the Muppets. Sir Michael Caine was well received by critics as the miserly Scrooge. Audiences and critics alike generally felt positively about this adaptation, with 76% of critics and 85% of audience members giving the film positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

One of the earliest slasher films – premiering four years earlier than John Carpenter’s “Halloween” – is also a Christmas movie. Despite numerous poor reviews upon its release, the film has become a cult holiday classic, and appreciated for being a foundational slasher film.

“Better Watch Out,” an American-Australian comedy-horror flick set during Christmas, is about nerds and a babysitter terrorized by home invaders. The critics’ consensus on Rotten Tomatoes called the movie an “adorably sinister holiday horror film.”

This grisly 1980s-era portrait of a Manhattan investment banker who is also a psychotic serial killer is based on the novel of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis. The movie won a special recognition award for excellence in filmmaking from the National Board of Review and was hailed by the New York Times as “a lean and mean horror comedy classic.” A pivotal scene takes place at a Christmas party, complete with mistletoe, holiday music, and a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig.

This acclaimed World War II prisoner-of-war drama starring David Bowie explores cultural attitudes about duty and honor. The film features a scene in which a brutal Japanese guard spares two prisoners from execution, telling them he is “Father Christmas.”

Director Joe Dante, a scare movie specialist, earned an 85% Freshness rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes for this horror-tinged comedy set in a picture-perfect small town at Christmastime. The eponymous gremlin — an adorable, furry little animal called Mogwai — is a Christmas present for a local boy. All is well until an army of less lovable gremlins invades the town.

The Finnish film is about an archeological dig that excavates Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and the dire consequences that ensue. Critics liked the movie for its dark comic take on Kris Kringle, with 90% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Also, 70% of audience members enjoyed the movie.

The last film completed by legendary director Stanley Kubrick (“2001: A Space Odyssey,” “A Clockwork Orange,” “The Shining”), “Eyes Wide Shut” got a mixed reception from critics, with the Washington Post panning it as “creaky, ancient, hopelessly out of touch,” but with Roger Ebert giving it 3.5 out of 4 stars. A lavish annual Christmas ball provides the catalyst for a plot that draws a young married couple into a world of sex parties and infidelity.

“Joyeux Noël” is based on the poignant true story of Allied troops and German soldiers during World War I honoring a Christmas truce. For a brief time they are no longer enemies and come to understand each other’s lives in a more meaningful way. The film was nominated for an Academy Award and received nominations from the Golden Globes and BAFTA.

Four years before his “Slumdog Millionaire” won Academy Awards for best picture and best director, British filmmaker Danny Boyle made this charming fable about a boy who finds a bagful of money just in time for Christmas. The film scored an audience rating of 78% and a Freshness score of 88% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Some of the best-known French actors — Fanny Ardant, Catherine Deneuve, and Isabelle Huppert — appear in this darkly comedic whodunit about the murder of a family’s patriarch over the holidays. The movie scored a 79% Freshness rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

“White Christmas” is a sentimental holiday perennial starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye. Crosby and Kaye are song-and-dance performers who, on a trip to Vermont, meet their beloved former Army general who runs a lodge that is struggling financially. To boost his morale and help out the business, the stars reunite the general with many of his former troops at the hotel over the holidays.

This quintessential buddy cop flick stars Mel Gibson as a police officer battling suicidal thoughts following the death of his wife. After breaking up a heroin ring, Gibson spends Christmas with the family of his partner played by Danny Glover. Critics liked the chemistry between Glover and Gibson, and audiences gave the movie an 86% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The original animated Disney film is about a passel of Dalmatian puppies sought by a cruel socialite who wants to turn them into fur coats. The dogs escape and return to their beloved owner in time to celebrate Christmas.

The equally suave Cary Grant and David Niven star in this light-hearted story. Grant plays an angel sent to help an Episcopal bishop (Niven) who is trying to raise funds to build a cathedral as Christmas approaches. “The Bishop’s Wife” has a Rotten Tomatoes Freshness rating of 83%.

The classic mid-19th century Louisa May Alcott novel set in New England during and after the Civil War has been made into film many times, beginning with a silent version in 1917 and the 2019 version starring Emma Watson. A gloomy Christmas Eve and disrupted Christmas morning set the stage for this tale of life struggles, romance, and coming of age.

“Human Capital” is about two families connected by an accident involving a bicyclist who is hit by a car two days before Christmas. The film is a commentary on wealth and privilege. The movie has an 82% Freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

With a 7.3/10 IMDb rating, “Go” tells three interlocking stories from different points of view, all beginning on Christmas Eve at a supermarket in Los Angeles. Drugs, sex, a trip to Las Vegas, and a strip club shooting are elements of the complex plot.

Romances and rivalries are restarted in this comedy/drama as college friends reunite after 15 years during the Christmas season. The strong cast features Terrence Howard, Taye Diggs, and Nia Long. On Rotten Tomatoes, 83% of audiences liked the movie.

“Trading Places” is a hilarious tale about two people — played by Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd — who over Christmas are unwittingly used in an experiment about what shapes a person’s character: environment or heredity. More than 80% of critics and audience members on Rotten Tomatoes gave the comedy classic positive reviews.

This is an animated story about Santa Claus’ oafish son Arthur (voiced by James McAvoy), who is tasked with delivering a present to a young girl before dawn on Christmas Day. “Arthur Christmas” has a Freshness rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes.

This “self-referential noir-screwball-action movie,” as Australian film critic Philippa Hawker called it, is set during the Christmas season in Los Angeles and involves a private eye, a thief mistaken for an actor, and a wannabe actress.

The 1951 version of “A Christmas Carol” is considered by many critics and film aficionados as the best. Actor Alastair Sim left an indelible imprint as Scrooge, an interpretation of the character that is equal parts contemptible and vulnerable. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes agree this version is most faithful to the Charles Dickens classic.

This is the movie where Bing Crosby first sang Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” on film. Crosby plays a crooner who plans to open an entertainment site called Holiday Inn on Christmas that will only be open on public holidays. The film is noteworthy for its pairing of Crosby and Fred Astaire.

Kitana Kiki Rodriguez stars in this story about a transgender prostitute who searches Los Angeles on Christmas Eve for her boyfriend, a pimp, who has been cheating on her. “Tangerine” has a Rotten Tomatoes Freshness rating of 97%, with critics lauding the movie for “shattering casting conventions.”

Scoring an 89% Freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes and earning an audience score of 88%, this time-travel story, directed by Terry Gilliam of Monty Python, is full of violence and rough language. It is set in part against a backdrop of Christmas decorations and Santa Clauses.

The dark comedy, set in the scenic Belgian city of Bruges, centers on two British hitmen (Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson) sent to Bruges by their boss to lay low right before Christmas. “In Bruges” has an audience score of 87% on Rotten Tomatoes.

This animated fable, set in Tokyo at Christmastime, tells the story of an unlikely trio of homeless characters — a middle-aged drag queen, a scrappy pre-adolescent, and an alcoholic ex-bicycle racer – who discover an abandoned baby girl in a garbage heap and spend the holiday searching for its parents.

“Diner” is a classic tale of young men’s passage to adulthood as they talk about their lives at a diner in Baltimore during the last week of 1959. The film has plenty of star power with Steve Guttenberg, Mickey Rourke, and Kevin Bacon. It was written and directed by Barry Levinson. “Diner” holds a 92% Freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The heartwarming holiday favorite is about a department store Santa who insists he is the real St. Nicholas and is institutionalized as a result, and the young lawyer who argues on his behalf. The movie features the first starring role for Natalie Wood as the child who is the first to believe the man really is Santa Claus.

This animated film has the gothic fingerprints of the uber-creative Tim Burton (who co-wrote the movie). The movie is about Jack Skellington, skeletal king of Halloween Town, who discovers Christmas Town and is enchanted by the idea of Christmas. His attempt to import Christmas to Halloween Town encounters obstacles. “The Nightmare Before Christmas” has a 95% Freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, and a 91% audience score.

Based on stories by humorist and storyteller Jean Shepherd, this family comedy recounts the adventures of a young boy in the 1940s who’s trying to convince his parents to buy him a BB gun for Christmas. One of the most famous Christmas scenes in the movies comes when the neighbors’ bloodhounds eat the turkey destined for Christmas dinner and the family goes out to a Chinese restaurant instead.

The World War II drama, set during Christmas in 1944, was directed by Billy Wilder, one of cinema’s greatest directors. William Holden received an Academy Award for his performance as a cynical prisoner of war wrongfully accused of being a German spy.

An employee Christmas party on the 30th floor of an L.A. highrise is interrupted by a gang of robbers, who pretend to be terrorists and are really after the $600 million locked in the company’s high-tech safe. They’re reckoning with Bruce Willis, however, in his breakout role as a tough New York City cop in town to see his estranged wife — who’s at the party. The film has a 93% Freshness score on Rotten Tomatoes.

“The Shop Around the Corner” is a delightful comedy directed by the urbane Ernst Lubitsch about two employees working at a store in Budapest during the Christmas season. The two dislike each other but fall in love via letters exchanged as pen pals. Rotten Tomatoes gives this classic a Freshness score of 100% and an audience score or 91%.

“Brazil,” directed by Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam, has a Freshness rating of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. The darkly comic retro-future satire on bureaucratic inefficiency is set in an oppressive unnamed European nation. The plot begins when an innocent man trimming his Christmas tree is arrested and carried off in a bag, never to be seen again.

George Cukor’s romantic comedy about the American patrician class stars Cary Grant as the free-spirited Johnny Case who becomes engaged to the daughter of a wealthy banker during the holiday season. Case rebels at the thought of taking a job with his future father-in-law because that would restrict his freedom. The film has a 100% Freshness rating and a 90% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The quintessential Christmas movie, directed by the celebrated Frank Capra (“It Happened One Night,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”), is impossible to avoid on television during the holiday season. Nominated for five Academy Awards, including best picture, best actor, and best director, it tells the by-now-familiar story of an honest, earnest man, George Bailey, who fears bankruptcy and scandal after an $8,000 loan payment goes missing on Christmas Eve. Despondent and believing his life to have been worthless, Bailey is about to commit suicide when an angel sent from heaven appears and shows him how disastrous life in his small town would have been without him. All turns out well in the end, and the family carols “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”