One of our local papers had a fun poll this Christmas season: a bracket of holiday movies, competing for the title of champion. In their poll, the winner turned out to be (no surprise) It’s a Wonderful Life. As a huge fan of Christmas movies (even bad, made-for-TV ones), I decided to go ahead and fill in my own picks.
The 4 regions:
Old School
- It’s a Wonderful Life
- Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
- White Christmas
- A Christmas Story
- The Santa Clause
- Die Hard
- Home Alone
- The Bishop’s Wife
Semi-finalist: #7 Home Alone
New School
- Elf
- National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
- Love Actually
- The Preacher’s Wife
- Bad Santa
- This Christmas
- A Madea Christmas
- The Nightmare Before Christmas
Semi-finalist: #3 Love Actually
Must-See TV
- How the Grinch Stole Christmas
- Frosty the Snowman
- A Charlie Brown Christmas
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
- Hallmark movies (multiple)
- Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town
- The Year Without a Santa Claus
- The Christmas Shoes
Semi-finalist: #1 How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Dickens Do-Agains
- A Christmas Carol (1951, Alastair Sim)
- Scrooged (1988, Bill Murray)
- A Christmas Carol (1984, George C. Scott)
- Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol (1962)
- A Christmas Carol (1999, Patrick Stewart)
- The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
- Scrooge (1970, Albert Finney)
- A Christmas Carol (2009, Jim Carrey animated)
Semi-finalist: #6 The Muppet Christmas Carol
So here’s my full bracket:
There are two films in this list of 32 that some people might question. Die Hard is typically thought of as a mere action movie, but I definitely think it is a Christmas movie because the holiday is key to the plot and themes. Plus, I’ve always liked that Hans Gruber sounds like Franz Gruber, who wrote “Silent Night.” The Nightmare Before Christmas, on the other hand, is not a Christmas movie, and I wouldn’t have included it here. Despite the fact that it has “Christmas” in the title, it’s more of a Halloween movie. But I’m sure many people feel the exact opposite about these two. You can fight me in the comments.
There are also a bunch of these movies that I haven’t ever seen (including half of the Christmas Carol versions), so I just didn’t vote for any of those.
The hardest head-to-head match up in the first round was White Christmas vs. Die Hard in the Old School category. I love them both, but they are so different it is hard to compare. I went with White Christmas because I love the music, and also I saw it more recently haha.
In the semi-finals, I also had trouble with How the Grinch Stole Christmas vs. The Muppet Christmas Carol. The Grinch was a Christmas tradition in my house growing up, and I can probably quote most of the movie (not to mention singing the song). But how can you beat the Muppets and Michael Caine singing in the Dickens classic? I gave the edge to the Grinch because the nostalgia factor was stronger there.
No one that knows me will be surprised that I picked Home Alone for my number one Christmas movie. Growing up, it was a tradition to watch this movie on Thanksgiving to kick off the holiday season. I recently even went to see the Cleveland Orchestra perform the movie score live. It really is such a good movie: great writing and acting, plenty of comedy of all kinds, 90s nostalgia, and a killer score by John Williams that manages to be festive yet sinister. It also really captures the spirit of Christmas in childhood.
So that’s why Home Alone is my #1 Christmas movie. What’s yours? How would you fill out your bracket?
Jedi by Knight 
Wow, a tough tournament to judge here! There are so many great choices. I couldn’t get past picking regional winners, including any of the Dickens Do-overs (maybe Carrey’s 2009 shaded it, just). Next up National Lampoon’s, then I have Die Hard and The Grinch. The reason for the last two choices is because I used to be a Nightclub/Bar entertainer and I did vocal impressions of both Alan Rickman and The Grinch!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very good choices! I think Alan Rickman in Die Hard is one of the best movie villains ever 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I haven’t worked through the whole thing yet but found it odd that Home Alone (1990) is considered Old School, while Christmas Vacation (1989) is considered New School. I do love this idea though.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I didn’t even notice that, it is weird! Christmas Vacation should definitely be Old School.
Isn’t it a fun idea? Let me know what your winner comes out to be 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
There are so many great Christmas movies here! White Christmas is definitely one of my favorites, too. I loved to watch Unaccompanied Minors when I was a kid.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve never seen that one, I’ll have to check it out. I can never have too many Christmas movies!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Omg we watched The Holiday this year…horrible. The last time I watched it was about 10 years ago and I remember loving it which goes to show how much your life can change lol.
But I love Home Alone! I need to watch that again. That was my favorite when I was a kid.
My favorites are Love Actually, Home Alone, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life, and The Star Wars Holiday Special (kidding).
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s so funny, because I just watched The Holiday again recently and I thought it was better than I remembered!
Those are definitely some of my favorites, too. But I have never seen the Holiday Special…
LikeLike
I think you can find it online somewhere in the netherworld of the internet… I know I watched it online in college. It’s really horrible. Like The Holiday.
LikeLiked by 1 person