The 20 best Christmas movies – and where to watch them

The story of Jack Skellington opening up a portal between Halloween Town and Christmas Town is executed in glorious stop-motion with fantastic, dark and spindly animation.

Word of warning: it is a musical. But it’s the good kind of musical. It is, after all, from the wonderfully offbeat brain of director Tim Burton.

Watch The Nightmare Before Christmas on Disney+

It’s not easy turning a film about attempted suicide into a festive family favourite – but Frank Capra and his leading man James Stewart did exactly that with It’s A Wonderful Life. In fact, this fantasy tale about considering all the ways in which we touch others’ lives throughout our own is considered by many to be one of the greatest movies ever made, and its sentimentality is ideal for this time of year.

So when you realise you’ve left your other half’s presents behind at the last minute on Christmas Eve, don’t panic too much or else you might be plagued – we mean, helped – by a well-meaning angel called Clarence.

Watch It’s a Wonderful Life on Now Cinema

Watch It’s a Wonderful Life on Amazon Prime Video

Watch It’s a Wonderful Life on Plex

One of the greatest Christmas movies of all time? Why not? Home Alone is now over 30 years old, but for many of us Christmas doesn’t feel like Christmas until we’ve spent 90 minutes watching Macaulay Culkin terrorising a pair of hapless burglars. In fact, director Chris Columbus only spends a relatively short third act of the film depicting 8-year old Kevin McCallister’s rampage, with the rest of the movie setting it up and exploring what a kid gets up to when his family have inadvertently left him behind in their huge Chicago home at Christmas.

Watch Home Alone on Disney+

Watch Home Alone on Channel 4

Romantic comedy specialist Nancy Meyers takes on the Christmas season in this glossy, schmaltzy transatlantic yarn that raises a few laughs while not being quite as vom-inducing as Love Actually. And if that sounds like faint praise… well, it is. But hey, sometimes you’ve just got to indulge in a bit of lifestyle escapism.

In The Holiday, two rich white women swap homes for the festive season: Cameron Diaz comes to leafy Surrey, while Kate Winslet trades her cottage for a luxurious Los Angeles pad. Both end up meeting men who may or may not be right for them and if you can’t predict how this one ends, every day of your life must be a source of constant delight and amazement.

Watch The Holiday on Prime Video

Watch The Holiday on Now Cinema

Watch The Holiday on Netflix

Forget the tedious discussion about whether Die Hard is or is not “a Christmas film” (spoiler: it is). What’s not up for debate is its place in the action movie canon, thanks to its killer combo of charismatic, relatable hero (Bruce Willis in a career-defining role and a career-defining vest), memorable villain (the sorely missed Alan Rickman in full scenery-chewing beast mode) and assured, non-showy direction by John McTiernan.

For sub-rock dwellers out there who don’t already know the setup, the plot is simple: Willis’ New York cop comes to Los Angeles to visit his estranged wife for Christmas, rocking up at her work party in a swanky hi-tech hi-rise just as the building is hijacked by Rickman and his gang of terrorists. Cut off from the outside world, outmanned and outgunned, Willis must use his wiles to save the day. Wonderful stuff to watch, any time of the year.

Watch Die Hard on Disney+

To some people, the thought of watching Love Actually is more likely to make them sick than overindulging at Christmas dinner. But to many, many others it’s a vitally important festive ritual, a Richard Curtis-choreographed dance through an unrecognisably clean London, with its equally well-scrubbed middle class denizens (plus Martine McCutcheon as the token cockney geezette) experiencing the L-word in its many forms.

While there are a truckload of issues with it – not least the bloke who declares his love for his best mate’s new wife through the medium of cue cards on her doorstep like some kind of massive weirdo – in a season where most topical films are about a fat man who delivers presents to everybody on the planet, a child protecting his home from two burglars through the application of extreme violence, or an elf going to New York in search of his biological father, there’s no harm in treating Love Actually like the similar fantasy it is.

Watch Love Actually on Now Cinema

One of those finding-your-true-self-at-Christmastime absurdities – but with a violently green Will Ferrell-shaped twist. And in spite of Ferrell’s propensity to irritate, the PG-rated humour and the sickeningly festive subject matter, you’ll probably find your true self guiltily giggling into your eggnog.

When Ferrell’s North Pole-dwelling elf – one of Santa’s not-so-little helpers – discovers he’s in fact human, he ups sticks to New York to track down his biological father (James Caan). Holiday chaos ensues as he endeavours to bring festive cheer to all he encounters – whether they like it or not.

Watch Elf on Now

If you have a child between the ages of two and eight, you may already know this one. Or rather, you may already know EVERY SINGLE WORD OF EVERY SINGLE SONG, which character is singing them, what they’re wearing at the time, what happens next and what it means for Disney’s profit margin. You may also be able to pinpoint the exact moment at which your brain turned to mush at the sheer, relentless onslaught of it all.

That said, Frozen is an excellent modern-day Disney film. It’s not horribly sexist, in that the lead characters are strong-willed, independent girls who don’t need saving, the animation looks great, the story is gripping and funny without overdoing it on the cheese – and yes, there’s no denying the power of the songs. So, definitely one to settle down with and watch together as a family – but just be aware that you will have those tunes lodged firmly in your head well into the new year.

Watch Frozen on Disney+

A late-80s take on Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol, made all the more entertaining by the presence of Bill Murray in the lead role of Frank Cross – an egotistical and cynical US television producer who thinks it an acceptable idea to staple antlers to a mouse.

Cross must find his redemption through interactions with the crude, cigar-smoking Ghost of Christmas Past, the hyperactive, ball-busting ghost of Christmas Present and the ominously creepy Ghost of Christmas Future. Murray reportedly felt that Scrooged could have been a minor Christmas comedy classic had director Richard Donner exercised a little more restraint, but as it stands it’s an enjoyably broad romp with Murray in fine form.

Watch Scrooged on Amazon Prime Video

Paul Giamatti’s formidable acting chops get one heck of a workout in this beautifully bittersweet comedy-drama directed by Alexander Payne (who directed Giamatti in Sideways, where he delivered another wonderful performance).

It’s Christmas 1970 at a stuffy New England boarding school. A cantankerous history teacher finds himself required to stay on campus during the holidays to look after a handful of remaining students – the titular ‘holdovers.’ It’s a situation with which none of the participants are pleased, but by the end of the film (which apes the look and feel of 1970s American cinema almost perfectly) three strangers will have formed an unlikely bond. Funny, sad and heart-warming in a way that fits the season absolutely perfectly.

Watch The Holdovers on Now Cinema

Ordinarily, the rule is that if a film’s colour scheme alone makes you sympathise with the baddie – the Grinch, Scrooge, Danny Dyer and the like – it should be avoided like the great chestnut plague of 1972.

Yet however kitsch and clichéd this (non-animated) Grinch movie is, and no matter how tiresome you find Jim Carrey’s deliberate overacting, Ron Howard’s screen adaptation of the Dr Seuss classic bounces along with enough momentum to make you raise a glass of egg nog.

Watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas on Netflix

Trading Places has all the elements required of a Christmas movie: an appropriate winter setting, an underlying fable about money not being important, and of course love and family (even if it is the atypical kind). Oh, and Santa – a drunk, depressed, salmon-stealing Santa, but a Santa all the same.

The film’s unconventional heroes – a street hustler (Eddie Murphy), an arrogant yuppie (Dan Aykroyd) and a prostitute (Jamie Lee Curtis) – aren’t exactly your typical pillars of good, but compared to a pair of sinister millionaires, they’re easy to root for.

Watch Trading Places on Paramount+ (Amazon Prime Video channel)

Do you wish it could be Christmas every day? How about actually being Santa? Tim Allen took time out from some, er, home improvements to accidentally knock the beardy benefactor off the roof on Christmas Eve. Not wanting to ruin the rest of the world’s festivities, he takes up the sleigh reins and sets about doing the work of – no, becoming, Santa. Festive silliness that wouldn’t do at any other time of year.

Watch The Santa Clause on Disney+

Let’s be honest, the majority of Charles Dickens’ misery-fuelled masterpieces could be vastly improved by a few puppets to lighten the mood. Just think: The Muppet Bleak House or Fozzie Bear’s Old Curiosity Muppet Shop. Anyway, here Jim Henson’s beloved creations star in a reimagining of Dickens’ festive fable. If Michael Caine as Ebenezer Scrooge doesn’t get you chuckling, you’re probably overdue a visit to Dr Bunsen Honeydew to have your funny bone examined.

Watch The Muppet Christmas Carol on Disney+

Yes, ‘vacation’ is American for ‘holiday’ – but in National Lampoon’s festive one, they don’t go anywhere. In fact, nothing much happens at all. It’s really just an excuse for Chevy Chase to lark around for an hour and a half as calamitous pater familias Clark Griswold. Clark’s preparations for the arrival of his extended family include driving out into the countryside to fell a fir tree that’s far too big for the living room, covering the house in thousands of fairy lights, and getting stuck in the attic.

Christmas Vacation has some slightly off-colour moments that date it quite badly, and it probably isn’t as funny as it should be, but you can bet with anyone else in the lead – and a supporting cast that didn’t include the likes of Randy Quaid and Julia Louis-Dreyfus – it would’ve been a total turkey. Which, of course, Americans eat at Thanksgiving, not Christmas.

Watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation on Now Cinema

If your Christmas spirit is in short supply this year, beware: according to legend, those who are selfish, miserly or generally act like Grinches during the festive period won’t be visited by Father Christmas but by his dark counterpart. We’re of course referring to Krampus, the mythical pagan demon (and antagonist of this horror-comedy), who punishes wrongdoers at Christmas – and we’re not talking about leaving lumps of coal in a stocking here, but something more like “dragging you down to spend an eternity in the underworld”. That kind of stuff.

When a feuding family find themselves snowed in at Christmas, their bickering is interrupted by a series of creepy goings-on. Can they survive long enough to open their presents, or will Krampus teach them all a deadly Yuletide lesson?

Watch Krampus on Now

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s more family-friendly fare is not exactly well-regarded by film fans – most of us would rather see him firing an M60 machine gun from the hip than prat falling and mugging for the camera. And even within that very particular niche, Jingle All the Way is certainly no Citizen Kane (just for the record, the Citizen Kane of Arnie comedy films is Kindergarten Cop). And yet there’s something to be said for this film’s light satire on commercialism, as well as its abundance of holiday-specific cheer, that makes it worth a watch this year.

Schwarzenegger plays a New York father desperate to track down the season’s must-have toy for his son’s present – only to find that it’s in such short supply that he must battle half of the city to get his hands on one. Don’t worry: there are no M60s involved.

Watch Jingle All the Way on Disney+

Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito play small-town neighbours embroiled in a festive feud in this goofy family comedy. Broderick’s buttoned-down Steve Finch sees himself as the custodian and curator of the town’s holiday festivities, ensuring everything remains restrained and tasteful, but DeVito’s brash newcomer Buddy Hall isn’t interested in doing things by halves: he wants his house so stacked with Christmas lights that it’s visible from space, and doesn’t care if he offends his neighbour’s sensibilities while doing so. Cue slapstick warfare and everybody eventually learning the true meaning of Christmas – again.

Watch Deck the Halls on Disney+

Watch Deck the Halls on Prime Video

Stanley Kubrick’s final movie, released in 1999 several months after the celebrated director had died, stars then real-life spouses Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as a married couple. After a late-night heart-to-heart with his wife shatters his comfy preconceptions about their relationship, Cruise’s Dr. Bill Harford ventures into Christmassy New York on a strange, dream-like sexual adventure that culminates in a profoundly disquieting party.

Despite being marketed as an erotic thriller, Eyes Wide Shut isn’t particularly salacious or explicit, and its creepy score, otherworldly atmosphere and pervading sense of menace and tension give it the feel of a dark psychological drama more than anything else. Attempting to unpick its mysteries and symbols, which we’re convinced the likes of Cruise and Kidman were and probably still are totally oblivious to, remains a joy 25 years after its release.

Watch Eyes Wide Shut on Netflix

Silent Night follows yet another self-aware premise of ‘what if bad things happened at Christmas?’ premise, but this forthcoming festive flick promises a few big names behind the camera.

Directed by Face Off‘s John Woo, Silent Night is a John Wick-meets-Jingle All the Way shooter that follows a broken man out for revenge against the people who murdered his son. That’s not very Christmass-y, you’re probably saying. And you’d be 100% right in saying that, but if you’re after some blood and holly this festive season then Silent Night (or Die Hard) is for you.

Watch Silent Night on Now Cinema