Home Alone
Home Alone 2
Elf
Love Actually
Die Hard
The Polar Express
Fred Claus
The Christmas Chronicles (a new film on Netflix that I watched with my family on Saturday night - was a more than decent film).
Many moons ago the BBC produced a Richard Curtis TV special called Bernard and the Genie with Alan Cummings, Lenny Henry and Rowan Atkinson among others. We had it taped off the telly for years on VHS and we used to watch bit every year with one friend in particular. Mrs Thistle eventually found it released on DVD in Europe or something and we bought it. We try to watch it in the run up to Christmas with the same friend. It's a fun tradition.
Muppet Christmas Carol
The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Santa Claus(e)
It’s a Wonderful Life
A Christmas Story
Elf
Merry Christmas Charlie Brown
Miracle on 34th St
Christmas Vacation
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (classic Boris Karloff version. Haven’t seen the new one)
Mickey’s Christmas Carol
Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer (classic stop-motion animated version)
Arthur Christmas
I also like most of the versions of A Christmas Carol. I like the recent Patrick Stewart one. Not sure if any of the older classic ones have been cleaned up for HD.
Hmmm, are Christmas movies really the same as movies that happen to have Christmas in them? For example, Die Hard was a summer blockbuster, and arguably is not imbued with the essence of the Christmas spirit. It wouldn't have made a difference had it been set at Easter.
Maybe it's a bit like "Stop The Cavalry". One line about Christmas, and, boom, it's a Christmas song.
Not Christmassy per se, but Casablanca is the film I most like to watch around Christmas time.
This. And The Apartment, Marx Bros.
I think I really dislike “Xmas films” on the whole, but get the idea of the repeat/ritual viewing of a familiar pleasurable object. So my childhood examples were the landmark Disney films being saved up for Xmas broadcast, and above all The Great Escape!
So to exemplify my anti-Xmas film feelings I always say Bad Santa when forced to pick one.
Hmmm, are Christmas movies really the same as movies that happen to have Christmas in them? For example, Die Hard was a summer blockbuster, and arguably is not imbued with the essence of the Christmas spirit. It wouldn't have made a difference had it been set at Easter.
Maybe it's a bit like "Stop The Cavalry". One line about Christmas, and, boom, it's a Christmas song.
It's set around a Christmas party - that's good enough for me.
Hmmm, are Christmas movies really the same as movies that happen to have Christmas in them? For example, Die Hard was a summer blockbuster, and arguably is not imbued with the essence of the Christmas spirit. It wouldn't have made a difference had it been set at Easter.
Maybe it's a bit like "Stop The Cavalry". One line about Christmas, and, boom, it's a Christmas song.
Not Christmassy per se, but Casablanca is the film I most like to watch around Christmas time.
This. And The Apartment, Marx Bros.
As I noted above, The Apartment is totally Christmas. It includes an office Christmas party, a pissed Santa Claus in a late night bar, Christmas presents, Christmas Day at the apartment and chez Sheldrake, the quiet period in the office between Christmas and NY and, finally, NYE celebrations.
It is also, IMHO, one of the greatest films ever made.
All of mine have been said already
Trading places
The Santa Clause
Elf
Muppet Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol with Patrick Stewart chewing the scenery.
Two of those are now horribly censored in the TV versions. A Muppet's Christmas Carol because they never play the "The Love Has Gone" song in the ghost of Christmas past bit (because it's too sad and reduces Tyson Fury to a blubbering mess) and Trading Places because they never show the bit where Jamie Lee Curtis gets her boobs out.
I get the feeling that Paddington 2 is going to become a Xmas classic and annual rewatch, in my household at least. It doesn't actually feature Xmas at all but has that feel.
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