Everyone has their own opinion about what makes a good Christmas movie.
Do you judge it on how good it makes you feel? How accurate is it to its holiday setting? Or the memories it evokes while you watch it?
How about all of the above? Watch With Us has dared to compile a list declaring the best movie of every decade from the 1940s to the present.
From well-known classics featuring stars like Macaulay Culkin and Bill Murray to obscure anime titles, these movies represent the best the yuletide genre has to offer throughout the decades.
1940s: ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ (1946)
Some movies are classics for a reason, and it would be tough to argue that any other 1940s movie besides It’s a Wonderful Life is the best Christmas movie of that decade. James Stewart stars as George Bailey, a down-on-his-luck family man who wants to kill himself on Christmas Eve. A mysterious stranger named Clarence suddenly appears and tries to convince him that even though he’s experienced disappointment and misfortune, he’s lived a wonderful life because his family and friends love and respect him.
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A lot of people think It’s a Wonderful Life is syrupy and sentimental, but it’s also a surprisingly dark tale that doesn’t hesitate to push its troubled hero to the edge. What other Christmas classic has its hero on the verge of suicide? Maybe that’s why It’s a Wonderful Life still holds up — it’s not afraid to depict the darker side of the holidays and how Christmas can make people feel sad and lonely. Its uplifting ending can persuade even the most cynical person to cheer up, at least until after New Year’s Day.
1950s: ‘White Christmas’ (1954)
White Christmas is the epitome of a classic Hollywood holiday movie — it’s big, loud, colorful and stars Bing Crosby, who sings the title song that’s still a Christmas staple. He plays Bob Wallace, who teams up with war buddy Phil Davis (Danny Kaye) to become a successful musical comedy duo. As they travel the country playing shows, they encounter sisters Betty and Judy Haynes (Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen), two nightclub singers who are the perfect match for them. Together, they team up to save a countryside inn from going bankrupt by staging a charity concert.
White Christmas doesn’t reinvent the wheel — its chief appeal is how quaint, corny and old-fashioned it is. The movie’s secret weapon is Kaye, who is hilarious as Crosby’s zany buddy. Relentlessly energetic, he’s like an Eisenhower-era Jim Carrey, and he livens up White Christmas when it threatens to get bogged down in soggy sentimentality.
1960s: ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ (1965)
It’s just not Christmas without Charlie Brown. When writer Charles Schulz and director Bill Melendez made A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965, they put their own stamp on the Christmas holiday that still endures to this day.
When a depressed Charlie Brown (voiced by Peter Robbins) wonders what the true meaning of Christmas really is, gal pal Lucy (Tracy Stratford) suggests he direct the annual play to cheer him up. Yet with a rowdy cast and a missing Christmas tree pop, Charlie’s spirits continue to dampen. Will he ever get his holiday mojo back?
At a brisk 25 minutes, A Charlie Brown Christmas is barely a short film, but it qualifies simply because it influenced other, later holiday hits like Home Alone. It also introduced a Christmas standard, “Christmas Time Is Here,” which is still played in my home every season.
1970s: ‘Black Christmas’ (1974)
Horror and the holidays don’t often blend well together, but Black Christmas is an exception. One of the scariest movies ever made, it’s also one of the most immersive Christmas films I’ve ever seen. The film is set just days before Christmas at a Canadian sorority house, where a serial killer has set up shop in the attic. As one sorority sister after another disappears, it’s up to Jess Bradford (Olivia Hussey) to figure out who is stalking them and why.
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The unsettling part about Black Christmas is that the killer is never really revealed, nor are his motivations ever explained. The only insight we get is through his periodic prank phone calls, which are filled with gibberish and random threats that he makes good on. All of this horror is cleverly juxtaposed with all the softly falling snow, melodic caroling and bright holiday decorations inside the sorority. In any other movie, it would be the ideal place to spend the holidays in, but in Black Christmas, it becomes a tomb from which you can’t escape.
1980s: ‘Scrooged’ (1988)
There’s been a lot of great adaptations of Charles Dickens’ classic story, A Christmas Carol, but none of them can hold a candle to Scrooged. Director Richard Donner moves up the time period from the Victorian era to the yuppie “greed is good” ‘80s, ditches industrial London for a crime-ridden New York City and changes Scrooge from a miserly shop owner to the ruthless network TV executive, Frank Cross (Bill Murray). Frank is mean and cruel to everyone around him, but when he’s visited by four ghosts on Christmas Eve, he begins to see the full life he could lead if he only opened his heart to love.
Everything works in Scrooged: from the modern updates of the three ghosts of Past, Present and Future (I have a particular fondness for Carol Kane’s violent faerie Ghost of Christmas Present) to setting Frank’s story while his network produces a more traditional adaptation of Dickens’ tale, Scrooge is surprisingly innovative and always interesting to look at. It’s also very, very funny, and that’s because of Murray, who is at his sarcastic, smartass best here. No one else can play this version of Scrooge, and you wouldn’t want them to.
1990s: ‘Home Alone 2: Lost in New York’ (1992)
Home Alone is justifiably considered a classic, but I’ve always preferred its first sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, over the original. It helps that it’s set largely in the Big Apple during the holidays, which is one of the magical places on Earth. From seeing the big Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center to eating ice cream sundaes at the Plaza Hotel, Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) lives every kid’s dream when he’s left home alone — yes, again — by his criminally negligent parents, but when the Wet Sticky Bandits (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern) come back for revenge, Kevin once again has to defend himself by doing what he does best: setting elaborate booby traps that inflict some serious damage.
Home Alone 2 embraces its inner Looney Tunes spirit by placing its characters in a universe where a 10-year-old kid can befriend a homeless woman in Central Park without getting killed and outrun an entire hotel staff that behaves like he’s a terrorist. It’s completely ridiculous, but it’s also funny, well-directed and surprisingly moving.
2000s: ‘Tokyo Godfathers’ (2003)
In Tokyo on Christmas Eve, three homeless people — old alcoholic Gin (Tooru Emori), thirtysomething woman Hana (Yoshiaki Umegaki) and teenage runaway Miyuki (Aya Okamoto) discover an abandoned baby in the trash. Naming the baby Kiyoki, which means “silent night” in Japanese, they set out to find the baby’s parents before the night is over. But their journey will force them to grapple with their own past and what led them to their present circumstances.
Directed by anime master Satoshi Kon, Tokyo Godfathers is an unusual Christmas story that’s more filled with action and drama than your usual holiday fare. But it’s probably the best modern Christmas movie that interprets the Jesus Christ story without too many religious overtones, and it’s infused with a joyful spirit that will make you smile. The animation is top-notch, and its depiction of a snowy and chaotic Tokyo on Christmas Eve will make you want to book a flight and visit.
2010s: ‘Klaus’ (2019)
Movies about Santa Claus are usually pretty bad (don’t get me started on Santa Claus: The Movie, starring Dudley Moore as a mischievous elf), which is why Klaus feels so miraculous. An animated movie released by Netflix, Klaus tells the origin of the story of St. Nick, who is far from the cheery, fat fellow we all know and love. In this iteration, Klaus (voiced by J. K. Simmons) is a recluse who is persuaded by a lowly postal employee, Jesper (Jason Schwartzman), to deliver toys to needy children in the dead of night.
Soon, word begins to spread, but Klaus doesn’t want to become the gift-giving hero his fans want him to be. Can Jesper convince Klaus to become the Santa the world needs?
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Nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar (it lost to Toy Story 4), Klaus is a beautiful film to look at. But its pleasures are more than skin deep; the real pull here is the central relationship between Klaus and Jesper. Simmons makes his Santa a deeply grouchy man who slowly thaws to Jesper’s charms, while Schwartzman is endearing as someone who still believes in the Christmas spirit.
2020s: ‘The Holdovers’ (2023)
The best Christmas movies usually focus on people who feel lost and lonely over the holidays, and they don’t come much better than The Holdovers. Paul Giamatti stars as Paul Hunham, an exacting boarding school teacher who is assigned to look after five castaway students over the holiday break. He eventually bonds with one of them, Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), and together, they embark on a journey of self-discovery that will change them forever.
The Holdovers sounds trite and sentimental, but director Alexander Payne largely avoids cliches in favor of a moving character study of two men who are initially very hard to like. By the end, we still don’t like them that much, but we know what makes them so bitter and angry with the world and why their friendship is just what they need to move on. The Holdovers is a Christmas movie for all the grumpy loners out there, and it’s already a holiday classic.
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