’Tis the season to be jolly – unless you’re being dragged to some awful, syrupy, schmaltzy festive flick. Luckily, we’ve got the antidote: every film on this list of Christmas movies is guaranteed to charm, entertain and in the odd case terrify. From psycho Santas and home-invading thieves to feel-good fireside frolics and cockle-warming cosiness, our cinematic sack is bulging with treats.
TEN
Batman Returns (1992)
After the spectacular success of his first Batman, Tim Burton had carte blanche on this sequel – and boy did he go to town. As snow falls on Gotham, Bruce Wayne finds himself facing not just the creepy, grubby Penguin and his flippered minions, but a psychotic Catwoman and Christopher Walken in a crazy wig.
NINE
A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)
It’s only 25 minutes long, but this beloved cartoon manages to pack in more warmth, more wit and more honest seasonal spirit than most full-length Christmas movies. It’s largely down to Vince Guaraldi's flawless, jazz-tinged score, a key part of any self-respecting festive record collection.
EIGHT
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Another hard-quipping festive shoot-’em-up from Lethal Weapon writer Shane Black, as Robert Downey Jr and Val Kilmer play a ham actor and a private dick on the trail of a missing woman while sleigh bells ring out over LA. The dialogue’s fast and funny, and somehow the constant gunplay never dents its Christmas spirit.
SEVEN
The Snowman (1982)
Raymond Briggs’s book came to life once a year throughout many childhoods, as the animated film was shown on British TV with religious precision. Nominated for an Oscar, the short film tells of a boy whose snowman magically becomes real – but not forever. Add the haunting song Walking In The Air and you have a true Christmas classic.
SIX
Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Christmas is a time of both joy and fear for Edward (Johnny Depp) after he and his new host family are ostracised from the community. It’s a typically bittersweet story from Tim Burton which, with Danny Elfman’s score, has a magical festive feel: just picture Winona Ryder dancing around that ice sculpture.
FIVE
Home Alone (1990)
Home Alone is such a perfect kids’ fantasy, it’s a wonder nobody thought of it before. Parents go on holiday, forget a kid, he can eat ice cream and watch movies as much as he likes, before getting the chance to invent some booby traps to catch burglars. Four sequels followed.
FOUR
Gremlins (1984)
Is there a more memorable soliloquy in the Christmas movie canon than Phoebe Cates’s tearful recollection of her father’s death – suffocated in the chimney, wearing a Santa suit? It’s the dark heart of Joe Dante’s timeless monster movie, a film that takes all those twinkly festive classics you loved as a kid and vomits – lovingly – all over them.
THREE
Bad Santa (2003)
It’s a brilliant scheme: Billy Bob Thornton dresses as Santa, hires himself cheap to desperate shopping malls then robs them blind with the aid of his foul-mouthed elf sidekick. A flop that became a cult Christmas classic, Bad Santa may be gleefully tasteless but it’s also brilliantly sarcastic, enormously funny and – in the scenes with Billy Bob’s goofy kid sidekick Thurman Merman – impossibly sweet.
TWO
Elf (2003)
A gift to Christmas TV programmers, this festive comedy makes full use of Will Ferrell’s man-child charm by casting him as a naive human raised by elves and thrown into a cynical modern-day New York. Highlights include a duet of ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ with an unwitting Zooey Deschanel as she sings in the shower.
ONE
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
A moving tribute to the power of the individual, Frank Capra’s snowy festive classic is a true delight, as entertaining as it is message-driven. James Stewart puts in the performance of a lifetime as a potential suicide who’s given a chance to look at life with fresh eyes. Merry Christmas George!
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