Top 10 Christmas Movies
As promised I’m back with my top 10 greatest Christmas movies of all time. First three movies I omitted from my list that could have easily made it.
The first… How the Grinch Stole Christmas 1966. Not that stupid one with Jim Carrey I’m talking the original animated Dr. Seuss cartoon. Any Christmas cartoon that is narrated by Boris Karloff is all right in my books. The problem was I only wanted to have two animated movies so Boris and the Grinch got scuttled.
The next… It happened on Fifth Avenue 1947. While the owner of a luxury TownHouse, in downtown Manhattan, vacations in the south during the Christmas holidays. A vagrant takes over the home and invites homeless veterans and other people to come in out of the cold under the pretense that he is the owner. A real feel good holiday movie.
The last… Office Christmas party 2016. I think if I needed at least one raunchy Xmas movie this is it. Take Animal House, put it in a downtown skyscraper, with a young millionaire business owner on his last leg wanting to go out with a bang. A movie only 1 out of 5 would like. Just so happens I’m that one.
Now just to piss some people off these are the three movies I’m so sick and tired of. Christmas Vacation and Scrooged. 2 Saturday Night Live alumni who overdo everything. And Love Actually. A movie that has a scene of a couple completely nude doing it doggy style can’t call itself a Christmas movie. Missionary position? Maybe? But that’s a big Maybe.
My Top 10
# 10 Arthur Christmas 2011. This is the first of my 2 animated Christmas movies. This movie was created by the same people that did Wallace and Gromit. So it has good Bloodlines. Saw it for the first time this year and it’s already made my top 10. Great animation and a good funny story about Santa’s two sons.
# 9 Die Hard 1988. Classic action movie and yes this is a Christmas movie. Read recently that the director intentionally put in a Christmas theme and wanted this movie to run during the holiday season. And he succeeded. Sometimes you just need to kick a little ass during the holidays.
# 8 Home Alone 1990. This movie is still loads of fun. Watching this young Macaulay Culkin out fox these two bumbling idiots. Once this movie works up a head of steam it’s nonstop hilarious action. Home Alone 2 did not make the top 10 but was also an entertaining holiday movie.
# 7 The man who invented Christmas 2017. I believe all top 10 lists should have at least a version of A Christmas Carol and this is mine. I also just watched this movie recently and was totally Charmed with it. It’s a story of a young Charles Dickens writing his famous Christmas fable. A lot of humor is packed in this very original and funny fly by the seat of your pants version of A Christmas Carol. Not sure how factual but it sure is a lot of fun.
# 6 The three Godfathers 1948. This one’s unique in the fact that it’s a western. Directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne. The story of three Bandits that after robbing a bank in the town of New Jerusalem and escaping into the desert. Rescue a newborn baby from it’s dying mother in an abandoned Stagecoach. John Ford’s biblical Echoes aren’t subtle, nor are they intended to be. This movie started out as a silent movie in 1916. was remade in 1936 (Which may have been the best version. Completely different ending then the 1948 version).Worth your time to check them out .
# 5 White Christmas 1954. The classic musical with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye. I used to look forward to watching this movie with my mom every Christmas holiday. The last scenes when they put on the show for their beloved retired General, looks like a living Christmas card. It never gets old. Well at least not to me.
# 4 A Christmas Story 1983. Storyteller and radio personality Jeanne Shepherd’s tale of growing up in Hammond Indiana. Narrated by Shepard himself. The story of Ralphie and his Christmas Quest to obtain an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot Range model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time. The little boy’s tongue stuck to that Frozen Pole Is priceless. And we all lived through the fear and anticipation of standing in line to meet Santa Claus at the department store. It’s Darren McGavin and Melinda Dillon playing the quintessential 1950s parents that really keep this movie realistically funny. But it’s Peter Billingsley who steals the show as Ralphie. This movie used to play all day on a certain Network on Christmas Eve.
# 3 The Nightmare Before Christmas 1993. the second of my 2 animated Christmas movies. Tim Burton’s Classic and with a lead actor like Jack Skellington this beautiful musical plays just as well during the Halloween season. The stop action animation is superb and sets the mood perfectly in both Halloween Town and Santa’s North Pole. Back in 93 when I first saw this movie I didn’t like it. But my little nephew bought the cassette soundtrack and played it constantly. So once I got used to the music this turned out to be one of my all time favorite Christmas movies.
# 2 Miracle on 34th Street 1947. This is where I start to show my age. This is the classic where Santa Claus is put on trial. A very, very, young and quite Charming Natalie Wood who turns out to be a great child actress steals the show. And of course Edmund Gwenn as the most realistic Santa Claus in movie history. For me there’s nothing like a good old fashion black and white Christmas movie. This has been a staple in our Holiday family viewing for as long as I can remember. This brings us to number one. Which will be no surprise at all.
# 1 It’s a Wonderful Life 1946. The all-time king of all Christmas movies. This is the perfect Jimmy Stewart movie, probably the best crafted original Christmas Story Ever Told. This movie totally bombed when it came out in 1946. But during the 50s and the 60s thanks to the new innovation of television, they needed movies to show During the holidays, and this one caught on Big Time. This movie is like watching two different stories. Going from happy and carefree to sad and foreboding in the blink of an eye. But here again the fact that this is a black and white movie conveys these emotional changes perfectly. This movie arguably contains the all time greatest happy ending in any movie genre.
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