Favorite Christmas Movies
- Thread starter tomswift2002
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Another favorite of mine is "A Night Before Christmas" from 1905. It's a 10-minute silent short that was done extremely well by Thomas Edison's film company. The special effects were primitive by today's standards (when Santa uses his magic to setup the Christmas tree, it is a simple jump cut where the camera was locked off, Santa starts to move his arms to "show" magic, and then the camera operator just stopped the camera while the Christmas tree was moved into the shot, and the camera restarted). Of course how the producers created Santa's sleigh flying through the night was very creative by 1905 standards.
I gotta admit. That movie holds a special place for me in that I actually grew up not far from the real Bedford Falls...and most of the other places mentioned in that film.
A
Amaris
Guest
In no particular order, though the ones at the top are obviously ones I like so much I remembered them first:
It's A Wonderful Life
White Christmas
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Home Alone
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
A Muppet Christmas Carol
Scrooged
The Polar Express
A Christmas Carol (TNT/Patrick Stewart)
Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer (Rankin/Bass 1964)
The Lemon Drop Kid
Mr. Kreuger's Christmas (Watch this. It's Jimmy Stewart and it's beautiful.)
The Santa Claus
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (1966/Boris Karloff)
It's A Wonderful Life
White Christmas
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Home Alone
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
A Muppet Christmas Carol
Scrooged
The Polar Express
A Christmas Carol (TNT/Patrick Stewart)
Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer (Rankin/Bass 1964)
The Lemon Drop Kid
Mr. Kreuger's Christmas (Watch this. It's Jimmy Stewart and it's beautiful.)
The Santa Claus
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (1966/Boris Karloff)
I made a point of watching Where Eagles Dare last Christmas!
Die Hard is my favourite Christmas film though, and Lethal Weapon and Batman Returns are good, and obviously OHMSS is just awesome.
I tend to think of Ghostbusters as a Christmas film for the same reasons.
One Christmas movie that I'm on the fence about, since there were parts that definitely needed to re-written in "Santa Claus: The Movie" (1985). The movie was produced by the Salkinds, the same producers who produced Superman 1, 2, 3, Supergirl and the Superboy TV series. With SCTM I find that, while the parts set in the past and the part with the boy and girl were good, the storyline with the girl's uncle who was head of a big Toy company that was under investigation by the uS Senate, and Patch (played by Dudley Moore) joining forces with the guy to convince Santa that Patch is the guy for the job of Santa's right-hand man, really needed to be re-written. Sorry, once the movie hits that part (which is really the second part that takes place in New York in the mid-1980's for the modern era portion of the story, so that part of the movie is really dated, whereas the first part is very European in feel and I don't find is all that dated), it just falls off the rails and the only redeeming part after that is Sheena Easton's song over the credits "It's Christmas All Over THe World Tonight"
That's right, Die Hard is technically a Christmas movie, isn't it? 
It's A Wonderful Life is the easy choice. I'm trying to think of something more interesting but most Christmas movies are so campy.
Christmas Vacation I guess. At least it doesn't try to be annoyingly heartwarming.
It's A Wonderful Life is the easy choice. I'm trying to think of something more interesting but most Christmas movies are so campy.
Christmas Vacation I guess. At least it doesn't try to be annoyingly heartwarming.
Top three, although not necessarily in order:
White Christmas,
The Bishop's Wife, and
The Grinch.
White Christmas,
The Bishop's Wife, and
The Grinch.
Well, the title has Christmas in it. it's even a play on the classic Night Before Christmas poem. It features Halloween themed characters in leading roles, but it takes place on or about Christmas, has Christmas characters in it as well, and the plot centers around hijacking Christmas, not unlike the Grinch. My opinion is that it's a Christmas movie starring Halloween Characters .
It's a Wonderful Life.
Elf.
The Santa Clause (1st one).
Elf.
The Santa Clause (1st one).
Remember the Night with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck was very good. I hadn't even heard of it until a couple of years ago.
"Miracle on 34th Street", 1994 version, mostly because Sir Richard was the perfect Santa Claus.
"Little Lord Fauntleroy", BBC version with Sir Alec Guinness, Connie Booth and (in a minor role) Patrick Stewart has been a Christmas tradition on German television ever since I can remember.
"It's a wonderful Life", for obvious reasons.
"Elf", for its mixture of sarcasm and proper Christmas spirit.
"Love Actually", same here, and it's one of my favorite movies, period.
"Santa Claus: The Movie", because I'm such a Santa fan, the set of Santa's castle with all the wood is a nice contrast to how it's depicted in other movies (makes it feel more real, actually), and of course, John Lithgow's villain is wonderfully over-acted.
These are the movies that I watch every year to get ready for Christmas. I still keep discovering other Christmas movies, and I'm actually actively looking for Santa movies. It's research, I'm working on something.
"Little Lord Fauntleroy", BBC version with Sir Alec Guinness, Connie Booth and (in a minor role) Patrick Stewart has been a Christmas tradition on German television ever since I can remember.
"It's a wonderful Life", for obvious reasons.
"Elf", for its mixture of sarcasm and proper Christmas spirit.
"Love Actually", same here, and it's one of my favorite movies, period.
"Santa Claus: The Movie", because I'm such a Santa fan, the set of Santa's castle with all the wood is a nice contrast to how it's depicted in other movies (makes it feel more real, actually), and of course, John Lithgow's villain is wonderfully over-acted.
These are the movies that I watch every year to get ready for Christmas. I still keep discovering other Christmas movies, and I'm actually actively looking for Santa movies. It's research, I'm working on something.
