11 Off-the-Wall Christmas Films Ranked & How to Watch Them
Tired of tramping the malls? In-laws getting on your nerves? Had too much eggnog and ready for some time on the couch? You’re in luck: There’s no shortage of holiday-themed movies to store, pop into your DVD player or stumble across while channel-surfing late-night cable.
And if you find yourself silently thinking, “Oh, no! Not again!” when commercials for Frosty, Rudolph or the Grinch start to air, you’re probably not alone. Perhaps you’re even in the mood to be scared out of your wits by a sorority stalker who makes Scrooge look positively merry! Whatever lights your tree, there’s something for every age group in these offerings.
Cowboy Christmas
November/December 2024
Saddle up for some Holiday Cowboy fun with movies, music and your fav Christmas episodes of classic Westerns.
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In this third film adaptation of a 1913 novel and a rare bad-guy role, John Wayne is part of a bank-robbing trio. Fleeing through the Arizona desert, they stumble upon a woman in an abandoned wagon who has just given birth. Before she dies, she extracts a promise that they will care for her son and see him to safety, and an unlikely journey begins.
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The Apartment
Holiday trappings and carols can’t mask the fact that Bud Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is abused at work and unlucky in love, leaving him understandably low on Christmas spirit. Yet after unwilling roles in the misadventures of his peers, ranging from adultery to suicide attempts, Bud takes a vital step toward reclaiming his dignity, as well as romance — ending on a note of hope with the new year.
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As a deep-in-debt bookie looking to raise the dough by setting up a fake charity for old ladies, Bob Hope’s comedic talents shine in this take on a Damon Runyon story. Will he pay off the gangster by Christmas? What do you think? Holiday carol “Silver Bells” made its debut in this film.
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It seems impossible, but Santa Claus has decided to retire … and the search for a successor leads him to cabbie Ernest P. Worrall (Jim Varney), a failed children’s program host, and a runaway teen, among a host of other memorable characters. When the jolly old elf lands in jail and his famous sack of gifts goes missing, it’s a race to restore things to normal before the clock chimes on Christmas Eve.
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Aliens visiting Earth in December could be forgiven for assuming that the true meaning of Christmas is frantic, last-minute shopping, especially after seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger’s desperate dash to snag a Turbo Man toy for his young son. Of course he should have paid more attention to the advancing calendar — but what parent hasn’t committed the same offense at least once?
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Black Christmas
Consider this tale an antidote to too much seasonal sweetness, as a psychopathic killer hides in the attic of a sorority house, where he terrifies and torments left-behind sisters with everything from obscene phone calls to murder. Didn’t they know there’s no place like home for the holidays?
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This Oscar-nominated supernatural comedy, about a witch (Kim Novak) who enchants her engaged neighbor (James Stewart) to fall in love with her, was originally a Broadway play and was also partly the inspiration for the television series Bewitched. It’s not usually the first movie to come to mind when considering Christmas flicks; however, it does begin with a witch cursing a phone on Christmas Eve, which brings these two characters together.
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Who doesn’t think of a hairdresser with scissors for hands when they remember Christmas is coming up? This offbeat Tim Burton romance starring peak 1990s stars Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp is a huge cult classic hit among Gen X’ers, and it takes place around Christmas. Remember when Edward carves an angelic ice sculpture modeled after Kim and the ice shavings are thrown into the air and fall like snow? Now that’s holiday romance. Sure, he cuts her afterward, but can you blame him? He has scissors for hands.
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Gremlins
Like Die Hard, this is one of those “Is that really a Christmas movie?” movies that is often up for debate. Well, debate no longer: We think it is! It takes place on Christmas, for one thing; for another, isn’t Gizmo a Christmas present? Talk about Christmas presents gone awry! 40 years ago, in 1984, this campy horror flick about tiny gremlins who spawn out of an adorable furry pet found in Chinatown was released in theaters to mixed reviews. How do these mischievous gremlins grow to full size so quickly and also immediately have an understanding of the English language as well as how to use human tools? How and why are they able to smoke cigarettes? No one knows, but it definitely belongs on this list of oddball holiday movies.
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1984 cult classic Night of the Comet checks all the boxes for a campy sci-fi classic. It stars Catherine Mary Stewart, Kelli Maroney and future Star Trek: Voyager commander Robert Beltran as two teenage sisters and a truck driver who find themselves some of the last people left alive when a comet evaporates most of the population and turns the rest into zombies. Cue the fun motorcycle rides on empty streets, exaggerated background music and leg warmers. If you’re gonna kill zombies, might as well do it in style. Plus, though it’s not technically a Christmas movie, it does take place around Christmas (just check out the abandoned city and mall’s Christmas decorations if you don’t believe us!) so it sort of counts.
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Die Hard
This one may be too mainstream to add here, but, being Die Hard fans, we felt it necessary to resolve the debate once and for all and announce that this epic 1988 Bruce Willis action film where Willis, as John McClane, saves a group of innocent bystanders who are taken hostage by terrorists during a Christmas party in Los Angeles is definitively a Christmas movie. That he saves his estranged wife and the rest of the partygoers all on his own is a Christmas miracle, is it not?
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Tell us, what would you add to this list?