It’s the hap-happiest season of all. We bring nature inside as we adorn our living spaces with seasonally appropriate trees, and we light up the longer nights with bright and colourful lights. Music from generations long since passed is re-played and re-contextualised, and centuries old iconography is re-evaluated and repurposed.

There’ll be parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting, and carolling out in the snow. If we’ve been good, we’ll receive gifts (thanks Santa!), and if we’re lucky we’ll eat so much food we can barely move. Almost certainly, we’ll watch a movie. From the Netflix Originals of the current era to the silver screen classics of wartime Hollywood, Christmastime movie watching doesn’t discriminate based on picture quality, colour or the lack thereof, acting powerhouses or barely trained actors – if it works, it works. And if it’s good, we’ll hold onto it forever.

In this Movie List from The Film Magazine, we’ve scoured the annals of Christmas movie history to bring you the very best of the best to watch this holiday season. These films are Christmas classics and beloved cult hits, some culturally significant and others often overlooked. These films are seasonal treats; two advent calendars worth of movie magic from the big-wigs in Hollywood and beyond.

Short films (those with a runtime of under one hour) will not be included here, nor will films that cross multiple seasons but feel like Christmas movies – sorry You’ve Got Mail and Bridget Jones’s Diary. Debatable Christmas movies like Gremlins have also been omitted because of their inclusion in our alternative list “10 Excellent Non-Christmas Films Set at Christmas“. Seasonal classic The Apartment has also been disqualified on the grounds that it covers Christmas and beyond, and is arguably more of a new year’s movie.

These are 50 Unmissable Christmas Movies as chosen by The Film Magazine team members. Entries by Mark Carnochan, Kieran Judge, Martha Lane, Sam Sewell-Peterson and Joseph Wade.

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1. Remember the Night (1940)

Golden Era stars Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray (who would go on to star in The Apartment) spark an unlikely romance when Stanwyck’s Lee Leander steals a bracelet from a jewellery store and MacMurray’s John “Jack” Sargent is assigned to prosecute her over the Christmas holidays.

One of the era’s many beloved studio romantic comedies, Remember the Night features all the elements that would come to define the genre while encompassing some screwball comedy and classic transatlantic accents. The tagline read “When good boy meets bad girl they remember the night”, and it’s likely you’ll remember this seasonal treat too. JW

2. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

Few things signal classic Hollywood Christmases like Jimmy Stewart, and 6 years before arguably his most memorable performance in the iconic Frank Capra Christmas movie It’s a Wonderful Life, he starred in a seasonal favourite that was just as beloved by critics, The Shop Around the Corner.

This holiday romance from Ernst Lubitsch (who also directed Heaven Can Wait) sees Stewart’s Alfred fall in love with his pen pal who, unbeknownst to him, is the colleague he most despises at his gift store job – You’ve Got Mail has got nothing on this. With some hearty moments and all of the circumstantial comedy of the best movies of the era, The Shop Around the Corner will make you laugh and fill your heart in that special way that only the best Christmas movies can. JW

3. Holiday Inn (1942)

Early sound pictures were revolutionised by famed tap dancer Fred Astaire, and by 1942 he was a certified movie musical megastar. In Mark Sandrich’s seasonal musical Holiday Inn, he teams with would-be Christmas icon and man with a voice as sooth as silk, Bing Crosby. The result is one of the most iconic and influential Christmas movies ever made.

The film’s outdated attitude towards race are cringe-inducing and inexcusable in a 21st century context (there’s a whole sequence featuring blackface), but its other dated sensibilities shine bright amongst more modern and commercial Christmas films; its wholesome aura, classic dance scenes, and era-defining songs making for an unmissable experience. To top it all, Bing Crosby sings “White Christmas” for the first time in this film, cementing it in history as a seasonal classic. JW

4. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

Widely acknowledged as one of the holiday season’s best-ever films, Vincente Minnelli (An American in Paris) illuminates his would-be wife Judy Garland in arguably her most established performance, bringing Christmas cheer to all without sacrificing any of the harsh realities facing the American people in the first half of the 20th century.

Featuring the original (and arguably the best) rendition of Christmas classic “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, and being anchored by some heartbreaking story elements, Meet Me In St. Louis maintains its power and relevance 80 years on. It offers a Christmas movie that will forever mark the height of its sub-genre, as well as the two filmmaking careers (of Minnelli and Garland) that helped to define the era. JW

Recommended for you: There’s No Place Like St. Louis at Christmas

5. Christmas in Connecticut (1945)

Remember the Night star Barbara Stanwyck is once again front and centre for a Golden Era Hollywood Christmas movie, this time playing a city magazine editor whose lies about being a perfect housewife are put to the test when her boss and a returning war hero invite themselves to her house.

This is screwball comedy with all the spirit of the festive season is as romantic as it is funny, and prominently features the shadows of World War II to gift the film a unique emotionality that has ensured it is rewatched year on year. JW

“Marley was dead: to begin with”. As Rizzo the Rat might say, spoiler alert! 

In December 1843, Charles Dickens published “A Christmas Carol” (unnecessary full title: “A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas”) and it was a hit. Each edition published quickly sold out and prompted Dickens himself to undertake hugely popular public readings during Yuletide in the following years right up until his death in 1870. An inevitable staple of the leadup to Christmas, Dickens’ timeless story has become one of the most frequently adapted titles for stage and screen in the English language.

This is the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a cruel, miserly and solitary businessman who despises charity, human warmth and empathy shown to others, especially during the festive season. To Scrooge, Christmas is “a humbug” and those who keep it and make merry, such as his impoverished clerk Bob Cratchit and kindly nephew Fred, are merely deluding themselves and others of the notion that we are kindly by nature. Following his usual 24th December dismissal of cheer and goodwill, Scrooge is visited the night before Christmas by three ghosts offering visions of his his past, present and future, and in so doing inspire lasting change in his outlook on life and his treatment of others.

If we considered every film, television special, miniseries and animation, we wouldn’t be done in time even for next Christmas, so we’ve limited our selection in this edition of Ranked to the most prominent film adaptations released theatrically. Based on creativity of the adaptation, critical reception and how each version evokes the spirit (pun intended) and message of Dickens’ work, this is The Film Magazine’s A Christmas Carol Films Ranked.

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9. Spirited (2022)

The second prominent contemporary reimagining of Charles Dickens’ supernatural fable appeared 34 years after Scrooged and is pretty shy on everything that appealed about Richard Donner’s film.

Advertising hotshot Clint Briggs (Ryan Reynolds) is the latest target for the Ghost of Christmas Present (Will Ferrell) to save from themselves, despite his soul being branded “irredeemable”.

If you’re going to quip about “all the other adaptations nobody asked for” in your film, you’ve really got to make sure yours delivers on its own terms. Spirited doesn’t.

New elements introduced in this version include the reason that the towering, hooded Christmas Yet to Come (voiced sporadically by Tracy Morgan) doesn’t talk is because he gets stage fright whenever it’s his line, and Christmas Past (Sunita Mani) has sex with the Scrooge stand-in because “it’s been a while” for her. Ha-ha.

“Now you’re going full Dickens on me?” Spirited ineffectually folds the Dickens story back in on itself and adds an unnecessary extra plot twist to it to stave off the boredom.

It’s also an original musical, for better and worse. You get one funny song (the so-bad-it’s-good bad cockney-accented Victorian musical number “Good Afternoon”) and one lovely one (a tender duet between Present and Octavia Spencer’s Kimberly, “The View from Here”), but generally the music sucks. At least the dance numbers are pretty energetic.

Spirited just doesn’t work on any compelling level, smothering the natural charisma of its two stars and Octavia Spencer, and dragging on its runtime to an annoying degree with witless humour and mostly lacklustre musicality.

8. Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (2022)

Netflix’s animated version of A Christmas Carol is actually a loose remake of the 1970 Albert Finney musical Scrooge, but this time starring an actor who can actually sing.

Jacob Marley’s wintry entrance scene and ominous warning to Scrooge is well done and easily the most imaginative sequence in the film, but all too often the visuals (particularly how the human characters are realised) seem more good-enough kids TV quality or overwhelmed by too many admittedly impressive environmental effects.

There are a couple of decent one-liners here, like Scrooge puzzling over the reality of his situation with “My dreams are never this… exciting” and commenting in surprise to the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come “You don’t speak? Your colleagues are really rather fond of speaking”.

The ghosts all receive pretty creative re-designs, with Marley (Jonathan Pryce) looking like a creature from Elsa’s ice palace in Frozen, Christmas Past (Olivia Colman) portrayed carrying a candle made entirely of wax, and Christmas Present (Trevor Dion Nicholas) looking and acting like Santa if he appeared as a guest on ‘Drag Race’.

Everyone knows Luke Evans can belt out showtunes in his sleep, and he equips himself admirably here, especially in a nice duet with Jesse Buckley, even if you’d struggle to hum along to many of these songs by the time the credits roll (except the two best ones lifted from the Finney film, “I Like Life” and “Thank You Very Much”).

The voice talent filling out the ensemble is impressive and little ones will probably quite like it because it’s colourful, not too scary and there’s a bit where a dog farts on Scrooge’s face. Scrooge: A Christmas Carol is just about passable, but you will want to watch a more inspired version of this timeless story in short order.

In this Movie List from The Film Magazine, we are counting down the 5 Best Christmas Films with Happy Endings; films that define our human and Christmas spirit.

Follow @thefilmagazine on Twitter.

1. It’s a Wonderful Life

It’s a Wonderful Life Review

Frank Capra’s 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life tells the story of George Bailey; an everyman from Bedford Falls who is contemplating suicide on Christmas Eve to overcome financial difficulties for his small buildings and loans company. The film is predominantly told in flashback as we see the totality of George’s life, from his being a youngster on the ice in winter-time through to him stood on a bridge staring into the abyss at Christmas. A guardian angel by the name of Clarence comes down to show George what a gift he has been to the people in the town, and shows him a dark alternative world that would have resulted had he never been born.

George learns that family and friends are perhaps the most important aspect of not just his but anybody’s life – as the card from Clarence notes ‘No man is a failure if he has friends’. The film’s climax at the Bailey household finds George redeemed and reborn, full of mirth and joy, as he is surrounded by his wife Mary (Donna Reed) and a town full of benevolent friends. The cathartic release of the film’s finale helps George to prioritise family above money, love above ambition; these lessons are universal and explain the annual appeal of the film. As they sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ in unison at film’s end, the message is clear that It’s a Wonderful Life is about friendship.

Much like George, the film gained a second chance in the 1970s when it was shown repeatedly on television in the United States; the message of unity through family and only knowing what you have once it’s gone speaks to us all, this masterpiece remaining iconic and beloved to filmgoers old and new year upon year.

Recommended for you: It’s a Wonderful Life – The Truest of Christmas Films

2. White Christmas

Directed by Michael Curtiz (Casablanca), White Christmas (based upon Irving Berlin’s hit single) stars Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye as Bob Wallace and Phil Davis – army buddies who post-WW2 go into showbusiness together. Over the Christmas holidays, they happen upon a holiday resort that is run by their former Major in command (Dean Jagger) and has fallen on hard times. With the help of sisters Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen they enlist their show to help the inn return to its former glory.

While Crosby does charm his way through the film, the star of the show is Kaye. As the buffoonish Davis, Kaye does wonders with a sidekick role and has the best dance number in “The Best Things Happen When You’re Dancing”. It’s feel-good filmmaking for the soul.

The ending is wonderful in that the whole platoon from the start of the film returns to pay homage and honour the service record of their former leader. All the soldiers appearing in uniform to respect their commander means more to him than anything else – a show of solidarity and brotherhood you could only find in the military. Then the film concludes with a rendition of the famous titular song by all the cast as snow descends upon the Vermont location. The magic of Hollywood.