20th Century Fox/New Line CinemaSon of a nutcracker! A list of the ‘ultimate Christmas movies’ has been compiled and Elf didn’t take the top prize.
I know, nobody’s more disappointed than I am but don’t worry, festive favourite Elf did slide into second place with ease – only just falling short of Home Alone‘s number one spot this Christmas.
If you’re sat there thinking, ‘what kind of cotton-headed ninny muggins came up with this ranking?’, I understand exactly where you’re coming from. But bear with me because it turns out there might just be a logical reason for it.
New Line CinemaMusic Magpie compiled the list in extensive detail, marking each film against 25 different categories to put an end to the ‘which film is the best Christmas film’ argument once and for all.
The company chose four key elements to decide each film’s ranking: the number of Christmas references throughout; the film’s financial performance; its critical acclaim; and its ability to create festive buzz.
In each of those categories were sub-categories, including: the number of Christmas songs in each film; the number of shots of festive outfits; and the number of times carol singers are shown throughout.
When all of these were taken into consideration for the films’ overall rankings, Home Alone was victorious. Because after all, what’s more Christmas-y than a young child getting abandoned by his family and then getting stalked by two evil burglars?
20th Century FoxRegardless, the film topped two of the four categories – festive buzz and financial performance – with the highest worldwide box office total at $936,442,849. It also has a Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 80%.
Elf came second, followed by Love Actually, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, and The Santa Clause, which completed the top five. The Nightmare Before Christmas took sixth place, followed by Arthur Christmas, Gremlins, The Polar Express, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.
Die Hard sits comfortably at number 11, answering the question of whether it’s a Christmas movie once and for all – although judging from this list, it’s not a very good one…
The Holiday came last, which is where I’m going to disagree with the list. In fact, I also disagree with It’s A Wonderful Life being placed so low down, and the fact that The Santa Clause is in the top five. And don’t even get me started on Scrooged not even being in the top 10.
20th Century FoxIn all honesty, I think whoever created this list sits on a throne of lies. Now if you’ll just excuse me while I go watch Elf for approximately the 472184th time.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).