I have never seen It's A Wonderful Life or either version of Miracle on 34th Street. Nothing against them. I have just never caught them at a time where the film was beginning or about to begin. My list: 01. A Christmas Carol (1950 version with Alastair Sim- called Scrooge in the UK.) 02. A Christmas Story 03. Christmas Vacation 04. A Christmas Carol (1980's version with George C. Scott) 05. Bad Santa
1. Die Hard 2. A Christmas Story 3. Elf 4. Bad Santa 5. Home Alone Honorable mentions: Gremlins, Christmas Vacation, A Charlie Brown Christmas. And maybe in the next few days I get to finally watch It's a Wonderful Life...
1. Scrooge (1970) The Albert Finney musical is the best of all the A Christmas Carol films with the Bill Murray version being the worst. I love the songs, the dances, the sets, everything about this film is great! 2. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) The Rankin-Bass stop-motion is a Christmas must watch tradition. This was the first film that gave me as a child a true sense of wonder about Santa Claus who up until then was an unknown creepy character in my young mind. Love it! 3. The Santa Clause (1994) Tim Allen's best film ever and one of the funniest Christmas movies ever made. It became an instant classic (too bad the 2 sequels were way inferior!). 4. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) Tim Burton mixed everybody's favorite holidays, Halloween & Christmas, and the result is a hybrid that surprisingly worked! Thank you, thank you! 5. Home Alone (1990) Where's Kevin?! Christmas is as a big character in this film as Macauly Culkin and the film delivers in the fun department even in the dialogue. Hmm...3 out 5 movies in my list are films from the 90s...and I always thought the 90s sucked! Maybe I was wrong.
Panchy, have you seen the 1950 version of A Christmas Carol? The screenplay writer and director took some liberties with Dickens' story and added to it with a few minor changes. A lot of critics consider it the best of the many versions of that story.