Decide the best Christmas movie to watch this weekend with our interactive quiz
Share:
Using audience and critic scores taken from the movie rating websites Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB, we’ve ranked the best Christmas movies of all time - just in time for the big day. Top of the tree is a festive classic dating back to 1946 which scored highly with critics and audiences across both platforms. Jimmy Stewart’s iconic role as a failed businessman who wishes he had never been born doesn’t scream Christmas spirit at first glance.
But the intervention of his guardian angel ensured It’s A Wonderful Life became a timeless and heart warming Christmas classic that is still thrilling audiences today. According to Rotten Tomatoes, the movie is “the holiday classic to define all holiday classics” and “one of a handful of films worth an annual viewing”.
READ MORE: Cinema lists three main reasons Die Hard is a Christmas movie – and film fans agree. It was rated 94% “fresh” by critics and 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, and achieved a score of 8.6 out of 10 on IMDB. That’s the highest aggregate rating across both platforms.
Next in the rankings is beautifully hand-drawn feature-length animation Klaus, released in 2019, which tells the story of a postman who befriends a reclusive toymaker. Third on the list is The Holdovers, which was only released in January in the UK. It stars Paul Giamatti as a curmudgeonly teacher forced to babysit a handful of students over the Christmas break. He forms an unlikely bond with a brainy but damaged troublemaker and the school’s cook in a movie Rotten Tomatoes described as a “thought provoking dramedy for viewers seeking a dialogue-driven movie with a throwback feel”.
