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.

Follow @thefilmagazine on X (Twitter).

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

Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Director: Tim Burton
Screenwriter: Caroline Thompson
Starring: Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest, Anthony Michael Hall, Kathy Baker, Alan Arkin, Vincent Price

The realisation that it has been thirty years since Edward Scissorhands’ first release is indeed staggering. Back when Tim Burton was the unofficial king of all things gothic, his 1990 film was a must-watch for all teenage girls, especially those who could identify with being outcasts or being a part of outcasted subcultures. Generations have passed since then however, and in changing times, as music has evolved from The Cure and Nirvana into less brooding alternatives, and young people have sought solace from increasingly volatile real world politics through the colourful fantasy of superhero cinema and video games; does Edward Scissorhands remain the fresh serving of alternative entertainment it once was, or is it a relic of a laughable by-gone era? Perhaps just as importantly, does anyone even care about Tim Burton anymore?

Since the day it first hit cinema screens, Edward Scissorhands has time and time again been described as a modern day fairy tale, and indeed the plot strikes a resemblance to tales of yore such as Brothers Grimm’s “Hans my Hedgehog” and Gabrielle-Suzanne de Barbot Villeneuve’s “Beauty and the Beast”. It could also be interpreted as a modern update of the Frankenstein story. Yet, amongst this flurry of comparisons, Burton’s story remains quintessentially unique. It is, after all, a simple yet curious tale about where snow comes from.

The titular Edward (Johnny Depp in perhaps his second most iconic role behind that of Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean) is a man who was created by an Inventor (Vincent Price) in a mansion overlooking a pastel-coloured suburban haven. The elderly Inventor raised Edward to be a genteel and sweet man, but died before finishing him, leaving Edward with a set of huge razor-sharp scissors for hands. In Edward Scissorhands, Edward remains alone and incomplete in the mansion until (of all things) an Avon Representative, Peg Boggs (Dianne Wiest), comes knocking on the door. Overwhelmed with compassion at the sight of the pale and scarred Edward, Peg decides to take the awkward and unusual man down to the suburban haven below in the hope of forging a better life for him. Within this epitome of late 20th century Middle America, Edward seems to discover a new found love and acceptance as he becomes a figure of curiosity and inspiration through his unassuming character and moreso through his creative (and useful) talent channelled through his scissor-hands. But just as soon as Edward and his hands become an object of adoration and praise, he is transformed into a figure of fear and revulsion. Although his scissor-hands are a source of beauty, they bear the constant danger of damaging the things and people around him.

By no means is Edward Scissorhands the beginning of director Tim Burton’s journey as an auteur; our King of the Goths has directed movies and shorts with his quirky visual style and weirdness since the 70s. This particular film is most definitely one of the most important entries in his oeuvre however, easily being one of the most cherished of his works. Scissorhands increased Tim Burton’s appeal, as it helped to define key factors that have ensured the continuing popularity of the Burton “brand”. We had a continuation of the casting of Winona Ryder following her star turn in Beetlejuice, helping to establish her as the edgy leading lady of the era, and Danny Elfman was again chosen as musical composer, resulting in a haunting score that is so characteristic of Burton’s work that any Burton film would be incomplete without the composer’s influence. It is also the beginning of Burton’s partnership with Johnny Depp, which has spanned to this very day. Yet, amongst the tried and tested tropes that are oh so typical of a successful Burton directed piece, it is the wholly unique qualities of Edward Scissorhands that make it a stand-out release in the director’s filmography. Out of a body of work defined largely by its visually driven and stylistic directorial intent, Edward Scissorhands rises up with a very clear and loud message.

Just like many Burton films, Edward Scissorhands dances the borderline between the ordinary and fantasy – a reality very much like our own is presented, but one into which a little magic bleeds. With a career shaped within animation, Burton makes full use of a movie’s aesthetics to create its internal universe, and Edward Scissorhands is no exception to this with its day and night duality of the gothic mansion (which wouldn’t be out of place in a 1930s Universal Pictures Horror) and the vivid yet bland architecture of the surrounding suburbia. Overall, the design is very much an over-exaggeration, and initially it would be easy to worry that the film would be a very cartoonish affair. However, the appropriate amount of whimsy is achieved, which can be attributed to Edward Scissorhands’ astute observation of human character.

Burton’s thorough understanding of human behaviour means that Scissorhands manages to encapsulate the deep fantasies found within a teenage girl’s heart: that is the innate desire to be adored. Through High Schooler Kim (Winona Ryder) – Peg’s daughter – does many a young girl’s greatest desire come true as she becomes the subject of Edward’s devotion. In a world of mediocrity, she wins the affections of the most incredible being that she will ever know in her entire life. The love between Edward and Kim is, as perhaps should be expected given their on-screen age, very much adolescent – upon repeated watches you do question what caused Edward to fall so hard for Kim; the reasoning is so thin it’s almost a plot discrepancy. Even so, it’s a tale as old as old as time – to be touched by greatness so as to become great yourself – and what becomes clearer and more greatly appreciated from Edward Scissorhands’ world of deadly accurate caricatures of human life is the story that indeed remains relevant thirty years on from its first release.

Whether or not we include romance and magic in the analysis of Edward Scissorhands, it remains quite clear that this is a film that is essentially about being “different”. It’s an excellent piece of satire with regards to late 1980s Middle Class America – consumerist, shallow and utterly devoid of meaning – and of course all the familiar faces of the era are present in glorious exaggerated form (Alan Arkin as Peg’s husband Bill is very much the typical not-quite-present, half-hearted father figure; Anthony Michael Hall manages to break his high school geek type-casting as the villainous and boorish Jim; Kathy Baker steals the show as the eternally bored housewife, always overly eager for adultery; even Peg fits a not-so-flattering role – she has the noblest intentions towards Edward but is still deeply affected by peer pressure and consequently some of her decisions are not in Edward’s best interests), but woven into its every piece of construction is the thought to present what it’s like to feel and/or be different. As Sara Ann of The Mighty suggests, Edward Scissorhands is a film about disability.

“Edward tries to succeed and fit in, but he finds himself trapped by numerous barriers and challenges.”

Like so many of those tone deaf social media posts in which a person living with a disability is hailed as an “inspiration”, Edward is marvelled at like a museum exhibit (or even a sideshow) and is even fetishised by the townswomen. He is failed in his disability.

Many of the microaggressions are genuinely saddening, and the sorrow furrows deeper when we realise their presence in our own world. Edward’s talents are constantly used (and even abused at some points), with his exceptional hedge trimming, dog grooming and hair styling going largely unpaid for – and then the real kicker is that he’s rejected the financial assistance he needs to start his own legitimate business. We take a journey of frustration, witnessing the lack of real accommodation for Edward’s needs – despite the Boggs’ attempts at inclusion, it’s clear Edward’s stay with them is not comfortable for him. Stand out moments are Edward’s saga with the water bed that offers him no restful sleep (remember, razor sharp hands), and Bill offering him a whisky (after about two minutes of listening to Edward failing to take a drink does he remember to offer him a straw). Then, the tide turns against Edward as he becomes feared and loathed – a whole section of academia can be dedicated to humanity’s treatment of, and the media’s depictions of, people with disabilities, in which physical disabilities are often equated with having a poor character or, worse, with being outright evil. As Tim Burton trashes this harmful stereotype, his decision to display Edward’s fear of the police still hits hard today with the sobering knowledge of the judicial system’s treatment of those with mental health issues (an article from The Washington Post reported that the incidences of mental illness in those executed on death row is much higher than that of the general public).

In being able to articulate these extremely serious and legitimate parallels with real life, Edward Scissorhands really is Tim Burton’s filmmaking triumph, with this now thirty year old film truly establishing the director as one of Hollywood’s most iconic filmmakers. Not only does Burton provide the perfect escapism with this movie’s magic, but he advocates for the dignity and the intrinsic value of all human life. Just because it’s not evident to our prejudiced eyes, it doesn’t mean it’s not there – surely Edward being the one responsible for the Christmas snow is proof enough.

20/24

Recommended for you: Tim Burton Movies Ranked

It was the sweep of Pete Wentz’s dark fringe and the bright orange hues of Hayley Williams’ ever-changing hairstyles. It was the sharp, skin-tingling opening note of “Welcome to the Black Parade” and Gerard Way’s powerful, melodic voice. It was ruining your hair with every different colour of Manic Panic hair dye, wearing an exclusive uniform of black skinny jeans, converse and band t-shirts, and spending way too much time on Myspace. It was extremely over-eyelinered eyes and lip piercings we grew to regret. It was wallpapering our bedrooms with Kerrang band posters and crying actual tears when Fall Out Boy announced their split in 2010 (yeah, we got them back, but it’s not the same).

Although defined primarily through fashion and music, when the local venues were fresh out of touring bands, emo kids had to find alternative ways to entertain themselves. For many, this entertainment came in the form of movies – but not just any movies. To be accepted into the emo-canon, acceptable cinema had to meet specific criteria. Emo movies had to be dark and emotional while also supplying us with a rockin’ soundtrack. Pained, awkwardly misunderstood protagonists were a must, and mythical beings were a welcomed sight—as long as they were skinny, fashionable or members of the living dead.

Film is the lesser explored medium of the emo aesthetic. Still, given that we are currently living in a world without live music, there is no better time to journey back to the era of the emo kid and revisit the movies they all once loved. This is Panic! at the Movies – An Emo Top 10 Watchlist.

Fellow emos unite in the comments, and be sure to follow us on Twitter for more articles like this one.

1. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Becoming a The Nightmare Before Christmas super-fan was an unquestionable emo requirement. Due to the Pumpkin King’s flair for dramatics, fashionable attire and melancholic feelings of isolation, emo kids adopted Skellington as their unofficial mascot. His slender image was everywhere, appearing on almost every desirable emo accessory, including bags, clothes, shoes, make-up, note-pads and bed sheets.

Coming from the mind of Tim Burton, The Nightmare Before Christmas celebrates every theme the notoriously spooky director is famed for. Jack Skellington is the king of Halloween Town, a place dedicated to celebrating monsters and all things dark and creepy. After becoming disillusioned with the idea of existing to scare people, Skellington discovers Christmas Town, a place dedicated to bringing joy and celebrating the cosy happiness of Yuletide. Excited by his discovery, Skellington tries to share it with the residents of Halloween Town. However, they grossly misunderstand the festive holiday and do not share Skellington’s desire to celebrate it. Skellington kidnaps and steals the role of ‘Sandy Claus’ for himself, delivering monstrous presents to the children of Christmas Town. Their ensuing horror and fear reignite Skellington’s forgotten passion for Halloween and reminds him of who he is and why he adores all things spooky.

Burton packaged a hauntingly catchy score and eerily designed characters into an animated children’s movie while fusing the radically opposing genre tropes of horror and musicals and the mismatched themes of Halloween and Christmas. The conflicting nature of his subject matter created a whimsical journey of existential dread. It birthed an affinity for dark and drab aesthetics, twisted humour, and ironic performance in every emo kid who carried Jack’s slender image around with them.

*See also Coraline and The Corpse Bride

Recommended for you: Tim Burton Movies Ranked

2. Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Directed by Karyn Kusama and written by Diablo Cody, Jennifer’s Body was a delectable addition into the canon of teenage slasher movies.

It experiments with both horror and comedy, creating a narrative that is essentially Mean Girls meets Nightmare on Elm Street. The film seduced emo kids with its honest portrayal of puberty and high school worries alongside a sexy depiction of a teenage girl turned succubus, brutally murdering a slew of horny teenage boys. It also paid homage to the greatest emo bands of the time with its remarkable soundtrack, featuring such iconic bands as Panic! At the Disco, Cute Is What We Aim For and All Time Low. Plus, Jennifer has a poster of Fall Out Boy above her bed, so you know she gets it.

At the time of its release, Jennifer’s Body was marketed to straight teenage boys and rested heavily on Megan Fox’s undeniable attractiveness to lure in the lads. Yet, what exists underneath the sex appeal is far more exciting and intelligent than anybody cared to notice at the time.

Jennifer’s Body is a feminist revenge narrative which demonises rape culture and paints a scarily truthful depiction of the kind of threats facing girls in high school. Cody brilliantly captures the flavour of conversations teenage girls have with one another, which, although cheesy and endlessly quotable, are used to punch up rather than down. Both female protagonists were much more than their recognisable roles of the ‘pretty girl’ and the ‘nerdy girl’, and got the room to explore their layered personalities and developing sexualities. The world we live in now is yearning for engaging female-driven narratives, so it’s disappointing that Jennifer’s Body wasn’t given the recognition it deserved.

Megan Fox as Jennifer is perhaps one of the most spot-on examples of casting we have. Her character is used as a virginal sacrifice by a group of unsuccessful rockers to further their career, a narrative which is shockingly familiar to Fox’s own experiences with Transformers director, Michael Bay. Fox is beyond outstanding as Jennifer. She delivers brilliantly nuanced, airhead one-liners such as ‘I’m not killing people, I’m killing boys’ and chilling satanic horror in her portrayal of a stunning, murderous demon.

Jennifer’s Body is an essential rewatch and endlessly deserving of your reconsideration. 

Recommended for you: Nightmare on Elm Street Movies Ranked

In this list, we’re counting down every film from this truly unique director’s filmography and ranking them from worst to best, so put on your best striped apparel, muss up your hair and accompany me in a long and elaborate tracking shot into the Burton-verse…

19. Planet of the Apes (2001)

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Roth, Michael Clarke Duncan, Paul Giamatti

Plot: An astronaut crashes on a planet where apes have out-evolved and enslaved humanity. He befriends a chimp who has become a lonely outsider by protesting the inhumane treatment of the subjugated humans. The two begin to organise a rebellion…

The poster-child for when Burton gets it wrong, Planet of the Apes is pretty good to look at (which Burton movie isn’t?) but it’s completely soulless and almost impossible to engage with in any meaningful way – the main thing that has allowed the original Planet of the Apes to age so well is its wealth of ideas and the filmmakers’ abilities to give them room to breathe. Despite being more action-packed and significantly pacier, Burton’s take feels rushed and confused, and very little stays with you beyond Rick Baker’s flawless makeup effects and the best efforts of Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Roth. The bottom line is that it’s boring; the only Burton feature you could really level that criticism at.

Recommended for you: 10 of the Worst Remakes/Reboots

18. Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Starring: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Mia Wasikowska, Anne Hathaway, Stephen Fry

Plot: Alice Kingsleigh, whose determination to retain her independence has made her a lonely outsider in Victorian high society, returns to Wonderland having forgotten her childhood adventure. There she finds the fantastical realm is a shadow of its former foolish glory.

Who else thought that this would be perfect material for Burton?

The portions that faithfully recreate Lewis Carroll’s endearing nonsense are good, but sadly most of this is confined to brief flashbacks and instead we’re left with a new story that for some reason is trying to turn Alice into a fantasy epic. Alice isn’t The Lord of the Rings. It’s not even Narnia. Nor should it be.

Burton gets bogged down in clunky exposition and portentous talk of prophecy and destiny, and the world, while admittedly colourful, feels too fake even for a dreamland. This film makes it really easy to miss the days when Burton played in big, ambitious movie sets rather than in front of a greenscreen.

Mia Wasikowska is admittedly a great Alice, equal parts bewildered and strong-willed, and Stephen Fry makes a perfect smug Cheshire Cat, but everyone else in the cast is just treading water.

17. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

Starring: Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, David Kelly, Helena Bonham Carter, Noah Taylor

Plot: Dirt poor but positive young Charlie Bucket finds a golden ticket that grants him a tour of the reclusive, lonely outsider Willy Wonka’s weird and wonderful chocolate factory.

Maybe Burton should leave the adaptations well alone.

The famously distinctive director never seems as comfortable bringing someone else’s established world to life, even if he’s coming at it as a fan. No-one’s denying that this is a more faithful adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book than the Gene Wilder movie, or that Burton’s visual flare and strange Anglo-American neverwhere movie world makes an impression, but the movie references peppered throughout are a really weird grab-bag, the borderline colonialist tone of some of the fantasy sequences leave a bad taste and Depp’s take on Wonka with daddy issues is just plain irritating to spend any length of time with.

Can you believe they actually trained squirrels to shell nuts on camera?

Recommended for you: Original vs Remake: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory vs Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

16. Dark Shadows (2012)

Starring: Johnny Depp, Eva Green, Michelle Pfeiffer, Chloe Grace Moretz, Helena Bonham Carter

Plot: Centuries-old vampire Barnabas Collins awakens in the 1970s to restore his descendants’ former glory and seek revenge on the witch who cursed him, but can this family of lonely outsiders find their place in the world again?

Johnny Depp doing a funny voice in a wig and makeup? Check. Gothic sensibility? Check. Comedy of awkwardness? Check. This represents mid-to-low level Burton, the kind of thing he could make in his sleep: perfectly watchable and by no means inept but offering very little that’ll stay with you. Okay, it’s got a sex-fight-scene between Depp’s vampire and Eva Green’s witch, and there’s also some pretty good effects work as the aforementioned witch is losing her powers and seems to fracture like pottery. But… elsewhere it’s just oral sex jokes that are borderline inappropriate for the film’s certification and Depp pulling faces.

10. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

Although hugely popular, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has only made number 10 on this list. It is a bright Burtonesque retelling of a children’s classic, and although it may not quite live up to the original, Burton has certainly left his mark on this one. His imagination truly came to life inside the chocolate factory, as it is a stunning setting for this story. To top it all off Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Willy Wonka is mesmerizing, therefore it simply had to make it onto this list.

9. Mars Attacks (1996)

Mars Attacks was a little step away from the norm for Tim Burton. Although it was truly weird in nature, it was much more colourful than what we usually see from the director. The star studded, sci-fi cult film was something other than the dark Gothic tales that Burton usually brings to the table, but it worked none the less, and as always you can clearly see that it is a Tim Burton creation.

8. Corpse Bride (2005)

Corpse Bride was Burton going back to what Burton does best. Where this may not quite be Nightmare Before Christmas, it does show off Burton’s artistic talent and the wonders he can do with stop motion animation. Corpse Bride is Burton going back to his routes, creating beautiful, artistic characters from scratch, and putting them into a fun, heartfelt story that the viewer can completely engage with. This film completely demonstrates Burton as an artist in the more typical sense, reaffirming that his talents go further than his typical role as director.

7. Sleepy Hollow (1999)

Sleepy Hollow is a Tim Burton film that I feel often slips under the radar, and yet it is one of my personal favourites of his. While still being clearly stamped with Burton’s style (as all of his films are), Sleepy Hollow has more of a traditional Gothic element to it. It is bringing to life one of the most famous horror stories of all time, and while it is quite scary at times, it also has a sense of humour, and Johnny Depp’s Ichabod Crane is an awkward and sensitive yet brave character that you can’t help but love.

6. Batman (1989)

This was the first film of the Batman reboot, and Burton basically reinvented the caped crusader. Instead of the cheesy and over the top camp Batman that we knew from the 1970’s, this was a whole new and much darker look for Gotham City. While this was still quite colourful compared to the second installment in the series, also directed by Burton, it was a far cry from the grey and yellow spandex that we had grown to recognise.

Live-Action Batman Movies Ranked

5. Beetlejuice (1988)

Weird, wonderful, creepy and beautiful, Beetlejuice has become iconic when it comes to Tim Burton films, and to cult classics for that matter. If there was a film to sum up the style of Tim Burton it would be Beetlejuice. It is one of the few films on our list that does not star Johnny Depp, but with a performance like that from Michael Keaton who cares? Beetlejuice used to terrify me as a child and yet I loved it all the same.

4. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

If anyone was going to bring this Gothic stage musical to life and do it any sort of justice it had to be Tim Burton. Sweeney Todd is probably one of Burton’s most popular films and it is by far one of his best. Along with staples to his films, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, he gathered together an all-star cast to make this film a triumph. Yes, Depp’s London accent maybe questionable and yes most of the cast are not the great at singing, but in the end the film is so good that these are just minor facts that are easily overlooked.

Every Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Song Ranked

3. Ed Wood (1994)

Ed Wood is probably Burton’s most underrated film, but in my opinion it is some of his best work. It is a film about film-making, based on the life of director Ed Wood and how he was dubbed ‘the worst director of all time’ for making Plan 9 From Outer Space. The entire film is shot in black and white, a bold style choice considering the time it was released. Johnny Depp plays the eccentric, cross dressing, character to full Johnny Depp potential, making this an outstanding film.

2. Batman Returns (1992)

Batman Returns is quite possibly the best of the Batman series from the early 90’s. Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman is sexy and exactly how Catwoman should be, and Burton’s vision for the portrayal of The Penguin is close to perfect. The film is dark and Gothic and is clearly a Burton film in the way it looks, but it doesn’t lose the fact that it is a comic book film, and the meshing of the two styles gives us number 2 on our list.

1. Edward Scissorhands (1990)

I have to admit that I may have been a little biased when picking Burton’s 1990 film Edward Scissorhands as the number one on this list as it is one of my favourite films of all time. However, I do believe that it is Tim Burton’s greatest creation. It is heartwarming and heartbreaking, weird and wonderful, with a complete fairytale feel to it. Edward is a character that you can fall in love with. Not only are the characters interesting, and the story compelling, the entire film looks beautiful, and it is in completely the style of Burton, making it the number one Tim Burton film.

Edward Scissorhands Review