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

The Polar Express (2004)
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Screenwriters: Robert Zemeckis, William Broyles Jr.
Starring: Daryl Sabara, Tom Hanks, Eddie Deezen, Michael Jeter, Josh Hutcherson, Nona Gaye

Christmas movies are divisive. With twinkling lights, heaps of snow, grand orchestral scores, and child-like wonder found in most, it should be fairly obvious what makes a hit holiday flick. And yet people still seem to spend as much time arguing over whether Die Hard counts as a Christmas movie as they do actually watching it, and few festive films are quite as divisive as Robert Zemeckis’s 2004 animation The Polar Express.

Considered a seasonal classic by some and creepy nonsense by others, the film splits critical opinion and garners a 56% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. While many writers at the time called it ‘lifeless,’ ‘soulless,’ and ‘dead-eyed,’ acclaimed film critic Roger Ebert praised the story’s depth and tone. In particular, he pointed to Zemeckis’s faithfulness to the narrative and art style found in Chris van Allsburg’s 1985 book that served as the film’s inspiration.

This distinctive style is evident from the very start. The Polar Express opens on Christmas Eve as the Hero Boy (Daryl Sabara) lies awake in his bed. His belief in Santa has waned over the years but, as the voice-over narrator reveals, he longs to hear the ringing bells of the jolly gift-giver’s sleigh. Suddenly, he is jolted out of bed by a blaring train whistle outside his window. He throws a housecoat on over his pyjamas and tears down the stairs. A mighty locomotive is waiting in his quiet suburban street and the Conductor (Tom Hanks) invites the boy aboard the Polar Express heading to the North Pole on a tight schedule.

Sharing fantasy and adventure genre conventions, the film creates a sense of enchanting holiday spirit and keeps us on the edge of our seats throughout the train’s long journey north. We can’t help but marvel at the dancing waiters who pour steaming cups of hot chocolate for the young passengers. However, our stomachs might turn at the succession of POV shots that simulate a roller coaster ride as the train barrels towards a frozen lake.

The advanced CG animation brings each scene to life. The detailed rendering on the locomotive adds texture to the rusty steel exterior with a warm beam emanating from the headlight and rich smoke billowing from the chimney, overall giving the train a powerful presence onscreen. The animation’s surprising realism for its age adds real danger to the ice cracking underfoot and you can almost taste the hot cocoa for yourself.

Despite this, what most audiences have criticized since the film’s release is the creepiness of the animated characters. Their stiff, lifeless movements and waxy facial expressions are uncomfortable to watch. In an article for NPR, Alva Noë quotes author Lawrence Weschler who explains that when something is ‘almost completely human, the slightest variance, the 1 percent that’s not quite right’ makes it creepy. This phenomenon is often referred to as the ‘uncanny valley’ between obvious cartoonish animation and real life, and many critics and movie fans cite The Polar Express as their main example.

This uneasy effect may be in part due to the film’s unique production. It is the first movie filmed completely with motion-capture technology, which means that the actors (wearing tracking devices) performed each scene in a soundstage and the animators drew on top of their movements. Tom Hanks also famously portrayed five characters in the film, and audiences can see his body language and hear his distinctive voice in each one, which gives the characters an odd surreality.

However, the uncanny characters alone don’t make this film eerie; The Polar Express is otherwise peppered with disturbing narrative situations and imagery. At the start of the train’s journey to the North Pole, the Conductor gives a unique golden ticket to each child onboard. But one of the young passengers, the Hero Girl (Nona Gaye), loses her ticket and is escorted from the car. Fearing that she’ll be thrown off the train, the Hero Boy finds her ticket and chases after the Conductor, who appears to have taken the girl onto the roof. Outside in the wind and blowing snow, the boy meets a homeless man, Hobo (Hanks), who has set up camp with a small fire.

The sarcastic, wheezing traveller offers the boy a cup of sludgy Joe and baits him into revealing if he really believes in Santa Claus, which the child struggles to answer. The Hobo decides to lead him to the Hero Girl, but before departing, says, ‘Seeing is believing, am I right?’ When the boy asks if this is all a dream, the man replies, ‘You said it, kid, not me.’ This ambiguous existential conversation looms large over the entire narrative as we, along with the protagonist, are unsure what is real and what is fantasy. The scene is made all the more unsettling by the dark blizzard enveloping the train and the slow, minor-key score.

The story even toys with the existence of ghosts. Later, after the train crashes into the frozen lake and skids across the surface, the Hobo grabs the Hero Boy by his housecoat and saves him, the Conductor, and the Hero Girl from flying off the locomotive. When the boy looks back at his saviour, the man dissolves into snow flurries. This confirms that either this journey is a dream or the Hobo is a ghost. Afterwards, on their way back to the other passengers, the protagonists pass through an abandoned car that’s home to discarded toys. Nothing is creepier than hundreds of broken puppets and dolls hanging suspended in mid-air. But then, an Ebenezer Scrooge marionette comes to life and torments the young boy.

This small reference to another popular Yuletide fairytale points to the story’s overarching debt to “A Christmas Carol” and its myriad of film adaptations. Though most people can agree that The Polar Express is creepy on many levels, this is not unusual to the genre. Dickens’s story revolves around Scrooge’s encounters with the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. It also deals with morbid and disturbing themes and imagery, including Scrooge’s haunting by his former business partner, Jacob Marley, and the possible future death of Tiny Tim. (It’s also interesting to note that Zemeckis went on to direct an animated adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” for Disney five years later.) The Polar Express is simply carrying on a long-standing tradition of deep, dark, and sometimes creepy themes in holiday narratives.

In Dickens’s tale and many others, however, all representations of a happy Christmas are filled with warm light, good food, loved ones, laughter, and the magic of the holidays. So, it comes as a surprise when the Polar Express arrives at the North Pole and the creepiness continues. Soon after their arrival, the Hero Boy, Hero Girl, and their new friend, Billy the Lonely Boy (Jimmy Bennett), get lost in the streets and workshops of Santa’s village. It’s a ghost town with no one in sight and a muffled, distorted record plays crooner Christmas classics over the loud speaker. The children eventually happen upon a few elves deciding the fate of a ‘naughty’ boy who put gum in his sister’s hair. Strangely, instead of being cute or jolly, the elves have severe features, raspy voices, and thick Brooklyn accents. The whole scene is rather unnerving, and the magic of Christmas isn’t restored until our hero finally meets Santa Claus.

The problem with The Polar Express isn’t that the character animation is waxy and uncanny or that the film leans too heavily on disturbing themes. The filmmakers did their best with the technology at their disposal and the story provides a depth and uneasy whimsy that is characteristic of the genre and rewards an active audience. The problem is that the narrative arc spends too long in the liminal space between joy and fear, fantasy and reality, before any sort of resolution. By the time the warmth, light, joy, and magic of Christmas is restored at the end of the film, we’ve been pulled through so much darkness that the ending hardly feels satisfying and the creepiness lingers.

Zemeckis and his team should be commended for their experimental animation and for telling a unique story that pulls us in and won’t let go. Despite its critics, the film still inspires hundreds of people to flock to cinemas every year for a Christmas Eve screening. In the sugar-coated smorgasbord of holiday movies to choose from, this film stands out as a special story about what it means to believe in something, whether you can see it or not. But fair warning that it might give you nightmares. I, like most audiences, am still divided on whether that’s what Christmas is all about.

Score: 15/24

Written by Emily Nighman