A reader question:
Muffy, I have a two part question:
1. What are readers' favourite Christmas movies?
2. Is Die Hard a Christmas movie, or just a movie that takes place around Christmas?
Happy Holidays from ______,
Sunday, December 14, 2025
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I don’t have a favorite Christmas movie. And die hard is a movie I wouldn’t watch at Christmas or any other time of year.
ReplyDeleteAppreciate this poster's festive holiday spirit!
Delete(Also, Home Alone and The Muppet Christmas Carol.)
Not only is Die Hard a Christmas movie, Die Hard 2 is also a Christmas movie.
ReplyDeleteHoliday Inn is not specifically a Christmas movie. It is however a movie that we always watched on Christmas while growing up.
ReplyDeleteMiracle On 34th Street, A Christmas Story, The Santa Clause. And it’s not Christmas until I see Hans Gruber fall off the Nakatomi Tower. PS don’t forget to leave Twinkies, cigarettes, lighter and flip flops for John McClain on Christmas Eve!
ReplyDeleteThe Bishop’s Wife.
ReplyDeleteChristmas movie criteria — https://reeltoreelmovies.com/2020/12/23/what-makes-a-christmas-movie/
ReplyDeleteHaving resolved this amusing but tiresome debate, Prancer is a super Christmas movie. I highly commend it.
The Great Escape. Not Christmas without Steve McQueen!
ReplyDeleteDie Hard (1 and 2), Christmas in Connecticut, Bishop's Wife, and both versions of Miracle on 34th Street. Lately Hallmark and Netflix have had a few fun ones, like Most Wonderful Time of the Year with some classic Henry Winkler and A Merry Little Ex-Mas with Alicia Silverstone, some great comedy. Oh What Fun was so so. Michelle Pfeiffer was good; the rest, not so much.
ReplyDeleteI had forgotten about Christmas and Connecticut. Excellent movie.
DeleteI truly do not understand the fascination with die hard. Yuck
DeleteThis should cover it for you - A Christmas Carol with Reginald Owens - The Holdovers with Paul Giamatti and of course Christmas Vacation
ReplyDeleteBesides the obvious serious ones, I like BAD SANTA (2003) with Billy Bob Thornton and Bernie Mac, and also BAD SANTA II (2016) with Thornton again, but this time with Christina "Madmen" Hendricks.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned, CHRISTMAS VACATION with Chevy Chase is a classic. (Amazingly, all the winter ice and snow covered neighborhood scenes were shot at the studio during the heat of a California summer.)
Little full, lotta sap. I like your choices, a lot. BTW I was anonymous at 5:39 and forgot my moniker.
DeleteFor those who do not get or like Die Hard, is it Die Hard in particular, rejecting the notion it is a Christmas movie, or rejecting violent movies in general? Or is it something else?
DeleteI’m the person who said that I don’t understand the fascination with Die Hard. I just think it’s a repulsive third rate movie. It’s not the violence. It’s not the idea that it’s a Christmas movie.
DeleteCharlie Brown Christmas. Just the score with the Music is Christmas enough. I'll always think of The Sound of Music as a movie that always coincided with Christmas.
ReplyDeleteWhite Christmas, The Family Stone, and the Whit Stillman preppy staple, Metropolitan.
ReplyDeleteMetropolitan by Whit Stillman. Funny, engaging story. And a nostalgic capture of Manhattan during Christmas week.
ReplyDeleteA Christmas Story, narrated and co-written by Jean Shepherd. Die Hard is a Christmas movie the same way Scarface, which also came out around Christmas, is a Christmas movie.
ReplyDeleteYes, agreed - kind of like the time when one Christmas I watched Lawrence of Arabia - so I guess that counts as a yuletide holiday film, too.
DeleteAnyway, I guess Die Hard (see Illness, Mental) really brings on the jolly Christmas spirit for some people. To each his own.
Easy! Filmed on location in Shrewsbury, England, the 1984 version of A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott, Susannah York, and David Warner (plus a cast of familiar British character actors). The most faithful adaptation of Dickens' original story and a feat for the eyes. And no.
ReplyDeleteKind Advent Regards,
Heinz-Ulrich
‘It’s a wonderful life’.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of the very sarcastic Half Man, Half Biscuit song ‘Every time a bell rings’.
Metropolitan - Whit Stillman
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorites is a forgotten film with Lee Remick, Angela Lansbury, and Polly Holliday. The Gift of Love, A Christmas Story. It always pulls at my heartstrings because it shows the deep love and connection many of us have with our Moms who may have passed on and aren't with us at Christmas time.
ReplyDeleteEvery time Hans Gruber falls from the Nakatomi Tower an angel gets their wings.
ReplyDeleteFun fact, my friend's company - Bevin Bells - made the iconic bell used in A Wonderful Life.
"Christmas in Connecticut" (Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, and Sydney Greenstreet) which is funny and homey and "Mrs Miniver" (Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon) which is tense. In the first, I relive memories of cheery youthful New England Christmases in a large old country home and my family. In the second, I think of my father's service in Europe in World War II.
ReplyDeleteJoyeux Noël
ReplyDeleteThe Bishops Wife, It happened on Fifth Avenue, Holiday Inn, White Christmas, Christmas in Connecticut (the original), Metropolitan, A Christmas Carol (the original with Alister Sims), Miracle on 34th Street, The Shop Around The Corner and, of course, It's A Wonderful Life.
ReplyDeleteThe Gathering, starring Ed Asner and Maureen Stapleton. Years ago I was lucky enough to find it on DVD. Now I see that TCM showed it recently. Always a Christmas favorite.
ReplyDelete