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.
DeleteI agree Die Hard is not a great movie. I cannot recall any movies of that genre that were. However, it is fun and kinda stupid kitsch. For truly great cinema you will need to turn to classics like Caddyshack.
DeleteCorrect - "Hey, Smails, a hundred bucks says you'll miss that putt!"
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.
ReplyDeleteBoy - it took long enough for someone to mention White Christmas...
DeleteMetropolitan 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’.
Also ‘Wonderful life’ by Black and the marvellous, nostalgic video of Britain in the good old days.
DeleteMetropolitan - 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.
ReplyDeleteI love Christmas in Connecticut! The home is great and it's just a sweet movie. It's what got me hooked on Barbara Stanwyck movies.
DeleteJoyeux 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.
ReplyDeleteThe British film The Holly and the Ivy. Nostalgic black and white classic.
ReplyDeleteDiehard is about a disgruntled police officer who travels on Christmas determined to win back his ex-wife and gets into a truckload of trouble. Not only is Diehard a Christmas movie, its a HALLMARK Christmas movie.
ReplyDeleteTrading Places
ReplyDeleteRemembering this month Hans Gruber, activist, bond trader and beloved brother to Simon.
ReplyDeleteHans was killed in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve 1988, a victim of police brutality.
His death was never properly investigated.
Never forgotten....
How can someone be "never forgotten" that you have never heard of?
DeleteWait ... am I reading THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER here?
DeleteApparently people didn't get the joke. I did, and thought it was hilarious. "Welcome to the party pal!"
DeleteI got it. And loved it!
DeleteA Christmas Carol with Patrick Stewart. Known for Star Trek but also a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
ReplyDeleteI vote for The Thin Man starring William Powell.
ReplyDeleteThe House of the Wasp likes a Thin Man marathon on New Year's Eve, wearing bathrobes and enjoying a heavy (or all) Pinot Noir grower Champagne.
DeleteI vote for Gremlins and Lethal Weapon
ReplyDeleteYes, Die Hard! Also Ted Lasso episode - The Carol of the Bells.
ReplyDeleteWhite Christmas (fast foward through the minstrel number but watch the end when Vera Ellen does a backflip down the stairs!). Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer (Misfit Toys!), Christmas Story (don't bother me I'm thinking) and The Preacher's Wife original version. And Sound of Music is traditional.
ReplyDeleteIt’s A Wonderful Life. The original, remakes and other versions of Scrooge, A Christmas Carol.
ReplyDeleteThe Holdovers has definitively taken the top spot for me. Runner up: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (if only Connery had been in it).
ReplyDelete‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ for the revolving restaurant Piz Gloria at the top of Mürren. Very reasonably priced food at the time. A great place on a clear day, with fine views of the Jungfrau.
DeleteThe Muppet Christmas Carol and The Lion in Winter top our list.
ReplyDeleteLove Actually and The Gathering II and II
ReplyDeleteBill Nighy, always good, at his best.
Delete‘The Snowman’
ReplyDeleteChristmas in Connecticut!
ReplyDeleteBabes in Toyland (1934) Laurel and Hardy featuring the March of the Wooden Soldiers
ReplyDeleteDefinitely "Metropolitan", and "Home Alone". Never saw any film with Bruce Willis in it and don't plan to start.
ReplyDelete"A Child's Christmas in Wales" is a 1987 adaptation of Dylan Thomas's writing with Denholm Elliott as the grandfather-narrator. It's gorgeous, humorous, nostalgic, and full of charm. Amazon Prime offers it free of charge.
ReplyDelete*The House Without A Christmas Tree* : a CBS movie made for TV.
ReplyDelete*The Homecoming: A Walton's Christmas Story*: another CBS movie 'made for TV'
Both can be found on Youtube in their entirety
*Desk Set* with Tracy and Hepburn; not a formal Xmas movie but I watch it during the holidays.
*It Happened On 5th Avenue*, 1947