MovieMuse
Our ever expanding Yule Log of all of the Christmas themed or related movies that the team have seen, displayed in order from best to worst. You have Mat to thank for watching all the bad ones, so that you don’t have to!
You can find the full MovieViews review archive, containing almost 2000 films, here…
You can also see the MovieMuse team’s Top Ten Christmas films by checking out the YouTube video at the bottom of the page.
| Poster | Movie | Year | Comments | Rating | Reviewer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Die Hard 2 | 1990 | While it never reaches the balls-out heights of the original movie, Die Harder is more than just a cheap re-tread as Christmas killjoy terrorists this time take over an airport. | 7 | Gordon |
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Fatman | 2020 | Mel Gibson as a whiskey-swigging, gun-toting Santa being pursued by a hitman hired by a disgruntled 12 year kid. Definitely not for kids, but a lot of fun! | 7 | Gordon |
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This Christmas | 2007 | The Whitfield family gather for Christmas and each bring plenty of drama with them. Sarring Idris Elba as the black sheep and Chris Brown as the singer, it is hardly original or unexpected. But it is fun and has a great cast dance-off at the end. | 6 | Gordon |
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Black Christmas | 1974 | Despite some awful acting (from Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder in particular) and the film having aged quite badly, the original Christmas slasher is still an enjoyable thriller and its influence endures. | 6 | Gordon |
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How the Grinch Stole Christmas! | 1966 | 50 years on and the animation style has understandably dated, but it is a tremendously faithful representation of the book with some fun songs added for good measure. | 6 | Gordon |
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The Knight Before Christmas | 2019 | Josh Whitehouse is good value as a 14th century knight transported to modern times to fulfil a quest by Christmas Eve. Utterly predictable but above-average acting and some amusing 'fish out of water' scenes make it a perfectly watchable festive film. | 6 | Mat |
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The Christmas Chronicles 2 | 2020 | Again influenced by past Christmas movies but plundering almost every major family comedy and fantasy movie of the last 40 years for ideas too, the plot is a bit of a mess and there's some below-par CGI, but it is still a fairly enjoyable Christmas movie. | 6 | Mat |
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Christmas in Canaan | 2009 | This Hallmark production has several tear-jerking moments but is far from the usual sentimental Christmas fare, focusing on a friendship between two boys that crosses the racial divide in 1960s America, and is a heartwarming story with reasonable acting. | 6 | Mat |
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Christmas With The Coopers | 2015 | A stellar cast for pretty standard christmas-fare as a middle class American family air their dirty laundry over Christmas. However, it could have been so much more but for the trite and annoying voice over. | 6 | Gordon |
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Home Alone 2: Lost in New York | 1992 | Largely a retread of the first film in a new environment, the blend of Looney Tunes style violence and more heartwarming moments is odd but works about as well as it did in the original, though by the end you'll be sympathising with the hapless villains. | 6 | Mat |
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The Night Before | 2015 | A typical Seth Rogen "boys night out" comedy for the most part, but there are enough funny scenes to make it enjoyable and the many nods to well-known Christmas movies are cleverly done. | 6 | Mat |
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Happiest Season | 2020 | This Christmas-set LGBT twist on Meet the Parents is not particularly festive but the story is good, it features some great acting talent and there are just enough comedic moments to counteract the heavier relationship drama. | 6 | Mat |
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Anna and the Apocalypse | 2017 | Blending a zombie apocalypse movie with a musical comedy is certainly an original idea, the acting is decent and there are some funny scenes, but most of the musical numbers are unremarkable and unnecessary, breaking the flow of an otherwise fun film. | 6 | Mat |
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Christmas Eve | 2015 | The concept of several groups of strangers stuck in elevators is decent and some of the scenarios work well, but several story threads are not fully resolved and Patrick Stewart is disappointingly under-used. Marginally better than average. | 6 | Mat |
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Christmas in the Clouds | 2001 | The Native American aspect of the story is barely touched upon, but this is a good-natured comedy that relies mainly on mistaken identity situations for the humour with some entertaining characters. | 6 | Mat |
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El Camino Christmas | 2017 | The seasonal setting has little bearing on this black comedy set amidst a gas station hold-up, and while the plot is somewhat preposterous, it does have a decent ensemble cast with Tim Allen's performance being the best of the bunch. | 6 | Mat |
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The 12 Disasters of Christmas | 2012 | A doomsday event inspired by the 12 Days of Christmas isn't the worst idea for a disaster movie, and this does its best with a limited cast and a presumably miniscule special effects budget. Not quite as awful as anticipated. | 5 | Mat |
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National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation | 1989 | Incredibly dated by modern standards, this is very much a vehicle for Chevy Chase's antics and there isn’t much of a story to go with them, and they aren’t actually that funny either. A pale shadow of the original Vacation, which remains a classic. | 5 | Mat |
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A Christmoose Story (Midden in de Winternacht) | 2013 | A lonely boy meets a magical talking moose in this Dutch film whose story is vaguely reminscent of E.T. It suffers from the dubbed American voices and some mean-spirited characters but the animatronic moose is quite good and there are a few funny scenes | 5 | Mat |
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Window Wonderland | 2013 | The premise has potential but after an amusing opening, this reverts to the usual romantic festive fodder that Hallmark is famous for. Perfectly watchable if you know what to expect. | 5 | Mat |
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Santa Stole Our Dog | 2017 | The acting is poor at times and some of the SFX are terrible, but to be fair this is less patronising than the average kids Christmas movie and kudos to the producers for bringing Ed Asner in to play Santa. | 5 | Mat |
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Mercy Christmas | 2017 | A bizarre movie that takes the normal stress of cooking Christmas dinner and makes it all the more difficult by the main course being human beings! Low budget with limited acting, but still offers some original and humorous moments. | 5 | Mat |
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Daddy's Home 2 | 2017 | Entirely predictable and occasionally cringeworthy, this sequel offers more of the same but the addition of Mel Gibson and John Lithgow does make for some funny moments and the festive theme makes it slightly more forgivable. | 5 | Mat |
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Chasing Christmas | 2005 | This twist on the typical Scrooge tale is original enough to have deserved a better movie to be made from it, but despite the mediocre production values and acting talent, there's still enough to place it above many similar Christmas movies. | 5 | Mat |
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Snowmen | 2010 | A schizophrenic film that can’t decide if it's a fun family comedy or a serious drama. There are occasionally good moments from both but the whole thing doesn't really work as a cohesive story. | 5 | Mat |
Why not visit the MovieMuse ‘World Cup of Movies‘ to help us crown the best movies of all time.