The Top 10 Holiday Movies

BY DANI FAITH LEONARD

writer bio

Ok, I know other film sites are doing their obligatory yearly lists of the best holiday movies and I never want to do what everybody else is doing.  But holiday movies are so good!  Some are meant to make you laugh and some are meant to make you cry, much like spending hours with your family on the holidays!  (See you on the 25th for Chinese food and a movie.  Little Fockers?)

Here are my Top 10 Holiday Movies:

10 - Home Alone/Home Alone 2 - Probably my favorite movies as a kid, these two are Christmas classics.  The first one plays on every childhood fantasy - getting left alone, parents gone, free reign over the house!  Amazing!  Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is probably the best display of the beauty of NYC during the holidays.  And in the second film, he has credit cards.  Unlikely, but awesome.

9 - White Christmas - Definitely my holiday season guilty-pleasure, I can watch White Christmas every single time it's on TV.  Danny Kaye, Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney (who seriously looks like George with a wig) are so dreamy in this classic.

8 - Jingle All the Way - Ahhh...Aahnold.  How I love the way you scream "I'm not a pervert! I was just looking for a Turbo Man doll!"

7 - It’s a Wonderful Life - Who doesn't want to cry like a blubbering fool on Christmas?

6 - Elf - When I first saw this movie, I thought it was really going to suck - it was a Christmas movie with Will Ferrell and, lets face it, Anchorman hadn't been released yet.  I love Elf - it's a demented, wonderful comedy.  Comedy should always be demented.

5 - A Christmas Story - It's a cult classic and Ralphie is the perfect combination of adorable and creepy.

4 - Bad Santa - I'm not sure I fully understood this movie when I saw it, probably because I was younger and in college in Miami and we used to put sambuca in our diet cokes at the movies.  Don't judge, it's delicious.  But when you're at a holiday party and everyone is talking about movies, you know that the old dude who brings up Bad Santa is kind of a badass. 

3 - A Nightmare Before Christmas - I love that the kids open up their gifts and find decapitated heads.  It's one of my favorite Tim Burton moments (of course second to the genius that is Beetlejuice).

2 - Muppets Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens meets the Muppets.  As a kid I never understood why my parents thought the muppets were so funny.  Now that I'm older, I realize that these cute little puppets are not for kids, really, and I think my Muppets obsession will never go away. 

1 - Love Actually - It's fucking adorable, ok?

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The Top 10 Movies that Cheer Me Up