The trees are going leafless, the wind carries a chill and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has begun its inevitable, dreadful climb to the top of Google search trends. The holidays are here. And even if you’re not one for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners, snowy streets and bundled jackets, you have to admit — the holiday season has produced some very popular movies.
This list includes the 25 highest-grossing holiday films ever made. You might be surprised that a few staples didn’t make the list, like “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which lost $525,000 in 1946. “A Christmas Story,” which faithfully replays on cable for 24 hours from Christmas Eve through Christmas day every year, only made $20.6 million at the box office in 1983.
To even the playing field, we adjusted each movie’s gross for inflation and are only using domestic grosses (meaning the U.S. and Canada). Not all of these films are great or must-sees, and some of them even lost money, but the majority are big-budget films that deserve your attention — and those that don’t will function just fine as background fodder while you wrap gifts.
Note: Most box office stats are from Box Office Mojo.
25. ‘Bad Santa’
Columbia Pictures / IMBD
Year: 2003
Budget: $23 million
Domestic gross: $60 million
Inflation-adjusted gross: $83.8 million
It’s not the most wholesome movie to start our list, but it’s the funniest. There are some heartwarming holiday moments at the end, even if the majority of the film centers on Billy Bob Thornton’s Santa partaking in debauchery, drunkenness and criminal behavior.
The “Bad Santa” idea was created by the Coen brothers, who hired John Requa and Glenn Ficarra to write the script. The main character, the world’s worst Father Christmas, was originally written for James Gandolfini, but that didn’t work out. Other contenders for the drunken Santa character included Robert De Niro, Nicolas Cage, Sean Penn, Jack Nicholson and Bill Murray, who just sort of stopped returning their calls.
During an early scene where Thornton stumbles through the mall toward a group of kids expecting Santa, he was actually drunk. He drank “three glasses of red wine for breakfast” along with vodka and cranberry juice and some Bud Lights, he told Entertainment Weekly. Method acting!
23. ‘Jingle All the Way’
20th Century Fox / IMDB
Year: 1996
Budget: $60 million
Domestic gross: $60.59 million
Inflation-adjusted gross: $99.15 million
What would a father do to get his son’s most-wished-for toy in time for Christmas? What if that father was Arnold Schwarzenegger? What if a rival gift-seeker, a postman played by Sinbad, foiled him at every turn? What if a movie about this wasn’t very good?
That’s the sum of “Jingle All the Way,” a Christmas movie that received bad reviews and was questionably successful — according to a 2003 lawsuit alleging that the movie’s script was a rip-off, “Jingle All the Way” had earned $183 million but had also “not yet earned any profits for Fox,” although the film was projected to earn $15 million in the future. That lawsuit ultimately led to nothing, as an earlier ruling against Fox was overturned in 2004.
16. ‘Scrooged’
Paramount Pictures / IMDB
Year: 1988
Budget: $32 million
Domestic gross: $60.32 million
Inflation-adjusted gross: $130.93 million
“Groundhog Day” may have been influenced by “A Christmas Carol,” but “Scrooged” is a black comedy reimagining of the classic work. Also starring Bill Murray, “Scrooged” is a cult favorite about a network television president hell-bent on profits over people — especially when it comes to winning the Christmas television wars for viewership. Ghosts from Christmas past come to haunt him in a variety of oddball ways until he learns the error of his ways.
When it was released, Roger Ebert gave the film a one-star review. Two years later, Murray confronted Ebert about it during an interview.
“It wasn’t that bad,” said the actor. He added that he had “only a few” arguments with the director “every single minute of the day. That could have been a really, really great movie. The script was so good. There’s maybe one take in the final cut movie that is mine. We made it so fast, it was like doing a movie live. He kept telling me to do things louder, louder, louder. I think he was deaf.”
11. ‘Die Hard’
20th Century Fox / IMDB
Year: 1988
Budget: $28 million
Domestic gross: $83.52 million
Inflation-adjusted gross: $181.27 million
Look, “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie. Forget that the film came out in July and that Bruce Willis himself said, “‘Die Hard’” is not a Christmas movie. It’s a g** d*** Bruce Willis movie.” (But that statement was at his 2018 Comedy Central roast, casting serious doubts on the truthfulness of his declaration. Everyone knows celebrities have someone else write their jokes at those things).
Also ignore this survey, which claims the majority of adults do not believe “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie. Less than 200 years ago, doctors didn’t believe in washing their hands before delivering a baby after they poked around in a cadaver.
Ok, so the state of “Die Hard”’s Christmastime classification isn’t quite as important. But still.
Google searches for “Die Hard” increase during the holidays and spike around Christmas before plummeting by early January. John McClane is jolly enough to spread Christmas cheer by writing a very merry “Ho Ho Ho” on a terrorist’s shirt. Even the original trailer begins with Christmas music. It’s a Christmas movie!
9. ‘Trading Places’
Paramount Pictures / IMDB
Year: 1983
Budget: $15 million
Domestic gross: $90.4 million
Inflation-adjusted gross: $233 million
Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) is taken off the streets of Philadelphia and into the absurdly wealthy world of Randolph and Mortimer Duke and their commodities brokerage. Why? Because the brothers thought it would be a fun social experiment to replace one of their own with a homeless man and see how the man fares.
The victim of this trading of places is Winthrope (Dan Aykroyd), whom the brothers frame for drugs and cast out onto the streets.
“Trading Places” isn’t your traditional holiday film, but it has the best portrayal of a drunk, down-on-his-luck Santa outside of “Bad Santa.” In Italy, the film is replayed every Christmas Eve.
Film residuals for a producer’s share of “Trading Places” went up for auction in 2019 and closed with a winning bid of $140,300. The film paid out $7,988 in royalties the year before.
8. ‘Elf’
New Line Cinema / IMDB
Year: 2003
Budget: $33 million
Domestic gross: $173.4 million
Inflation-adjusted gross: $241.96 million
“Good news! I saw a dog today!” If only we could be as entertained by the mundane world as Buddy, a human raised by Santa’s elves. Made during the height of Will Ferrell’s career, “Elf” was an instant classic and raked in $220.4 million worldwide.
While Ferrell didn’t have any experience playing an elf for the holidays, he did have some part-time Santa work to draw from.
“(When) we were in (sketch comedy troupe) The Groundlings together, Chris Kattan was my elf at this outdoor mall in Pasadena for five weeks, passing out candy canes,” Ferrell told Spliced Wire. “It was hilarious because little kids could care less about the elf. They just come right to Santa Claus. So by the second weekend, Kattan had dropped the whole affectation he was doing and was like (Ferrell makes a face of bitter boredom), ‘Santa’s over there, kid.’”
7. ‘The Santa Clause’
Year: 1994
Budget: $22 million
Domestic gross: $144.83 million
Inflation-adjusted gross: $250.92 million
In this surprise holiday classic, Scott Calvin (Tim Allen), accidentally kills Santa by causing him to fall off his roof. The original script was a bit darker and had Calvin shooting Santa after he mistook him for a burglar. Allen was all-in for that script, but the head of Disney at the time told him that scene wouldn’t be suitable.
As Allen reiterated the story to Jimmy Fallon, remembering from when he first read the script:
“I’m laughing so hard, but the head of Disney at the time, [Jeffery] Katzenberg says, ‘Well we can’t start a movie like that.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ He says, ‘We can’t start a Disney movie with you murdering Santa.’”