What qualifies a Christmas movie?

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

Does the plot need something to do with Christmas? Or is it enough to be set during the wintertime with decorations in the background?

Beyond that, could it just be a series or saga you associate with December? Such as The Force Awakens, Rogue One, and The Last Jedi in a franchise otherwise known for summer blockbusters.

There isn't a right answer. But it's interesting to hear what qualifies for different people.

[WarZidane]

Die Hard is the best Christmas movie, therefore a Christmas movie is any movie that takes place during Christmas, with audiovisual evidence of it taking place at that time. :p

[Fox]

I wouldn't necessarily say it even has to be set during Christmas. It just has to be something that is *watched* a lot at Christmas. Networks looked at Die Hard and thought "Oh, a really good action movie that is set during Christmas. Let's show it at Christmas time, that'll make us really competitive in the ratings" and it worked a treat so it became a tradition. Bear in mind that film released in the box office in July '88 in the states and February '89 in the UK, so nobody thought it was a Christmas movie at that point, it needed a few years of smart network broadcasting to get that status.

On a similar note I always watch my favourite movie (Apollo 13) on New Year's Day because I noticed that it was quite common for TV channels to air it on New Year, even though the mission it's based on took place in April. So for me that's a traditional 'New Year's Movie' in the same way that Die Hard is a Christmas one.

[Freya]

It has to be set during christmas time, imo.


Also for the record, I watched "A Christmas Prince: The Royal Weddding" Yesterday and I have a complaint. How dare they put a string quartet then have a song that clearly has french horns. This an egregious error and I demand that netflix fixes it.

[Loony BoB]

For me, Christmas needs to be a central theme to the film. Coinciding with Christmas doesn't really cut it for me, personally.

Also,

75857

[Fox]

Yeah I totally don't think Christmas even needs to feature in the film at all. I consider Wallace & Gromit films 'Christmas films,' but they have nothing to do with Christmas. But it's just kind of become a tradition that they get aired at Christmas time and no other, so they feel very Christmassy to me.

[Wolf Kanno]

I'm with BoB. Christmas movies kind of need to be about the holiday. It's fine to have a traditional film you watch at the holiday time, but to qualify objectively as Christmas movie, it should kind of be about the holiday in some capacity. I think the only traditional film I watch around Christmas that is often not counted as much of a Christmas film is The Ref (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ref). Granted a Black Comedy about a family being taken hostage on Christmas Even while analyzing how the family unit itself can destroy a marriage between two insecure people, isn't exactly the type of film you reach for when Grandma enters the room.

Course I also love Scrooged, which is basically a Black Comedy modern retelling of a Christmas Carol, so maybe I'm the weird one here. If you're looking for what I expect to see on a Christmas film list, I would say any Christmas film by Rankin/Bass productions, but my personal favorite from them is Twas the Night Before Christmas.

0skmusWwW-M

I also love the Claymation Christmas special.


Gs--phzj2TQ