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