STORY:
Top 10 Christmas Movies
Why these Christmas classics keep coming back, you can probably guess. Christmas movies are usually popular for only a short time of the year. However, many are revived each season on TV or sold in stores on VHS or DVD. Here are some of the best.
1. A Christmas Carol (1951).
Most critics consider this the best of the many screen versions of the Dickens classic. Alastair Sim's performance as Scrooge may be one of the best acting jobs in film history. (Other notable Scrooges: Reginald Owen in 1938 and George C. Scott in a 1984 TV version.)
2. A Christmas Story (1984).
The late raconteur Jean Shepherd wrote this witty, wry, and sensitive (but never cloying) tale of a boy in the 1940s (Peter Billingsley), desperate to get a BB rifle under his tree. Hard to believe: It's directed by Bob Clark, who also made the Porky's trilogy and the sorority-slaughter film Black Christmas.
3. Miracle on 34th Street (1947).
Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) is a department-store Santa who insists he's the real live North Pole toy guy, and eventually has to prove it in a court of law. Natalie Wood's an unbelieving little girl who learns the error of her ways. Also with Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Thelma Ritter, and Jack Albertson.
4. It's A Wonderful Life (1946).
Some latter-day critics have described it as the most Dickens-like story to come from Hollywood. George Bailey (James Stewart) decides his life's been a total failure. His suicide try is stopped only when an angel intervenes to show him how his family and community would be even worse off without him. Despite the triumphant ending, it was still too downbeat for post-WWII audiences. Director Frank Capra, who owned the rights, declined to renew the copyright in 1974. Any TV station could then show it; and in the '80s almost every station did, every December. What had been a forgotten film became a belated favorite.
5. White Christmas (1954). Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Rosemary Clooney enact a series of Irving Berlin song classics, in gorgeous widescreen Technicolor.
6. Christmas in Connecticut (1945).
Half a century before Martha Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck plays a magazine writer who claims, falsely, to be a perfect chef and country hostess--until her publisher decides to stage a publicity stunt with her hosting a returning WWII sailor for the ultimate holiday feast. Hilarious complications ensue.
7. One Magic Christmas (1985).
Variation on the Wonderful Life theme. Gruff-but-lovable character actor Harry Dean Stanton is the guardian angel for a down-on-her-luck mom (Mary Steenburgen) who has a hard time getting into the holiday spirit.
8. The Santa Clause (1994).
Divorced dad Tim Allen accidentally causes Santa's death, then finds the gift giver's spirit slowly taking over his body. Sounds like a horror-film premise, but really a relatively-sincere try at heartwarming comedy. Check out The Santa Clause II in theaters now.
9. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989).
Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Randy Quaid, and the gang in the third Griswold family misadventure, written by "brat pack" teen-film king John Hughes and directed by Jeremiah Chechik (Benny & Joon). Grownups identify with the ill-fated attepmts to create an old-fashioned holiday celebration; kids enjoy the gags and goofy characters.
10. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964).
It appears on many worst-films-ever lists, but it's really an unassuming, often charming little comedy, in which Santa teaches curious aliens (and disbelieving Earthling film viewers) about the true meaning of Christmas. One of the Martian kids is played by Pia Zadora, who became an '80s movie starlet and lounge singer.
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