WASHINGTON (Amazing America TV) — Let’s start with a quick disclaimer: this list of the top five Christmas movies is part preference and part proven classic. Every film selected by Amazing America’s Kevin Kotwas has earned its place on “best holiday movie” lists over the years.
He kicks off the countdown with a family vacation that goes spectacularly wrong — and hilariously so.
Here are some fun facts about what makes these movies such holiday classics.
5. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
The 1989 movie was based on the short story “Christmas ’59,” published in National Lampoon and written by movie legend John Hughes. It cost $25 million to make and earned more than $73 million at the box office — the equivalent of over $190 million today.
4. ELF
The story of the oversized elf Buddy, who travels from the North Pole to New York City to meet his biological father, has delighted holiday movie lovers for more than two decades. The movie, starring Will Ferrell, James Caan, Zooey Deschanel, and Peter Dinklage, inspired a Broadway show and a TV special.
3. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Kevin knows it’s a TV special and not a movie, but it’s his list. The 1964 stop-motion TV special was based on Robert May’s story. May, a Chicago copywriter, wrote it in 1939 as a promotional Christmas tale for the Montgomery Ward department store. Actor and folk singer Burl Ives, who voiced Sam the Snowman, made sure Rudolph and his nose really did “go down in history.”
2. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
The 1992 movie starring Macaulay Culkin is reportedly the highest-grossing Christmas sequel, grossing over $350 million worldwide. Cukin was 12 at the time of the movie’s filming, which took place a year after the original “Home Alone” movie.
1. It’s a Wonderful Life
“It’s a Wonderful Life” was based on “The Greatest Gift,” a story written by Philip Van Doren Stern. The author could not get it published, so he printed it himself in 1943 and mailed it to friends as a Christmas card. Three years later, it served as the plot for a film that has been ranked as the best Christmas movie time and again.
While you may argue over one or two of the movies chosen by the Amazing America team, there is no disputing the lasting power of 1946’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The movie will mark its 80th anniversary in 2026, proof that some things truly do stand the test of time.
