Top Ten Empirically Best Christmas Movies

How can one rank Christmas movies empirically? Well, let's not lie to ourselves and say that you care about methodology. You've just spent the past year or so sharing every news article that had data that supported your opinion. This isn't a personal attack, we've all been doing it.

Anyway, sit back and let me tell you what the best Christmas movies are and why.

1. Elf (2003) — Saccharine, treacly, cloying... These are some words to describe not only the main character Buddy's atrocious diet, but also the general feeling of this early 2000s hit film, Elf. Will Ferrell is funny in this funny movie and he's going to beat you over the head with it until your forehead bursts and gushes forth sprinkles. Zooey Deschanel also stars as a manic pixie cynic. An artifact of when the world was a place of hope and naive giddiness even in the shadow of the tragedy of 9/11, oh, to be so optimistic!

2. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) — Starring the rubber-faced Jim Carrey as the eponymous Grinch, Jeffrey Tambor, Taylor Momsen and Christine Baranski as that woman that you recognize from the musicals, but can't ever remember her name. Jim Carrey's finishing up a decade of high artistic achievement that includes such classics as Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995), The Truman Show (1998) and Man on the Moon (1999) and he's in perfect form. Nothing gets me more in the mood for Christmas than watching the Grinch's deliciously hilarious domestic terrorism. Show this movie to your young children to be berated by poor imitations of the Jim Carrey throughout your house all the way to Epiphany.

3. Scrooged (1989) — A cynical 80s retelling of the Christmas original, A Christmas Carol, Scrooged is probably the best adaptation of the original in that it isn't just a jumped-up community college play. It stars Bill Murray, Karen Allen (Marion Ravenwood in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) how do you not know that?), Carol Kane, BoBcAt GoLdThWaIt (?!), and is that Tom Waits? No, no it is not. It's David Johansen from the New York Dolls. How weird is that? Bill Murray's smarmy Scrooge encountering his version of Marley is hilariously grotesque. Carol Kane makes me cry laughing as she beats the hell out of Scrooge as the Ghost of Christmas Present. And, Scrooge attacking the murderously disgruntled former employee played by Bobcat Goldthwait after his redemption warms my cold and cracked heart.

4. A Christmas Story (1983) — This movie came out in 1983? Holy crap! I thought it was made in the 40s or something. It just seems so ancient and it's been playing non-stop for years. I seemingly watch it repeatedly every year, entranced by the nostalgia for something that never was. The Welsh call it Hiraeth, I believe. Don't believe anyone who claims that life was every like this, this movie is an intellectual confection and it's bound to ruin your dinner, which should be, I dunno, In Bruges.

5. In Bruges (2008) — Wait, this is a Christmas movie? Well, I guess... It's hilarious and dark and wonderfully satisfying to watch. Also, very quotable. I've actually been to Bruges and I'll tell you that it's hard to not repeatedly quote the movie to the point that the locals hate you. But as you wander the ancient streets in a beery haze, surrounded by quiet medieval buildings and the hooting of drunken Brits in the distance, you might have a hard time not saying to yourself, "It really is a fookin' fairytale..."

6. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) — The movie that launched a thousand kitschy baubles thrown forth from the death rattle breath of Midwestern malls. Spencers and Hot Topic and Tower Records bedecked the dark and antisocial girls of my school days, a sort of socially acceptable soft-goth. I was never such a huge fan of this movie, but this is the time of the year to watch it and enjoy it. (People who claim that it's a halloween movie are not incorrect, they're just irritating. Their Walter-Sobchakian keening of "Am I wrong?" reverberates into the night like so many futile prayers for champions of logic in a world that elected Donald Trump to the U.S. Presidency. Get over it, the world is rudderless and Christmas Eve is an excellent time to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas.) Also, now that I think about it, Edward Scissorhands (1990) is a great Christmas movie too.

7. Ernest Saves Christmas (1988) — Based on the play by Oscar Wilde... wait, wrong one... Shed your ironical aloofness for an hour and a half and just become absorbed in the innocent fly-over-country humor of Ernest P. Worrell. The ur-redneck saves Christmas in a most absurd fashion and his rubber-faced antics and fart-jokes will put a smile on your face because you will also realize that Ernest represents the beating heart of every F-150 driver who's ever cut you off and rolled coal on your brand-new Prius and that they should not be summarily executed.

8. Die Hard (1988) — "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...", "God Bless us, everyone!", "Yippee-kay-yay, Motherfucker!" These are the classic catch phrases that we associate with Christmas time. This is probably the most violent film on this list, though ultimately less graphic than In Bruges, Die Hard is a film that deserves to be watched on Christmas Day while you and your family hide from the crummy weather. Delightfully seasonal.

9. Trading Places (1983) — This movie has it all! A prince-and-the-pauper storyline, Dan Aykroyd doing a mid-Atlantic accent, angel dust, insider commodities trading, Jamie Lee Curtis (need I say more?), Eddie Murphy at his comedy peak, the IRL version of Statler and Waldorf, New York City in the 80s (which is a character in its own right and features in many movies even not produced in the 1980s). You'll watch this man-in-a-hole redemption story just for the satisfaction you'll get at the very end.

10. Bad Santa (2003) — Good lord this movie is bleak. But at its drunken sodden core there's a heart of gold that's been pawned for a fifth of vodka to sterilize the depraved hopelessness of a life lived poorly. Billy Bob Thorton's ability to be totally and completely inappropriate at every turn in this film is what makes it so absolutely hilarious.

I'm coming to the realization at the end of this list that great Christmas movies have to be a little sad, they've got to make you feel a little hopeless and lost so they can build you back up in the last ten minutes. This mirrors the effect that Christmas has on our lives, it's something of a consolation at the end of the year, a calendar's way of saying "Sorry about that. Shit year, wasn't it?" Well, in the year's denouement we can enjoy ourselves and forget things for a while and then get on with the business of fucking up yet another year.

All I have left to do is raise my glass and say "Bring on the New Year!" and "Cheers!"