Alright with Christmas just around the corner I thought I would share my top 10 favorite Christmas movies. As usual this is not a list of the objectively best Christmas movies but rather my favorite.  Before we get to the list, I want to qualify some things. First, just because it isn’t on here doesn’t mean I hate it so relax. If you want to share your list or talk about mine, please feel free in the comments. No one likes a douche bag though so try to be cool. Next, my list incorporates a couple of movies that take place during Christmas but aren’t necessarily about Christmas. I did that because I want to. Further, this is made up of a lot of movies that remind me of Christmas before I lost my Mom. It was always her favorite holiday and the season is fairly rough on me now. Movies have become important to me to remember the way I used to feel about it as opposed to how I feel about it now. So these are fairly personal picks. I have included posters, trailers and favorite clips when available.

10. Die Hard (1988)

While not what you think of first when you think Christmas movie, Christmas ties in very prominently and frankly I want to include it here. It is one of my favorite action movies of all time and is great to watch around the holidays to cut some of the annoying cheer and get right to violence and bloodshed. This is also cathartic when tempers flare and someone’s mother-in-law says something insensitive or a third cousin shows up drunk with a hooker. There are some who may challenge that this isn’t REALLY a Christmas movie but I submit that John McClane sends a dead terrorist back down the elevator with the words ‘Ho Ho Ho’ written on him in blood. What is more Christmasy than that?

9. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

I tend to think of The Nightmare Before Christmas as a Halloween movie mostly because I like Halloween more, but it is really a Christmas movie. The reason that this is a classic and why it is a favorite should be fairly obvious. The songs and music are incredible, the stop action animation is gorgeous and still holds up, even in the 3D environment and the writing and performances are great. The story is fun and poignant in it’s own way and it throws in all that classic Tim Burton goodness in with Henry Selick’s sure handed direction. This is definitely an every year movie and it pulls double duty as you can watch it at Halloween too.

8. Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas (1977)

Directed by Jim Henson, Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas tells the story of an otter who tries to win a talent contest to have money for Christmas via his hastily assembled jug band. With all the heart and humor you expect from a Muppet movie, Emmet Otter delivers great songs and a heartwarming story that is right at home among the best Christmas movies. That it was a film I often watched with my Mom when I was a kid makes this a bittersweet film but one I will always remember fondly even while it makes me miss her.

7. Elf (2003)

There are crazy people in this world who hate Will Ferell and I don’t understand them at all especially when it comes to the Jon Favreau directed Elf. With an incredible cast from James Caan, Ed Asner, Bob Hope, Zoe Deschanel, Mary Steenbergen and the amazing Peter Dinklage (and that is just scratching the cast list surface), Elf tells the story of a human child raised as an elf in the north pole who sets off to find his real family. The movie is very silly and very fun and manages to warm some hearts as well. It is the most recent entry on the list but it was an instant favorite as soon as I saw it. Extra points for the Peter Billingsley cameo.

6. Gremlins (1984)

Another film that people may challenge as an ‘according to Hoyle’ Christmas movie, the central premise involves a young man getting a monster for a pet for Christmas so I think it qualifies. Okay, yeah Gizmo is not a monster but Corey Feldman fucks everything up and the newly created Mogwais eventually turn into monsters. Look a gremlin attacks someone through a Christmas tree and the whole movie is Christmased up so it counts. Add in Phoebe Cates’s heartbreaking and horrifying story about why she doesn’t celebrate Christmas and you have a Christmas movie that is awesome, hilarious and occasionally touching and sad. Also it led to Gremlins 2 which I celebrate as an unsung classic of satire.

5. Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

Directed by Brian Henson, Muppet Christmas Carol is one of my favorite versions of the classic Charles Dickens tale. With a very Muppet spin on everything. the movie is cast well if such a thing can be said for which muppets play which characters, and having Michael Caine anchor the film as Scrooge brings the whole thing home. My favorite part about this version is the songs. I am not the biggest musical fan in the world but Muppet Christmas Carol has some great ones and they have stuck with me for years. Kermit’s ‘One More Sleep Til Christmas’ is still moving to me and brings tears to my eyes as it takes me back to a time when the only anxiety around the holiday was anticipation and that message is brought home by the fact that Kermit’s Bob Cratchit is beset with all manner of hardship but the magic of Christmas can wipe it all away if only for one day.

4. Scrooged (1988)

My favorite retelling of the Dickens classic is easily Scrooged, the Richard Donner directed  update that cast’s Bill Murray’s greedy and ruthless TV executive Frank Cross as a modern day Scrooge. The effects are kind of dated at this point but they are still heavy on charm as Cross is taken through Christmases past, present and future. They cast is awesome offering up Karen Allen, Bobcat Goldthwait, John Glover, Carol Kane, David Johansen, Robert Mitchum and Alfre Woodard and the heavy satire of TV and entertainment always hits its mark. Not the most family friendly Christmas movie ever with show parodies like Daddy Loves Beaver! but it is a great take on a Christmas Carol and is one of Murray’s great films. It is also good to see John and Joel Murray in action here as well.

3. The Ref (1994)

A treat for dysfunctional families everywhere, the Ref is a criminally overlooked vehicle for Dennis Leary in which a jewel thief takes a family hostage on Christmas Eve and then has to pose as their couple’s therapist when the rest of the family shows up for dinner. With one of my favorite Kevin Spacey performances ever, the Ref is vulgar, off-sides and ultimately positive. It isn’t afraid to get its hands dirty but it would be a mistake to call it overly cynical or anti-social. It is also very cathartic if you have ever found yourself in the midst of holiday family tension and can serve as a nice release valve for pressure. Definitely not a movie for kids or anyone who can’t deal with profanity but it is a great film to work out frustrations vicariously through a family that is at least 80% more messed up that yours.

2. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)

If the Ref is catharsis for deep seeded family resentments then Christmas Vacation is catharsis for those gatherings where nothing works right and everything goes to hell. The third in the Vacation series, Christmas Vacation has the Griswolds staying home and Chevy Chase’s Clark trying to throw a big family Christmas at his house. This being Vacation, nothing works and Clark is driven to the brink of madness. While the things that happen are generally over the top and overblown there is material here that just about everyone can relate to and even if not it is enormously funny. Randy Quaid’s cousin Eddie returns from the first film and is a huge comedic presence, enough so that he got his own spin off sequel. That didn’t work out too well but it speaks volumes to his impact on the movie. This is easily the best Vacation movie and is, to my mind, Chevy Chase’s best work. Christmas isn’t Christmas without sitting down to this one.

1. A Christmas Story (1983)

My favorite Christmas movie of all time, A Christmas Story really nails my experience as a child being excited for Christmas. I might not have had Bumpus hounds stealing my Old Man’s turkey or a brother in a huge coat (or a brother at all) but Ralphie’s obsession with the Red Rider BB-gun is very similar to my quest for the Castle Greyskull when I was a kid. Thankfully, it was not a big risk for shooting my eye out but the obsession was the same. Aside from identifying with Ralphie, writer Jean Shepard’s narration is hilarious and excellent (and was apparently the template for the Wonder Years) and the movie features dozens of quotable lines and set pieces as Ralphie and his family try to navigate the holiday season. Peter Billingsley is excellent as Ralphie and Darren McGavin shines as the Old Man. It is sort of amazing, then, that director Bob Clark also directed Black Christmas. Wowzers.

So there it is, my 10 favorite Christmas movies. If you want to agree, disagree, debate or whatever feel free to do it below. Just remember not to be an asshat. No one likes those.