Happy POLLidays! (Happy POLLidays!) It's the ILX Holiday Movies Poll Results Thread

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Here we go! Sharing the top 40 holiday movies as voted on by (16) ILXors! 15 today and tomorrow, and wrapping up with the top 10 on Christmas Eve Eve.

(Before I begin, I wanted to once again thank Pillbox for providing the images for this rollout. I like to think of our poll collaborations as Bing Crosby tap dancing with Danny Fucking Kaye.)

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40. EDWARD SCISSORHANDS
Tim Burton, USA, 1990
(146.5 points, 3 votes)

reminiscing about when Tim Burton was good is a very Christmasy kind of nostalgia

I’ve been hesitant to rewatch this one as an adult, probably due to Burton/Depp fatigue.

(love the rollout images theme, btw)

Small change of plans. Today's going to be the 10-title day, and we'll follow up with 15-title Friday and Monday.

Looking forward to this! Image theme looks A++++

I love how in edward scissorhands that bar is just a nook in the otherwise half-finished basement

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39. MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE
Nagisa Oshima, UK-Japan-New Zealand, 1983
(147 points, 3 votes)

Never got round to rewatching this as an adult.

This played on cable quite a bit when I was little and I remember wanting to watch it because I thought it was like A Christmas Story or something like that, but my mom was all (rightfully, I suspect) "Nope!"

I enjoyed my first viewing of it two Christmases ago, and the score has been on my Xmas rotation ever since.

Does any of it other than the last scene involve Christmas?

I can think of another movie in particular where that's also true.

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38. METROPOLITAN
Whit Stillman, USA, 1990
(149 points, 3 votes)

this is the only film I've ever seen that mentions my small hometown by name.

it's been a while since I watched it

wow, you're from Fourierist, Wisconsin?

East Aurora

hadn't noticed that this is on the criterion channel

I’m a fan, and I even recently rewatched, but it didn’t strike me as sufficiently Christmasy enough for me to include it on my ballot. What I do or do not deem “Christmasy” will be revealed to be highly arbitrary as this poll goes on, though.

same here. fan of this & scissorhands but would be lying if i said either was a favorite christmas movie. and if i lie too much, santa wont visit me.

I regret that we have a four-way tie at this point, but I'll unveil one at a time, in chronological order:

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34. THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE
Gunther von Fritsch & Robert Wise, USA, 1944
(154 points, 3 votes) [TIE]

39. MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE
Nagisa Oshima, UK-Japan-New Zealand, 1983
(147 points, 3 votes)

― temporarily embarrassed thousandaire (Eric H.), Thursday, December 19, 2019 10:42 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Prior to seeking out images for the screencaps, I was unaware that this even existed - a film in which David Bowie both eats a poinsettia & is buried up to his head in sand. I'm going to add it to my holiday-viewing list!

(Before I begin, I wanted to once again thank Pillbox for providing the images for this rollout. I like to think of our poll collaborations as Bing Crosby tap dancing with Danny Fucking Kaye.)

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happy to help!

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34. MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET
George Seaton, USA, 1947
(154 points, 3 votes) [TIE]

very surprised to see the low placement for this, tho at least its numerical rank is appropriate!

It's always been a little difficult for me to get too excited about this one, but a rewatch last year confirmed there's plenty of gags and plot points that'd go over kids' heads.

I don't think i ever made it all the way through that one.

Voted for Miracle; didn't vote for Cat People, mostly because it has been long enough since my last viewing that I can't recall its specific Christmas content.

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34. HOME ALONE
Chris Columbus, USA, 1990
(154 points, 3 votes) [TIE]

No real desire to revisit this one, but I’ll hear your defences of it.

The older I get, and the more popular moviemaking swirls down the drain of franchise-driven content wheels, the more fondness I have for mid-level broad-market entertainments tbh.

(In other words, it's better than I remembered, and the one in New York is somewhat worse than I'd remembered.)

#39 is a real reach (especially since Remember the Night is doomed), save for the gift that is the amazing beauty of Ryuichi Sakamoto.

I was just old enough in 1992 to fully comprehend the sequel as the most cynical possible rehash.

That said, I totally get where you’re coming from re: broad market vs. franchise moviemaking. When I found myself growing mildly nostalgic, a few years back, for John Grisham adaptations, I knew that Hollywood was definitely no longer making movies for me.

I still remember going to school the Monday after Home Alone came out, all of us having seen it and loved it.

As a kid, I remember being slightly disappointed that the wall-to-wall carnage promised by the trailers only gets rolling in the last 20 minutes or so.

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34. PHANTOM THREAD
Paul Thomas Anderson, USA, 2017
(154 points, 3 votes) [TIE]

Me and my classmates all came to this conclusion xp.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAz2Le8Xl0M

surprised at how much i liked home alone when i finally revisited it as an adult, very christmasy (before the mortal kombat brutality kicks in). also surprised that the carnage took up away less screen time than i remember.

helped that i saw it in a theater filled with kids who were my age when i first saw it, all of whom were waaay into it & it was very adorable hearing their shocked & amazed reactions. best moment was when daniel stern falls down the icy steps, which i think is very early in the sequence so the kids in the audience didnt know what they were in for yet, and when he landed after a long noisy painful fall you couldve heard a pin drop in the theater, except for one lone kid who I just heard very loudly whisper: "WHOOOOOA"

watched 2 recently, which sucked ass. funny comparing the "home alone" moment from each: in 1 kevin wakes up and its kind of magical bc he doesnt immediately understand what happened and is a little frightened. In 2 kevin lands at jfk, immediately realizes exactly what happened and that he has all of his dads credit cards, refuses an offer of help by some adults, and consciously & assholishly is like "im a lone in new york, sweet, time to go on a spending spree until they find me"

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33. A CHRISTMAS TALE
Arnaud Despleschin, France, 2008
(157 points, 3 votes, 1 first-place vote)

(I was the first-place vote on this.)

Still need to see this one.

me too

I think I just prefer the French take on the "my whole nutty family is in one house for a week and we're either going to kill each other or settle decades' long grudges" holiday staple.

helped that i saw it in a theater filled with kids who were my age when i first saw it, all of whom were waaay into it & it was very adorable hearing their shocked & amazed reactions. best moment was when daniel stern falls down the icy steps, which i think is very early in the sequence so the kids in the audience didnt know what they were in for yet, and when he landed after a long noisy painful fall you couldve heard a pin drop in the theater, except for one lone kid who I just heard very loudly whisper: "WHOOOOOA"

saw Home Alone once as a kid and never had any interest in rescreening but this is :D

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32. HANNAH AND HER SISTERS
Woody Allen, USA, 1986
(159 points, 3 votes)

i like Hannah v much

ranking below Miracle on 34th Street as a holiday film? bananas

My #1. A perfect movie.

There are no words to describe what Margaret Sullavan wrings out of that husk in her voice.

lol Eric :)

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02. FANNY & ALEXANDER
Ingmar Bergman, Sweden-France-West Germany, 1982
(575 points, 10 votes)

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01. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE
Frank Capra, USA, 1946
(702 points, 12 votes, 1 first-place vote)

Endured a colorized version yesterday, almost as easy to tune out as the Fanny parts of the Bergman film.

I like that all the signage is Hungarian. xxp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnoCI2N9nWw

Just finished watching Shop and it really is near perfect. Felix Bressartt gets all the best laugh lines imo.

Was considering putting Bergman at #1, decided on Wonderful Life instead... cant believe I was the only one!

HoW Do yOU sPeLL FrANkiNsCenSE?

Thanks for throwing the party, Eric.

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Yes thanks Eric & Pillbox for a great poll & rollout! Got me to watch some good xmas stuff I hadn’t seen before

lovely poll and rollout even if many of my faves were robbed (Silent Night Deadly Night!!!)

sorry can we run this again after I've had a chance to see this

Johnny Mak's Long Arm of the Law (1984) is, yes, a Christmas movie, and the only one I know that features a shot-up body plunging multiple stories to land and carom around in a mall ice skating rink, leaving a trail of gore in its wake. pic.twitter.com/TTzFnxhwPc

— ℑ 𝔇𝔬𝔫'𝔱 𝔅𝔩𝔞𝔪𝔢 𝔜𝔬𝔲 (@NickPinkerton) December 23, 2019

The first part of the Tv version of Fanny and Alexander is the most sumptuously 'Christmassy' thing i've ever seen. Weirdly Eyes Wide Shut almost matches it. I wonder if some of that 'fairy lights in every shot' thing Kubes was going for, was in any way indebted to Bergman.

When I voted for F&A, I was really voting for the opening chapter of the TV version.

That very first glimpse of Clarence is perfect; one of the all-time great character intro shots

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Thanks for putting this together.

1. Comfort and Joy (Bill Forsyth)
2. A Christmas Carol (1951)
3. It’s a Wonderful Life
4. Going My Way
5. The Shop Around the Corner
6. The Apartment
7. The Ice Storm
8. Fanny and Alexander
9. Hannah and Her Sisters
10. Mon Oncle Antoine
11. Gremlins

Same as other genre polls--I tried to balance how much I liked a film with how Christmassy it felt to me. I should have nominated and voted for Meet John Doe.

bold did not place

1. "Peace on Earth" (1939)
Meet Me in St. Louis #6
It's a Wonderful Life #1
The Lemon Drop Kid (1951)
Bad Santa (2003) #11

A Christmas Story #8
The Shop Around the Corner (1940) #3
A Christmas Carol (1951) a.k.a. Scrooge #14
Elf #29
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) #14

29th Street
A Very Harold & Kumar 3-D Christmas
Krampus (2015)
The Grinch
Ernest Saves Christmas

Edward Scissorhands #40
Fanny and Alexander #2
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence #39
Remember the Night
Mon oncle Antoine #20

Scrooged #5
"Pluto's Christmas Tree"
"Toy Tinkers"
3 Godfathers
25. 8 Women

yeah, Remember the Night, for godssake

i also see a Bob Hope film i haven't watched

1. The Shop Around the Corner
2. Fanny & Alexander
3. It’s a Wonderful Life
4. Gremlins
5. Meet Me in St. Louis
6. Mon Oncle Antoine
7. Black Christmas
8. A Christmas Story
9. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
10. Gift Wrapped
11. Die Hard
12. Miracle on 34th Street (1945)
13. Remember the Night
14. Scrooged
15. The Bells of St. Mary’s

Thanks, Eric!

Yeah great poll, wish i'd had time to vote.

I saw Scrooged in a theater. I thought Murray's performance was just loud and annoying and the whole movie was like an SNL skit that went on f-o-r-e-v-e-r. And it had the usual Hollywood 30 minutes of "climax" where you knew it was the climax because it was twice as loud and annoying.

I think Comfort and Joy (Clemenza's #1) is a nice little movie with many funny moments. However, it is pretty slight overall and when it reaches for pathos it never gets there. But I didn't cast a ballot, so consider this post as mere sour grapes.

bold DNP

Black Christmas (1974)
Silent Partner (1978)
Mon oncle Antoine
Eyes Wide Shut
Brazil
Meet Me in St. Louis
Silent Night, Deadly Night
The Muppet Christmas Carol
Fanny and Alexander
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
A Christmas Tale (2008)
The Hudsucker Proxy
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

The Thin Man
Trading Places
Scrooged
Big Business (1929)
Compliments of the Season (1930)
The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives (1933)
Jack Frost (1934)
The Reckless Moment (1949)
La Grande Illusion (1937)
Bad Santa (2003)
La Petite Marchande d'Allumettes (1928)
Hell's Heroes (1930)
The Night Before Christmas (1933)
Holiday (1930)
Babes in Toyland (1934)
The Curse of the Cat People
Carol
Far From Heaven (2002)
Two Men in Manhattan
The Unholy Three (1925)
The Unholy Three (1930)
Little Women (1933)
Poisoned Ivory (1934)
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
Die Hard

thx, j.lu, for the Edgar Kennedy

also shame on the rest of you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWdKYiewpVY

^I think the best Xmas movie Leo McCarey worked on, but you fuckers didn't vote for The Bells of St Mary's either

I did!

u r absolved

It is Christmas Eve, so I have just rewatched The Thin Man. I stand by my first-place vote.

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If only there was a way for movies dr morbius likes to get voted for... if only....

I don't know when you last saw Comfort and Joy, aimless, but if it's been a while, I think you should look at it again. I think it's more profound than the work of some other much more famous directors whose profundity escapes me. (I have two in particular in mind, and no, I won't name them.)

Aimless I feel you re:Scrooged, that’s one that never clicked with me, despite a couple tries over the years

I tried to see Comfort and Joy for this poll, but it wasn’t available via any of my streaming services or libraries.

I liked Scrooged better as a Christmas horror film than as a Christmas comedy. Voted for it mainly on the strength of some indelible images and a strong cast.

Yeah, I think it's hard to get hold of--all I can see is Region 2 stuff from Amazon. Did find this appreciation:

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/dec/06/jonathan-coe-comfort-joy-forsyth

HOME ALONE: Two-thirds of this is a modest, sweet, surprisingly affecting Christmas movie. One of third it is Tom & Jerry's Straw Dogs, and it is really impossible to express how fucking weird that is.

— The Zack of Christmas Yet To Come (@zhandlen) December 8, 2019

Yeah I watched it last night and was roaring at the pay-off then I missed Tom and Jerry

yeah catherine ohara really is phenomenal in HA1, low-key one of her best performances imo

tried to see Comfort and Joy for this poll, but it wasn’t available via any of my streaming services or libraries.

Watching it on Hoopla rn (apparently from a pan & scan NTSC-converted VHS transfer)

thank you Eric! I enjoyed seeing the results

and Pillbox!

Watched Elf again on Christmas eve with my family. There are a lot of good lines, and I always like “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" at the end

I had a "no Elf, no Home Alone" rule this year. I like Elf but not enough for it to be an annual tradition.

the narwhal's sad-voiced "bye buddy, hope you find your dad" is my new favorite line from Elf

didn't remember until seeing it again that "Baby It's Cold Outside" features in a scene

My Night at Maud’s
Carol
La Grande illusion
Fanny and Alexander
Tangerine

2046
The Apartment
Eyes Wide Shut
The Shop Around the Corner
Far From Heaven

Call Me By Your Name
Boogie Nights
The Ice Storm
A Tale of Winter
Hannah and Her Sisters

It’s a Wonderful Life
Metropolitan
Phantom Thread
Holiday (1938)
Mon Oncle Antoine

LA Confidential
Joyeux Noël
A Christmas Tale
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Elf

Dan S: Does Boogie Nights have anything Christmas-related? There's the big New Year's Eve sequence ("Goodbye '70s, Hello '80s"), but I've seen it a bunch of times and I'm not remembering anything having to do with Christmas.

agree it's not really a holiday film. what I remember besides the New Year's Eve party scene is the donut shop shoot-out scene where Don Cheadle gets an unexpected Christmas gift

Forgot about that, you're right.

Those who didn't vibe with Scrooged: try again. I wasn't that into it for the longest time but now I don't go a holiday season without rewatching it.

Just finished watching Wonderful Life in its entirety for the first time in many years. I might agree with its placing here. It seems to have become more affecting in my dotage.

Forgot to share the full results spreadsheet:

https://bit.ly/37myWBZ

If it had been a top 50...

41. Remember the Night
42. Female Trouble
43. Blast of Silence
44. 2046
45. Krampus (2015)
46. A Junky's Christmas
47. Home for the Holidays
48. A Very Harold & Kumar 3-D Christmas
49. Call Me by Your Name
50. Inside (2007)

Goddamnit...how did I forget that Cobra is a Christmas movie?