The cynic (or in festive terms, the “Scrooge”) in most of us may believe that Christmas simply isn’t anywhere near as good once the magic of Father Christmas has been stripped away from us as a child. Forget losing your virginity in your adolescence, this devastating revelation is the first step toward adulthood, the beginning of the end of childhood innocence. Once the secret is out, there is no going back, and year after year, Christmas seems, well, less Christmasy.
Yet, besides decorating the Christmas tree, cracking open the Bailey’s, and overcooking the driest meat there is, putting on a good ol’ Christmas comedy is certainly a fail-safe method when trying to restore that festive cheer. There’s nothing quite like attempting to enjoy Christmas by watching someone else enjoy theirs (or hilariously fail to)… Here are the best Christmas comedy movies.
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6 Bad Santa
Miramax Films
“He doesn’t care if you’re naughty or nice,” was the phrase used in the 2003 trailer for Terry Zwigoff’s movie Bad Santa, and it encapsulates the film’s sentiments entirely. Starring Billy Bob Thornton as con-man and career-criminal Willie Stoke, he and his partner Marcus (Tony Cox) plot to rob a department store.
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Their plans are derailed when Willie, posing as Santa, befriends a troubled eight-year-old boy, Thurman (Brett Kelly). Billy Bob Thornton is simply hilarious as the foul-mouthed, thoughtless Willie, and is perhaps the worst-behaved “Santa” of all time.
5 A Christmas Story
MGMUA
Based on Jean Shepherd’s novel of the same name, A Christmas Story is set against the backdrop of 1940s Indiana and tells the story of young Ralphie Parker. The film documents Ralphie’s escapades during the winter months, namely attempting to dodge the school bully who is permanently on the lookout for his next victim. A Christmas Story is a poignant film about the innocence of youth and the dreams of that special Christmas gift that always seems to elude us.
4 How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Universal Pictures
Jim Carrey sports the infamous green costume of The Grinch in Ron Howard’s screen adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Set in the fictional town of Whoville, this is a story of the hilarious reformation of a creepy green creature that lives in isolation and has a particular detestation for Christmas.
The Grinch is widely disliked by the townspeople, and through a series of previously scarring events, takes it upon himself to ruin Christmas for the Who people. Carrey is characteristically wholeheartedly outrageous in his presentation of this weird, strange, and volatile being, misunderstood by his community. This is a charming Christmas chronicle of redemption and acceptance.
3 Scrooged
Paramount Pictures
1988’s Scrooged is a comical, modernized adaptation of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Scrooged follows Bill Murray as Frank Cross, a disgruntled, narcissistic television executive who is visited by three haunting spirits (Murray’s second run-in with ghosts in four years, following 1984’s Ghostbusters).
Like most adaptations of the Dickens story, the ghosts advise him to change his selfish ways in order to circumvent negative present and future occurrences. This Christmas comedy is an amusing and original take on a highly-regarded literary classic, and Bill Murray is typically emphatic as a self-interested Christmas crank.
2 Home Alone
20th Century Studios
A film that struck fear into the hearts of parents far and wide, serving as a reminder not to forget to take your kids on holiday, but also to think twice about leaving them home alone. In Chris Columbus’ family Christmas movie, Macaulay Culkin plays Kevin, an eight-year-old boy whose parents and family jet off to Paris for French Christmas celebrations, forgetting to take him with them.
Left home alone, Kevin’s various escapades with his newfound freedom as the “man” of the house quickly descend into chaos when two crooks, the self-proclaimed ‘Wet Bandits,’ Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern), attempt to break into his home. Home Alonehas a real slapstick air, with Pesci and Stern’s comedic delivery simply immaculate.
1 Elf
New Line Cinema
It was famously Jim Carrey who was initially considered for the role of an elf, which is rather hard to envisage now with how synonymous Will Ferrell has become with the Candy-loving man-child. A film that endeared itself to children and adults alike, has withstood the test of time and still remains a real Christmas cracker 20 years on. Directed by Jon Favreau, Elf concerns the tale of Buddy, a human raised by Santa and his elves at the North Pole. When Buddy comes to the realization that he is of human genetics, he ventures to New York in search of his biological father.
While in the Big Apple, Buddy tirelessly tries to build relations with his father, stepmother, and half-brother, with his father initially resistant to his advances. Shocked by the lack of Christmas spirit in the city, Buddy uses his personal knowledge of Santa to change the skepticism into passionate public belief. Elf is everything you want in a Christmas comedy, it combines just the right amount of festive clichés with silly, yet sidesplitting humor. One would suspect that if everyone stuck to the Elves’ diet of the “four main food groups” (candy canes, candy corn, candy, and syrup), we’d not only have as much enthusiastic energy as Buddy but also a serious diabetes problem…
