Skip to footer

The 20 best Christmas movies of all time – readers' picks

From a reindeer with a glowing red nose to George Bailey learning what's truly important in life, many films have become important parts of our year-end holiday celebrations. What movie is the best Christmas film (or TV Christmas special) of all time? We asked Monitor readers to vote for their favorite. Here's what you selected.

RKO Pictures., Inc./AP

20. 'The Year Without a Santa Claus'

  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass directed the 1974 animated TV special, which finds Santa Claus (Mickey Rooney) laid up with a cold and believing it might not matter at all if he doesn't make his Christmas Eve run because of the lack of Christmas spirit in the world. Mrs. Claus, two elves, and a boy from America set out to show him that holiday spirit is alive and well.

George S. Irving, who voices the temperamental Heat Miser in the movie, was a member of the original 1943 Broadway cast of the classic musical "Oklahoma!" and was later nominated for a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical for his role in the 1986 Broadway revival of "Me and My Girl."

Actor Dick Shawn, who was behind the voice of the Heat Miser's brother and rival Snow Miser, appeared in Mel Brooks' film "The Producers" as actor Lorenzo St. DuBois.

1 of 20
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.