This is truly the ultimate list of family Christmas movies. If you’ll be home this Christmas, it’s time to watch some of the top classic Christmas films and best family holiday movies together!
The top family Christmas movies
I don’t know about you, but we’re super excited for Christmas! One of our family traditions is to watch holiday movies together, there are tons of classic kids’ Christmas movies!
From comedies to animation and heartwarming stories, we’ve put together our list of top family Christmas movies. Whether you are browsing Netflix titles, watching on Amazon Prime, or looking to rent your favorite Christmas movies to watch, there are so many good family holiday movies out. Here is the best list of family Christmas movies you can’t miss!
The Ultimate List of Family Christmas Movies To Watch Together
Our family Christmas movies list is full of fun classics that you will all love. Get into the holiday spirit and enjoy a movie. These are some of the best family Christmas movies to watch and to stream or purchase to enjoy together!
1. Home Alone
The original classic movie Home Alone is our top choice for the list of family Christmas movies. I think this is one of the top Christmas movies of all time! Accidentally left behind when his parents rush off on their Christmas vacation, eight-year-old Kevin McCallister embarks on a hilarious, madcap mission to defend the family home when two bumbling burglars try to break in and find themselves tangled in Kevin s bewildering battery of booby traps!
2. The Polar Express
Tom Hanks shines in this holiday classic, a beloved heartwarming story. The Polar Express is the story of a young boy who on Christmas Eve boards a powerful magical train headed to the North Pole and Santa Claus’s home. What unfolds is a journey of self-discovery, which shows the boy that the wonder of life never fades for those who believe.
3. Elf
This is another one of our can’t-miss family holiday movies, Will Ferrell is so funny! This hilarious Christmas film tells the tale of a young orphan child who mistakenly crawls into Santa’s bag of gifts on Christmas Eve and is transported back to the North Pole and raised as an elf. Years later Buddy learns he is not really an elf and goes on a journey to New York City to find his true identity.
4. A Charlie Brown Christmas
Christmastime is here. Happiness and cheer. And for Peanuts fans everywhere, it just wouldn’t be Christmas without this classic holiday delight. Christmas lights may be twinkling red and green, but Charlie Brown has the Yuletide blues. To get in the holiday spirit, he takes Lucy’s advice and directs the Christmas play. And what’s a Christmas play without a Christmas tree? But everyone makes fun of the short, spindly nevergreen Charlie Brown brings back – until the real meaning of Christmas works its magic once again. We seriously watch this one every year!
5. A Christmas Carol
This one is a super classic, it’s been around for many years. Christmas elicits nothing more than “Bah, humbug!” from Ebenezer Scrooge (Scott), a miser whose sole pursuit of financial success has left him a bitter and lonely old man. But a Christmas Eve visit from the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future ultimately teaches him to open his heart to the spirit of Christmas and to the joys of friends and family.
6. Dr. Seuss How The Grinch Stole Christmas
This is a classic story, but we especially love the newer version with Jim Carrey as the Grinch. Discover the magic of the Mean One this holiday season! Christmas’ best-loved grump is brought to life with the help of the irrepressible Jim Carrey as The Grinch. The Grinch is a celebration of the holiday spirit no home should be without! Why is The Grinch such a grouch? No one seems to know, until little Cindy Lou Who takes matters into her own hands and turns both Whoville and The Grinch’s world upside down, inside out… and funny side up in her search for the true meaning of Christmas.
7. The Nightmare Before Christmas
This sounds like a scary movie, but it’s not! Your list of family Christmas movies is bare without this, one of the best family holiday movies! Can Christmas be saved? Bored with the same old scare-and-scream routine, Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, longs to spread the joy of Christmas. But his merry mission puts Santa in jeopardy and creates a nightmare for good little boys and girls everywhere!
8. The Santa Clause
We love this holiday classic, it’s a nice, feel-good holiday movie that belongs on the list of family Christmas movies. Tim Allen shines bright in Disney’s magical, larger-than-life hit comedy that “People” magazine dubbed “The most playfully amusing, inventive cinematic … fable in several decades!”
9. Home Alone 2
If you’ve already seen the first Home Alone movie and you want more, this is a great follow up! Great news Kevin McCallister is spending the holidays in New York City! Bad news his parents are spending them in Florida! Separated once again from his family, Kevin manages to find food, lodging and fun using his dad s credit card. But his big-spending solo act takes a dangerous turn when the Wet Bandits, Harry and Marv , escape prison and also land in the Big Apple. Now, Kevin must outrun and outprank them again in this high-flying adventure with twice the ingenuity, twice the kid power and twice the laughs as the original!
10. Rudolph The R
ed-Nosed Reindeer
We all know who this guy is! Who’s got a nose for Christmas? Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer! Just in time for the holidays, here comes Rudolph in the most beloved special of all time! Packed with a sleigh full of memorable songs and unforgettable characters, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer lights up the hearts of young and old alike.
11. Mickey’s Christmas Carol
Make the season merry as Mickey, Goofy, Donald and all their pals star in a heartwarming retelling of Dickens’ unforgettable holiday tale. Ebenezer Scrooge (Scrooge McDuck) is far too greedy to understand that Christmas is a time for kindness and generosity. But with the guidance of some wise ghosts (Goofy and Jiminy Cricket) and a bunch of newfound friends, Scrooge learns to embrace the spirit of the season. Add this one to your list of family Christmas movies!
12. Jingle All The Way
Arnold Schwarzenegger returns in a new holiday comedy as a father determined to buy his son that “must-have” Christmas toy during a frantic shopping spree on Christmas Eve. This has become one of the best holiday movies!
13. The Perfect Holiday
Laughter, love and a just a hint of magic make for THE PERFECT HOLIDAY a fun-filled comedy romance. All Nancy Taylor wants for Christmas is to meet a nice man. So when her little girl shares Mommy’s wish with smitten shopping mall Santa, Benjamin Armstrong, He does his best to make her dream come true in this delightful holiday treat the entire family will enjoy!
14. The Muppet Christmas Carol
We all love the Muppets, so it’s no surprise that this movie made the ultimate list of family Christmas movies. This 20th Anniversary Edition of Disney’s THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL is guaranteed to put you in a holiday spirit that will stay with you forever — or at least until your Aunt Ruth starts complaining that nobody is eating the fruitcake she brought…again! Available on Blu-ray with high definition sound and picture, so you can enjoy even more of my blue-ness, not to mention the incredible spectacle of Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Scrooge, wonderful songs by Academy Award winner Paul Williams, and, of course, my pal Rizzo the Rat as…well, Rizzo the Rat. A heartwarming and hilarious holiday classic!
15. Miracle on 34th Street
Anyone skeptical of updated retreads of Christmas movie classics may be genuinely surprised by this 1994 version of Miracle on 34th Street. Based on the 1947 holiday classic, this new Miracle sticks close to the original’s story, though it offers more contemporary, crisper pacing and a tone curiously more reflective–even sorrowful–than before. The classic tale about a department store Kris Kringle who spreads the joy of Christmas by making a cynical little girl believe in Santa Claus.
16. Frosty The
Snowman
Here’s jingle we all know and love… ♪ Frosty the snowmaaannnnn ♫ Frosty comes to life in this family holiday movies, one of the best Christmas movies for kids. The original celebrated holiday classic brings plenty of yuletide cheer with the hot and cold story of the jolly happy soul.
17. Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas Special
Here’s a new favorite to add to your list of family Christmas movies. Have you herd the news? Your favorite sub-zero heroes are back in an all-new holiday adventure for the whole family! When Sid accidentally destroys Manny’s heirloom Christmas rock and ends up on Santa’s “naughty list,” he leads a hilarious quest to the North Pole to make things right and ends up making things much worse. Now it’s up to Manny and his prehistoric posse to band together and save Christmas for the entire world!
18. Disney’s Frozen
I have to add Frozen to the list, it’s a winter movie that is perfect for the season! Fearless optimist Anna teams up with Kristoff in an epic journey, encountering Everest-like conditions, and a hilarious snowman named Olaf in a race to find Anna’s sister Elsa, whose icy powers have trapped the kingdom in eternal winter.
19. Sesame Street Elmo’s Christmas Countdown
This one is perfect for the littles in your family. There’s a miracle on Sesame Street in this special holiday tale. Elmo, Abby Cadabby, and their new friend Stiller the Elf are going to count down to Christmas with the Christmas Counter-Downer. But all the counting boxes have gone missing and Christmas may never come again! Can Elmo, Abby and Stiller the Elf save Christmas?
20. Deck The Halls
Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito are hilarious as two neighbors trying to put the “win” in “winter” in one of the year’s funniest comedies! Determined to unseat Steve Finch’sreign as the town’s holiday season king, Buddy Hall plasters his house with so many decorative lights that it’ll be visible from space! When their wives bond, and their kids follow suit, the two men only escalate their rivalry- and their decorating. It’s anybody’s guess whether the holidays will wind up jolly or jostled in this wild and woolly laugh-fest that the whole family will love!
21. Prancer
This is a good old 80’s holiday film that we’ve grown to love. A reindeer doesn’t have to fly to be magical to someone, and Prancer succeeds, in its unassuming and plainspoken way, to prove that point. This 1989 family film stars Rebecca Harrell as 9-year-old Jessica, a motherless schoolgirl raised (and largely ignored) by her bereaved and embittered father (Sam Elliot), an apple farmer. While Jessica’s dad struggles to keep food on the family table, the little heroine worries over the fate of a wounded reindeer she meets and wistfully identifies as a member of Santa’s sled crew.
22. Ernest Saves Christmas
Get set for a magical dose of holiday cheer, zany season’s greetings, and spell-binding special effects in this fast-paced, heartwarming comedy hit! When Santa Claus decides to retire and pass on his magic bag of Christmas surprises to a new St. Nick, he enlists the aid of a hilarious assortment of characters, including that lovable know-it-all Ernest P. Worrell. Along the way, Santa and Ernest help a cynical teen experience the season’s spirit like never before. And that’s where the fun — and magic — begin! ERNEST SAVES CHRISTMAS … one delightful, surprising tale you’ll never forget!
23. Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey
Decades after being betrayed by his apprentice, a once joyful toy maker finds new hope when his bright young granddaughter arrives on his doorstep.
You can watch Jingle Jangle on Netflix.
What is your favorite family Christmas movie of all time?
The holidays are so much fun with family, and this list of family Christmas movies makes it even better! Our top favorite movie to watch during the holidays is the original Home Alone – hands down!
We hope you got some ideas from our Christmas movies list and enjoy your quality time for the holidays! What do you think about our list of Christmas movies?
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Christmas in Boston and The Family Stone are one of my top movies for this time of the year!