Issue Date: December 17, 2006

Best Christmas Movies Ever

Our exclusive panel picks the season's best.

By Dennis McCafferty

Nothing quite says Christmas like -- the movies! With no fewer than five new holiday offerings hitting theaters in the coming weeks, we present an indispensible addition to your seasonal must-see list: a guide to Hollywood's most irresistible holiday movies. We gathered four of the nation's leading movie critics around the proverbial hearth (OK, we called them) and asked each to wrap his Christmas movie favorites in a holiday package just for you. Naughty and nice, here's what they said:

Frank Gabrenya, Columbus Dispatch
Best Holiday Film of All Time: "A Christmas Carol" (1984)
In this version, George C. Scott is much meaner than other Scrooges, "so his redemption is all the more rewarding."
Best Santa: Edmund Gwenn in "Miracle on 34th Street" (1947) has "the best white beard."
Best Gifts: The Red Ryder BB gun in "A Christmas Story" remains "the ultimate gift. It's not really about the gun. It's about the love within the family."
Best Kids & Kookiest Parents: In "Home Alone" (1990), Kevin protects the house from burglars solo and becomes a better kid as a result. "Adults and kids love this because they can project themselves into Kevin."
Best Life-Changing Event: George Bailey's in "It's a Wonderful Life." "He reaches bottom, and, in the end, he's redeemed by all the good things he has done. That makes us feel validated in our own lives."
Why We Love These Movies: "Entertainment!" Despite sentimentality, good holiday films are "fun to watch. In "A Christmas Story," when the kid's tongue gets stuck to an icy pole, that's funny!"

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune
Best Holiday Film of All Time: Fanny & Alexander (1983)
This "beautiful" Ingmar Bergman film showcases "the innocence of Christmas through the eyes of children."
Best Santa: "Lovable but a bit irascible" Ed Asner in "Elf" (2003). A "sweet, hardworking guy adults can identify with."
Best Gifts: The shrunken head in Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993) "captures that 'What the heck is this?' moment we all experience when we open a present and find that sweater our aunt has knitted."
Best Kids & Kookiest Parents: Ralphie in "A Christmas Story." "He's so excited" about the holiday. "And it's narrated by Ralphie as a grown-up, but he's still enchanted by those moments in his life."
Best Life-Changing Event: Bill Murray's in "Scrooged" (1988) is "the hippest." He "turns an unredeemable rat into a good guy."
Why We Love These Movies: "A dose of iconoclastic material to balance all the sweetness and light." Examples: "Bad Santa," "Jingle All the Way" (1996) and "Christmas with the Kranks" (2004).

Gene Seymour, Long Island Newsday
Best Holiday Film of All Time: "Bad Santa" (2003)
"Great deadpan humor" that doesn't mar the "fundamental expectations of a holiday movie."
Best Santa: Tim Allen's "The Santa Clause" (1994). He doesn't "just buy into the concept of Santa; he's transformed into Santa."
Best Gifts: "Nothing in Santa's bag could match" the angel's gift of life in It's a Wonderful Life (1946).
Best Kids & Kookiest Parents: In "Miracle on 34th Street," parents say this guy, Santa, doesn't exist. "Talk about clueless."
Best Life-Changing Event: "Bad Santa" "captures the essence of redemption." Billy Bob Thornton's horrible Santa meets a kid who redeems him. "The simplicity of that transformation makes the rest of the seedy movie make sense."
Why We Love These Movies: "This is the only time of the year when all-time sappy moments work in movies." Case in point: In the last part of "Elf," everyone starts singing and the sleigh takes off.

Duane Dudek, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Best Holiday Film of All Time: "A Christmas Story" (1983)
"A wonderful, comedic and effortlessly entertaining movie that has lasted through the ages."
Best Santa: "More than anything, he has to be human." In "The Santa Clause," "Tim Allen comes across so well -- he's an ordinary, approachable guy."
Best Gifts: In "Joyeux Noel" (2005), the soldiers in World War I stop fighting each other to celebrate Christmas together. "Even if it can't last, they give themselves the gift of peace for a moment."
Best Kids & Kookiest Parents: What "better way to experience Christmas than through" children's eyes? In Millions (2004), "the holiday is the backdrop for miracles that happen in everyday life."
Best Life-Changing Event: In "Joyeux Noel," a holiday truce helps soldiers "redeem themselves just a little bit."
Why We Love These Movies: Great supporting characters. In "A Christmas Carol," Scrooge "dominates. But it's people like Marley and Tiny Tim that get him to take his journey."