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The 45 highest-grossing Christmas movies of all time
From "A Christmas Story" to "Elf," successful Christmas movies have come in many forms.
Here, we've compiled the 45 highest-grossing Christmas movies of all time at the domestic box office.
The holiday season wouldn't be complete without a laundry list of Christmas movies and a warm blanket.
Classics like "A Christmas Story" and "Elf" made this list alongside newer titles, including the 2018 version of "Dr. Seuss' The Grinch," which holds the No. 3 spot.
We compiled this list of the highest-grossing Christmas movies of all time at the US box office with data from Box Office Mojo (unadjusted for inflation). We also included each film's Rotten Tomatoes critic score and a review excerpt for each.
Take a look at the list below and check it twice for the 45 most successful Christmas movies of all time at the domestic box office.
Note: Several notable older films, including 1946's "It's a Wonderful Life," are absent for lack of data.
45. "One Magic Christmas" (1985)
Domestic box office total:$US13,667,222
Critic score: 47%
What critics said: "It's a godsend for parents, a movie you can take the kids to, but which won't leave you gnashing at the armrest halfway through." - Paul Attanasio, Washington Post
44. "All I Want for Christmas" (1991)
Domestic box office total:$US14,812,144
Critic score: 0%
What critics said: "Miracle on 34th Street this ain't." - Desson Thomson, Washington Post
43. "Unaccompanied Minors" (2006)
Domestic box office total:$US16,655,224
Critic score: 30%
What critics said: "Not for the faint of heart, the movie is unsettling and startlingly true to life." - A.O. Scott, New York Times
42. "Miracle on 34th Street" (1994)
Domestic box office total:$US17,320,136
Critic score: 59%
What critics said: "The overall effect is enjoyable and cuddly like a warm fire on a cold night. It also harkens back to a bygone, simpler time." - Leonard Klady, Variety
41. "Bad Santa 2" (2016)
Domestic box office total:$US17,782178
Critic score: 23%
What critics said: "This film is far from perfect, but it made me and some other terribly frightened folks laugh for a while in the dark." - April Wolfe, L.A. Weekly
40. "Prancer" (1989)
Domestic box office total:$US18,587,135
Critic score: 67%
What critics said: "Prancer remains a real curiosity - a movie that's far from being successful on its own terms, yet better than those terms would suggest." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Tribune
39. "A Christmas Story" (1983)
Domestic box office total:$US20,605,209
Critic score: 89%
What critics said: "Delightfully entertaining, with a wryly amusing narration to keep the adults in the audience smirking." - Don Peretta, Time Out
38. "Santa Claus: The Movie" (1985)
Domestic box office total:$US23,717,291
Critic score: 21%
What critics said: "A holiday honey of a film for the entire family." - Dolores Barclay, Associated Press
37. "The Muppet Christmas Carol" (1992)
Domestic box office total:$US27,281,507
Critic score: 74%
What critics said: "There's no great show of wit or tunefulness here, and the ingenious cross-generational touches are fairly rare. But there is a lively kiddie version of the Dickens tale, one that very young viewers ought to understand." - Janet Maslin,New York Times
36. "Ernest Saves Christmas" (1988)
Domestic box office total:$US28,202,109
Critic score: 36%
What critics said: "Only marginally insufferable, the Ernest movie is ... a big-screen example of the TV-sitcom tendency to go broad and sappy with a token Yuletide show each December." - Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine
35. "Jack Frost" (1998)
Domestic box office total:$US34,562,556
Critic score: 20%
What critics said: "A slickly packaged and engagingly sentimental fantasy-comedy that stands out as one of the season's most pleasant surprises!" - Joe Leydon, Variety
34. "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas" (2011)
Domestic box office total:$US35,061,031
Critic score: 68%
What critics said: "For all its pretensions to bad taste, this is surprisingly heartwarming festive fare." - Tom Huddleston,Time Out
33. "Deck the Halls" (2006)
Domestic box office total:$US35,093,569
Critic score: 6%
What critics said: "It's a holiday ritual: Each year, American moviegoers get the misanthropically stupid, plastic-satire-of- a-plastic-society Christmas comedy they deserve." - Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
32. "The Nativity Story" (2006)
Domestic box office total:$US37,629,831
Critic score: 38%
What critics said: "One of the incidental points of the film, particularly powerful, is that doing the right thing isn't easy, even in the face of divine assurance." - Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
31. "The Star" (2017)
Domestic box office total:$US40,852,824
Critic score: 44%
What critics said: "Unless you have tiny, religious children, it's probably best to avoid it." - Helen O'Hara, Time Out
30. "Almost Christmas" (2016)
Domestic box office total:$US42,158,780
Critic score: 52%
What critics said: "The movie takes a few calamitous turns at its climax, dangerously approaching broad slapstick and villainizing a character we've come to love. But mainly, it's a fun and boisterous countdown to the big meal." - Joshua Rothkopf,Time Out
29. "Krampus" (2015)
Domestic box office total:$US42,725,475
Critic score: 66%
What critics said: "When Krampus departs, so does disillusionment. As I watched the final few minutes of Krampus, I realised that this anti-Christmas movie was really just a Christmas-Christmas movie in disguise." - Adrian Van Young,Vice
28. "The Night Before" (2015)
Domestic box office total:$US43,047,372
Critic score: 66%
What critics said: "Seth Rogen bursts with inventive exuberance in this schematic but genial holiday comedy about millennials settling down." - Richard Brody, New Yorker
27. "Arthur Christmas" (2011)
Domestic box office total:$US46,462,469
Critic score: 92%
What critics said: "This witty, handsomely appointed 3-D animated feature is the most delightful Santa biopic since Edmund Gwenn donned the fat suit." - Scott Marks, San Diego Reader
26. "The Preacher's Wife" (1996)
Domestic box office total:$US48,102,795
Critic score: 59%
What critics said: "The Preacher's Wife qualifies as old-fashioned Hollywood movie making at its corniest and most saccharine. But the mostly African American cast puts an engaging spin on the chestnut, and it works beautifully." - Peter Stack,San Francisco Chronicle
25. "This Christmas" (2007)
Domestic box office total:$US49,121,934
Critic score: 55%
What critics said: "If the real-life Christmas experience tends too often to be marred by the rude contradiction between expectations and reality, movies like the ultra-bland holiday family movie This Christmas are at least partly to blame." - Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star
24. "Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas" (2013)
Domestic box office total:$US52,543,354
Critic score: 20%
What critics said: "Larry the Cable Guy and Madea are an oddly perfect pairing. They're both comedians in drag - Larry just gets to wear pants." - Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly
23. "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" (2018)
Domestic box office total:$US52,766,998
Critic score: 34%
What critics said: "But like A Wrinkle in Time, Nutcracker and the Four Realms is an expensive but clunky fantasy, mashing together mythical elements but mostly hitting discordant notes." - Brian Lowry, CNN
22. "Office Christmas Party" (2016)
Domestic box office total:$US54,767,494
Critic score: 41%
What critics said: "Like most office Christmas parties, you should skip it." - Adam Graham, Detroit News
21. "Bad Santa" (2003)
Domestic box office total:$US60,060,328
Critic score: 78%
What critics said: "Once the rude shock of a profane Claus wears off, there's not really much to do except await the next outrageous remark." - Michael Agger, New Yorker
20. "Scrooged" (1988)
Domestic box office total:$US60,328,558
Critic score: 70%
What critics said: "Despite the juicy, on-the-edge craziness, Murray is able to layer his outrageous histrionics with an inner sensibility, making his ultimate transformation not only believable but Christmas-cheer uplifting." - Duane Byrge,Hollywood Reporter
19. "Jingle All The Way" (1996)
Domestic box office total:$US60,592,389
Critic score: 16%
What critics said: "I liked a lot of the movie, which is genial and has a lot of energy, but I was sort of depressed by its relentlessly materialistic view of Christmas, and by the choice to go with action and (mild) violence over dialogue and plot." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
18. "The Best Man Holiday" (2013)
Domestic box office total:$US70,525,195
Critic score: 70%
What critics said: "Even if some of the crudeness and the drama feel forced, it's hard to hate." - Nicolas Rapold, New York Times
17. "Christmas Vacation" (1989)
Domestic box office total:$US71,319,526
Critic score: 64%
What critics said: "Christmas Vacation may not be a fancy package, but it is a diverting stocking stuffer." - Rita Kempley,Washington Post
16. "Fred Claus" (2007)
Domestic box office total:$US72,006,777
Critic score: 20%
What critics said: "Fred Claus turns out to be not bad for a Santa movie, which I suppose could be interpreted as either faint or excessive praise, depending on your view." - Carina Chocano,Los Angeles Times
15. "A Bad Mums Christmas" (2017)
Domestic box office total:$US72,110,659
Critic score: 30%
What critics said: "Maybe they should take a lesson from the movie itself: Stressed out mums deserve better." - Stephanie Merry, Washington Post
14. "Christmas with the Kranks" (2004)
Domestic box office total:$US73,780,539
Critic score: 5%
What critics said: "Stinks like the unrefrigerated ham its studio sent me as a promotion several months ago." - Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post
13. "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993)
Domestic box office total:$US75,082,668
Critic score: 95%
What critics said: "This full-length animated movie was shot in stop motion, with all the febrile, twittery fascination that the medium exerts; it has a magic-toy shop feeling, with unexpected objects stuttering into life." - Anthony Lane, New Yorker
12. "The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause" (2006)
Domestic box office total:$US84,500,122
Critic score: 17%
What critics said: "Frost turns the occasion into a swag-saturated consumer orgy, which the film condemns even as it hams up product placement for Red Bull." - Stephen Garrett,Time Out
11. "Daddy's Home 2" (2017)
Domestic box office total:$US104,029,443
Critic score:19%
What critics said: "By any standard, every person in the world of Daddy's Home 2 would be scarred for life by the events in the film. The real happy ending is that no one in the audience has to go home with these people." - Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle
10. "Four Christmases" (2008)
Domestic box office total:$US120,146,040
Critic score: 24%
What critics said: "We've enjoyed their cocky selfishness; just as much, we bask in schadenfreude when they get guilted into making the familial trail of tears." - Amy Nicholson, Boxoffice Magazine
9. "A Christmas Carol" (2009)
Domestic box office total:$US137,855,863
Critic score: 54%
What critics said: "Does this entertainment achieve a timelessness beyond its exquisite source material? Not even. Yet there's pleasure to be had and relief in feeling the filmmakers didn't Scrooge it up either." - Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post
8. "The Santa Clause 2" (2002)
Domestic box office total:$US139,236,327
Critic score: 55%
What critics said: "It's as home-entertainment ready as a shrink-wrapped sack of microwave popcorn. But at least it works hard at finding ways of pushing this one-joke premise ahead a space or two." - Gene Seymour, Newsday
7. "The Santa Clause" (1994)
Domestic box office total:$US144,833,357
Critic score: 74%
What critics said: "This is Allen's movie debut, and it's easy to see why his show is a ratings smash. There's an effortless quality to his humour, but it's also got a quietly urgent edge to it." - Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times
6. "Elf" (2003)
Domestic box office total:$US173,398,518
Critic score: 83%
What critics said: "Ferrell is a hoot. So is much of this witty holiday family entertainment, which, up until the end, when the 'true spirit of Christmas' must be reaffirmed, happily favours slapstick over treacle." - David Ansen, Newsweek
5. "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" (1992)
Domestic box office total:$US174,585,516
Critic score: 30%
What critics said: "Let's face it: Culkin's self-reliant suburban warrior has entered a whole generation's pop mythology. He's their Knight in Shining Parka, safely beyond criticism." - David Ansen, Newsweek
4. "The Polar Express" (2004)
Domestic box office total:$US186,493,472
Critic score: 56%
What critics said: "At some point very early in the 3-D IMAX version of The Polar Express, technology trumps banality and you helplessly surrender to the shock and awe of this big, often thunderous movie." - Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine
3. "Dr. Seuss' The Grinch" (2018)
Domestic box office total:$US224,217,865
Critic score: 58%
What critics said: "It's best for kids and adults who just can't handle the angry, diabolical monster of films past." - Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post
2. "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (2000)
Domestic box office total:$US260,044,825
Critic score: 52%
What critics said: "If you have little moviegoers around for the holidays, you should still make the trip to Whovillie." - Paul Clinton, CNN
1. "Home Alone" (1990)
Domestic box office total:$US285,761,243
Critic score: 63%
What critics said: "The movie is quite enjoyable as long as it explores the fantasy of a neglected little boy having an entire house of his own to explore and play in, and it still manages to be fun when he exhibits superhuman ingenuity and resourcefulness." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
