Top 10 Worst Christmas Movies of All Time
#10: “Best. Christmas. Ever!” (2023)
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Here’s the answer to the question: What if ChatGPT wrote a Christmas movie? That’s what this Christmas movie with no Christmas spirit seems like, anyway. The plot gimmick of misunderstanding that kickstarts all the antics in the movie is basically, someone says something sarcastically, another person interprets it as something else completely, and then events cascade to the extreme. It’s constant miscommunication done in the exact same way throughout the eighty-minute runtime. It’s sad that, though the movie is called “Best. Christmas. Ever!,” the holiday serves as nothing more than background and an excuse to get corny and sentimental in the end.
#9: “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” (1998)
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The song “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” was written for a noble cause, as a means to honor the soldiers in World War II who couldn’t be home with their families. The movie “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” has absolutely no relation to the song and does nothing but waste everyone’s time. None of the characters are written as if they could be real people with real motivations, and the humor is so lazy and cheap that you’d think you grabbed this from a bargain bin. And when there’s no respect for grim subject matter like a death in the family, it’s hard to imagine who this movie was made for. In the end, it just comes off as insensitive and totally apathetic, with not even much of a classic Christmas message about sharing and family and love.
#8: “Surviving Christmas” (2004)
‘Tis the season to be as mean-spirited as possible! That’s the core of much of the plot of “Surviving Christmas”, and it makes every character in the movie unlikable in the worst ways possible. “Surviving Christmas” has Ben Affleck playing a millionaire who pays a family to let him stay at their house and be his fake family for the holidays. Yes, it is very awkward, and the movie gets unnecessarily raunchy at times. To make matters worse, it suddenly shifts from a movie about a man who never had a Christmas with a family to a cringey rom-com where it comes off like the couple hates each other more than they are attracted to each other. Really, we can’t even label it as a “so bad it’s good” type of flick.
#7: “Jack Frost” (1998)
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This one was a major box office bomb. “Jack Frost” is about an arrogant rock singer, played by Michael Keaton, who dies in a car accident only to be brought back as a snowman. If this plot sounds familiar, it's because, like, two hundred other movies have used the “died but resurrected as x” plot before, including for Christmas movies. The only difference is that “Jack Frost” is out to make everyone miserable. Had the movie decided on what tone to go for, maybe this could have worked. But to call this a comedy and end with a kid witnessing their dad die a second time? Who is this movie aimed at?
#6: “The Mean One” (2022)
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“The Grinch” but as a horror-comedy? There have been stranger adaptations, but this one really got itself stuck in the fireplace flue. This parody of the iconic Dr. Seuss story turns The Grinch into “The Mean One, a furry green monster who not only steals Christmas decorations and presents, but also stalks and kills the residents of…Newville (ugh). Yeah, the movie fails in every facet possible. It isn't scary enough to call it a horror. It isn’t funny enough to call it a comedy. To find any appreciation for “The Mean One”, our hearts would have to exceed three sizes.
#5: “The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause” (2006)
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Just couldn’t leave “The Santa Clause” franchise alone after a sequel, eh? “The Escape Clause” attempts to rope in another mythical Christmas figure, Jack Frost, who wants to steal the Santa Clause mantle from Scott Calvin. To their credit, Martin Short and Tim Allen work with what they were given, but it was not enough to save this movie. “The Escape Clause” is bland in its humor and fails to capture any meaningful Christmas magic in its writing. Is it better than “Santa Clause 2”? Debatable, but that does not make it watchable. Save yourselves.
#4: “Saving Christmas” (2014) aka “Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas”
If your movie is widely panned by critics, it probably is that bad — emphasis on widely, we highly doubt there’s some conspiracy among pagans and Reddit users. “Saving Christmas” really is one of the most self-indulgent and outright boring movies we’ve seen. Cameron spends most of the movie contrasting traditional religious values to modern, more material Christmas iconography. It was such an egregious movie that many Christians spoke out against Cameron and his movie, some even going so far as to participate in review-bombing it on Rotten Tomatoes.
#3: “Deck the Halls” (2006)
A holiday comedy starring Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick should have worked. Emphasis on should because, well, it didn’t. “Deck the Halls” has the boring old plot of two neighbors finding themselves at odds with each other while preparing for the holiday craze. The intensity of the feud reaches a point where it's hard to believe anyone truly cares for each other, even when the cast arbitrarily comes together for the cheesy “meaning of Christmas” moment. By the time it’s over, you’ll be ready to guzzle more than just egg nog in hopes of forgetting “Deck the Halls” ever existed.
#2: “Christmas with the Kranks” (2004)
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Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dan Akyroyd… those names carry a lot of comedy weight. But in the case of “Christmas with the Kranks,” it’s basically a glaring stain on each of their careers. Just about nothing is properly explained throughout the movie. Why does everyone care about the Kranks skipping Christmas to the point where they’re harassing them? Is there any other significance to Blair’s role aside from being their daughter who just moved out for her career? Couple this lack of reasoning with unfunny gags and growing disdain for every character, and you have a Christmas movie that could have easily taken the top spot had it not been for one other awful adaptation. Before we reveal our top pick, here are a few Dishonorable Mentions. “Home Alone 3” (1997) Unnecessary in Every Sense of the Word “Daddy’s Home 2” (2017) Will Make You Resent “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” “Four Christmases” (2008) Not Even Reese Witherspoon Could Save This Movie
#1: “The Nutcracker in 3D” (2010) aka “The Nutcracker: The Untold Story”
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Again, when your movie consistently garners zeroes and ones across the review process, you have done something fundamentally wrong. “The Nutcracker: The Untold Story” is the worst adaptation of the famed ballet to ever exist. Not only does it grossly divulge in cheap 3D gimmicks, it fails in capturing any ounce of magic that previous versions have, even going so far as to ditch ballet entirely. The Nutcracker himself is incredibly creepy to look at, and the familiar ballet score is turned into awful musical numbers. We would much rather suffer through “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” a second time than watch another minute of this. What’s the worst Christmas movie you’ve ever seen? Let us know in the comments!
