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News / Guides / Best Christmas Movies
Best Christmas Movies
Intro | How It Works

We've made a list, and we've checked it way more than twice. And since you, the RT readers, have been nice this year, we've got a present for you: the Best Christmas Movies countdown, our compendium of the best-reviewed seasonal entertainments of all time!

We've got everything from yuletide perennials (It's a Wonderful Life) to favorites that take place during the holiday season (Die Hard). We've got comedies, dramas, family films, and even a couple Christmas-themed war movies -- in other words, something to make any filmgoer's spirits bright.

A word or two about our process: we utilized a weighted system that factors in both Tomatometer and number of reviews, and each movie needed 20 reviews to qualify. We also omitted television specials (sorry, How the Grinch Stole Christmas) and movies in which Christmas only plays a small part, no matter how memorably (tough break, The Apartment). Without further ado, it's time to take a walk in RT's winter wonderland of cinema -- our Best Christmas Movies countdown!

  • Each critic from our discrete list gets one vote, all weighted equally.
  • A movie must have 20 or more rated reviews to be considered.
  • Reviews without ratings are not counted toward the results.
  • Because reviews are continually added, manually and otherwise, we have a cutoff date at which new reviews are not counted. The current cut off date is 12/15/2008.
  • We use a weighted formula to account for variation in the number of reviews per movie per year. The winners are determined by the rankings, designated as the "adjusted score," after applying said formula:
    t + ((r-a) ÷ a) if number of reviews > average number of reviews for corresponding year.
    t * (r ÷ a) if number of reviews < average number of reviews for corresponding year
    t if number of reviews = average number of reviews for corresponding year
    with "r" representing the number of rated reviews, "t" the Tomatometer score, and "a" the average number of reviews per movie for corresponding year

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