There have been many 100s of Christmas films made over the years, but only a few are truly watchable – and even fewer can be mentioned in the same breath as Die Hard or Home Alone.
However, there's another category of Christmas movie that exists – the films that are so bad they come back out the other end and turn out to be unmissable, even favourites, regardless.
Here are three full of festive cheer that we just can't help popping on each year. And the best news is that they're available on the streaming services for you to check out too.
Jingle All The Way (Disney+)
Die Hard, Home Alone, Elf, It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle On 34th Street are all held in enormous regard by many, often cited amongst the very best when it comes to Christmas movie lists. However, there's one film that eclipses them all...
Unarguably the greatest Christmas movie of all time was released in 1996, stars the Austrian Oak himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and is centred around the true meaning of Christmas – aggressive capitalism, consumerism and neglectful parenting.
Schwarzenegger plays Howard Langston, a workaholic dad who discovers on Christmas eve that he has completely forgotten to get his son the one gift he truly wants, threatening to ruin Christmas for everyone.
What follows in Jingle All The Way is 90 minutes of repeated assaults, acts of terrorism, implied marital infidelity, destruction of public property, thefts and a final scene where Howard threatens to completely ruin a planned community parade and put the participants in danger... all just before Christmas.
Jingle All The Way is a terrible film in pretty much every way. The script is hilariously bad, the story is at best morally ambiguous, and the implied message seems to be "destroy everybody who stands in your way to get what you want".
It is also amazing! People should be forced to watch it at least once every holiday season.
Nativity (Netflix)
In no way should this film work as well as it does. Nativity is a micro-budget British Christmas film with a cast made up of non actor children. It was filmed seemingly at just some local school and with a leading cast of British TV actors. It should be the most terrible movie ever and in no way a fave.
Except it absolutely works.
The quaint seasonal fare is amazing, and has spawned an entire franchise. It's an absolute joy to watch every single year, in fact.
We follow Martin Freeman's newly-appointed primary teacher as he tries desperately, and against his will, to direct the school's yearly nativity play, and the results are heartwarming and very funny.
Comedian Mark Wooton brings absolute chaos to the screen as classroom assistant Mr Poppy, and has since, for some reason, seem to have become a British Christmas institution.
Nativity is not a good film – it is scrappy, poorly performed and relies on a central premise that holds very little interest – but we all love it.
Ernest Saves Christmas (Amazon Prime Video)
Back in the long forgotten 80s, Jim Varney was Hollywood royalty. As his own creation Ernest P. Worrell, he made film after film, forming an entire franchise pretty much single handedly. Ernest did pretty much everything from going to jail to being scared stupid, but the thing he did best was save Christmas.
Ernest was the Mr Bean of his day – a well-meaning but ultimately clumsy and comic character that no matter what was thrown at him faced life with an open heart, a cheery outlook and determination. He was the American everyman and his films were hugely successful.
In this movie he saves Christmas by rescuing Santa.
It is slapstick, stupid, full of plot holes, poorly devised, cheap-looking, and silly. It lacks any sort of real depth or development, but is absolutely fantastic to watch!
Ernest Saves Christmas is the epitome of a terrible film, but that does not mean you shouldn't watch it. It is 95 minutes of sheer joy and will leave you in a better mood for the day. A holiday essential in every way.
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