The Most Christmas-y Christmas Movies of All Time

Everyone has that one holiday movie they’ll defend with the passion of a thousand jingle bells.

But instead of arguing over hot cocoa again this year, we finally have something resembling science to settle the debate. A new study took 20 popular holiday films and ran them through 20 different data points to determine the ultimate Christmas movie of all time. Yes, it is possible to quantify festive spirit, and yes, someone actually did it.

Researchers broke their ranking into four main categories. They counted Christmas references in each movie, including things like Christmas outfits, holiday songs, uses of the word “Christmas,” and any direct Santa sightings. Then they compared that with the film’s box office success, critic and audience reviews, and how much festive buzz each movie still generates across social media and search trends every December.

And according to the data, the most Christmas-y Christmas movie of all time is the original Home Alone.

Surprised? While it scored lower than you’d expect in sheer Christmas references, the movie crushed the competition in box office performance and long-term holiday hype. Even with just five shots of Christmas outfits, 11 Christmas songs, 13 uses of the word “Christmas,” and a single Santa cameo, Kevin McCallister still reigns supreme.

Here is the top ten, in case you need to update your holiday watchlist:

1. Home Alone (1990)
2. Elf (2003)
3. Love Actually (2003)
4. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000, Jim Carrey version)
5. The Santa Clause (1994)
6. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
7. Arthur Christmas (2011)
8. Gremlins (1984)
9. The Polar Express (2004)
10. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)

For the people who insist Die Hard is a Christmas movie and will absolutely not let that argument die, good news and bad news. It did make the list, but it landed just outside the top ten at number eleven. It was followed by Home Alone 2 and Scrooged.

So whether your holiday vibe is cozy, chaotic, romantic, spooky, or aggressively pro-Bruce Willis, now you can cite actual data when declaring your favorite Christmas movie the rightful king of the season. Merry science to all, and to all a good movie night.