Every day in December leading up to Christmas we’re determining the best Christmas movie of all time via a series of head-to-head face-offs. We’re already over a week in and I realised I haven’t actually posted the full bracket, so now that the bottom seed play-offs are complete and the first proper round of the bracket can begin, here are all the competing films and their respective champions. They have been split into four groups of six films, and have then been ranked by Rotten Tomatoes score to create the rankings. The two highest scoring films in each group automatically proceeded to the bracket, whilst the others faced each other in the play-offs.
Group A – Mythology
The Mythology group deals with the fantasy elements of Christmas films, largely involving Santa in some way.
The Nightmare Before Christmas – Doug Jamieson, The Jam Report
It’s A Wonderful Life – Amanda Kirkham, Hollywood Consumer
Arthur Christmas – Tony Cogan, Coogs Review
Elf – Kellee Pratt, Outspoken and Freckled
Prancer – Heather Baxendale, The MILFcast – eliminated
The Polar Express – Zoe Rose Smith, Zobo With A Shotgun – eliminated
Group B – Genre
The Genre group are films that are not always considered the most festive, but happen to take place at Christmas.
Die Hard – Simon Appleton, Moustache Movie News
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang – Cameron Kanachki, The Michigan Movie Guy
Gremlins – Rob, MovieRob
Christmas Evil – Elwood Jones, From the Depths of DVD Hell – eliminated
Batman Returns – Aaron Neuwirth, The Code is Zeek
Love, Actually – Getter Trumsi, Mettel Ray – eliminated
Group C – Family
The Family group is the most self-explanatory, all these films depict a family at Christmas.
A Christmas Story – Emma, Miss Emma MM
Millions – Alfredo Castil, Film Yarn
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation – Matthew Stewart, Simplistic Reviews
Home Alone – Alex Ramon, Boycotting Trends
Home Alone 2 – Audrey Fox, 1001 Movies and Beyond – eliminated
Jingle All the Way – Nikhat Zahra, Across the Universe– eliminated
Group D – Other
Not all the films fitted easily into a category, so this is the group that contains everything else, but even then the Other group is split into two sub-groups: Dickens and Other:
A Christmas Carol (1984) – James Wilson, Blogging by Cinema-Light
The Muppet Christmas Carol – Richard Kirkham, Kirkham A Movie A Day
Scrooged – Robert Zerbe, To The Escape Hatch – eliminated
White Christmas – Chris Staron, The Popcorn Auteur
Lapland Odyssey – David Brook, Blueprint: Review – eliminated
The Preacher’s Wife – LeAnne Lindsay, Tinsel and Tine
Every day two films will go head-to-head until Christmas Eve. What’s more, the battle isn’t just taking place on the LAMB site, no, it’s also spilled out onto Twitter, Facebook and the LAMB’s new Instagram account, so make sure you vote for your favourite everywhere you can! All the votes will be totted up before the champion of each match is crowned.