There is a Solid top 8 of most nominated films – with one clear winner, but first let’s look at some of the more ‘interesting’ nominations:
Not quite, But OK.
1. All of the James Bond Films
2. Ghostbusters
3. Anaconda (thanks to e-TV)
4. Reindeer Games with Charlize Theron & Ben Affleck
5. Shrek
6. The Devil wears Prada
7. The Hangover
Christmas Themes:
- Harry Potter
- Serendipity
- While You were Sleeping
- Why Him?
- Unaccompanied Minors
Honourable Mentions:
- Jingle All the Way
- Home Alone – Lost in New York
- Elf
- A Christmas Carol – Jim Carrey
- Muppet Christmas Carol
- A Christmas Story
- Christmas Vacation
- Miracle on 34th Street
- Noel
- Deck The Halls
- Griswold’s Family Christmas
- Best Man Holiday
- A Castle for Christmas
- Christmas on Mistletoe Farm
- Klaus
- Last Holiday with Queen Latifah
- Bad Santa
- Mr Bean Christmas
- Any Bad Hallmark Movies
Beloved Films: (these got many nominations)
- The Family Stone
- Christmas with the Kranks
- This Christmas
- The Santa Clause
- Nightmare Before Christmas
- What a Wonderful Life
- Table For One
THE TOP CHRISTMAS MOVIES OF 2025 FOR CAPE TOWN
8. Last Christmas (2019) Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) plays Kate, a walking disaster in an elf costume – who keeps bumping into the unfairly gorgeous Henry Golding, a man so charming he might as well have been grown in a Hallmark lab.
What starts as a meet-cute turns into a surprisingly emotional twist, proving that sometimes the real Christmas gift is… well, not what you ordered. It’s glittery, funny, a little chaotic and FULL of George Michael hits, hence the name.
7. Four Christmases (2008) is the festive rom-com chaos where Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn play a couple who’d rather wrestle a live turkey than spend the holidays with their families, until fog traps their flight and suddenly they’re on a whirlwind tour of all four parents’ homes. Each stop is messier, louder, and more unhinged than the last, like a Christmas cracker that keeps exploding in their faces.
6. The Polar Express (2004) The beautifully trippy Christmas adventure where a young boy hops on a magical train to the North Pole, guided (and occasionally mildly terrified) by Tom Hanks — who, in true overachiever fashion, voices about half the characters on board. It’s snowy, sparkly, a little uncanny-valley in that early-2000s-animation way, and ultimately a heart-warmer about believing in the magic…
5. Die Hard (1988) Yes, It’s a Christmas movie. Bruce Willis’s John McClane crashes his estranged wife’s office Xmas party and ends up unwrapping a building full of terrorists led by the deliciously villainous Alan Rickman. It’s got holiday spirit, explosions, and some ho ho hos.
Basically, the kind of festive chaos we fully endorse.
4. The Grinch (2000) – Jim Carrey goes full green goblin-of-festivity, terrorising Whoville with the kind of chaotic energy usually reserved for December V&A shopping queues. As the Grinch plots to steal Christmas, with Max the dog questioning all his life choices, little Cindy Lou Who (played by a tiny Taylor Momsen) gently drags him toward holiday redemption. It’s silly, sparkly, slightly feral, and honestly… relatable.
3. Love Actually (2003) is the festive British rom-com chaos machine where basically every actor in the UK — including Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Colin Firth, Keira Knightley, and Liam Neeson — gets tossed into a tinsel-covered blender of love stories. It’s messy, charming, occasionally questionable (looking at you, cue cards), but somehow still makes us believe that Christmas is the perfect time for grand gestures, awkward confessions, and emotionally compromised airport sprints. Eugene and Dean STILL haven’t seen it and Angel remains perplexed at this fact!
2. Home Alone (1990) Voted Number one globally for 2025, it’s the second favourite to Cape Town’s motorists. The ultimate Christmas tale of festive neglect, where Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin gets forgotten by his entire family (honestly, iconic behaviour) and turns his house into a booby-trapped nightmare for two hapless burglars played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. It’s slapstick, chaotic, and proves that nothing says “holiday spirit” like outsmarting adults with paint cans, tar, and pure gremlin energy.
And the winner is:
1.The Holiday (2006) The cosy-chaotic Christmas rom-com where Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet swap houses (and emotional baggage) only to conveniently stumble upon Jude Law (doing peak widower hotness) and Jack Black (doing peak golden-retriever energy).
-Shout out to romanticising long distance relationships!!- It’s sugary, unrealistic, and so smugly heartwarming that you’ll roll your eyes while secretly planning your own cottage-core escape.
We hate it, we love it, and yes, we will absolutely watch it every year, and so will you it seems!
