Classic Christmas Movies vs New Christmas Movies: Which Ones Deserve Your December?

Christmas movie season starts this week with a ghost story. Ebenezer, Ti West’s new take on A Christmas Carol starring Johnny Depp as Scrooge, opens in theatres on Friday, November 13, 2026. It is a PG-13 Dickens adaptation from the director of X and Pearl, with Ian McKellen as Marley. The timing is no accident. Mid November is when the season flips, and every household faces the same question.

Do you reach for the films you have watched a hundred times, or give the new ones a fair shot? This December, we settle it the honest way. Five classics take on five newer films, head to head. No nostalgia points for free, and no points for being new either. Each film has to earn its place on your couch.

Here is how the contest works. Team Classic brings the five films that built the modern Christmas movie. Team New brings five films from the last few years that want their spots. We score them on warmth, rewatch value, laughs, and the feeling you carry into the next morning, then we call a winner.

1. It Is a Wonderful Life (1946) – Team Classic

Every Christmas list starts here, and for good reason. Frank Capra tells the story of George Bailey, a man who spends his whole life putting his small town first and ends up believing the world would be better without him. On Christmas Eve, an angel shows him exactly what Bedford Falls would look like if he had never been born. James Stewart plays George with warmth and exhaustion that still feel modern.

The film was not a hit when it opened in 1946. It found its audience slowly, on television, year after year, until it became the definition of a Christmas classic. It is a film about ordinary kindness, and about a man who never leaves home yet still lives a large life. The final scene, with the whole town pouring into the Bailey house, earns every tear it gets.

Watch it when the house is quiet and you want the night to mean something. It is the longest film on Team Classic at 130 minutes, and it uses every one of them. The black and white photography suits the story. It makes the snow look colder and the warm rooms look warmer. If your December has room for only one serious film, this is the one to pick.

2. A Christmas Story (1983) – Team Classic

Ralphie Parker wants one thing for Christmas: a Red Ryder BB gun. Every adult in his life has the same answer. Bob Clark directs this 1983 comedy like a memory, warm and a little exaggerated in all the right places. The narration, the frozen flagpole, the leg lamp, the bunny suit, the Chinese restaurant on Christmas Day: each scene is a small story on its own.

What makes it last is how honest it is about childhood. Ralphie is not a perfect kid. He schemes, he fights with his brother, he swears once and regrets it at once. It is funny without ever turning mean, and it knows that Christmas for a nine year old is mostly about wanting.

This is the film to put on while the house is busy. It works in the background and it works when everyone stops to watch the famous scenes. At 93 minutes, it is the shortest film on Team Classic, an easy second feature after a long dinner. It also carries one of the best warnings in movie history: you will shoot your eye out.

3. Home Alone (1990) – Team Classic

Eight year old Kevin McCallister gets left behind when his family flies to Paris, and he has the whole house to himself. For about ten minutes, that is a dream. Then two burglars show up, and Kevin turns the house into a maze of traps. Chris Columbus directs, John Hughes writes, and Macaulay Culkin carries the film with a confidence no child actor has matched since.

The traps deserve the attention they get. The paint cans, the icy stairs, the tarantula: they are staged like a cartoon brought to life. But the film works because of the quiet parts too. Kevin misses his mother. He learns to shop, do laundry, and worry on his own. His talk with the old man in the church is the heart of the movie, and it is why adults still watch it without kids in the room.

Home Alone is the loudest film on Team Classic, and it is the one your living room will quote for days. It topped the Disney Plus movie chart in the United States in early November 2026, thirty six years after opening. That tells you everything about its staying power. Put it on when the kids are bouncing off the walls and the grown ups need a laugh.

4. Elf (2003) – Team Classic

Buddy was raised by elves at the North Pole, without ever noticing he is a full grown man in green tights. When he travels to New York to find his real father, he brings the North Pole with him: snowball fights, spaghetti with syrup, and a belief that smiling is a full time job. Will Ferrell plays Buddy with total sincerity, and Jon Favreau directs the joke straight, which is why it never gets old.

Elf is the youngest film on Team Classic, and it already feels like it has been around forever. That is because it understands its own joke so well. Buddy is not making fun of Christmas. He loves it completely, and the film loves him for it. Zooey Deschanel sings, James Caan scowls, and Christmas spirit ends up powering Santa’s sleigh.

This is the crowd pleaser of the team, the pick when the room has mixed ages and moods. At 97 minutes, it moves fast and never stalls. If your family argues about what to watch, Elf is the safe pick that nobody will fight. Even the skeptics end up quoting the syrup scene.

5. The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) – Team Classic

Michael Caine plays Scrooge straight, and the Muppets do everything else. That combination should not work. It works perfectly. Gonzo narrates as Charles Dickens, Rizzo the Rat keeps interrupting him, Kermit plays Bob Cratchit, and Miss Piggy plays his wife. It stays closer to Dickens than most serious adaptations, and still finds room for jokes, songs, and a frog in a bonnet.

Brian Henson directed this as the first Muppet film after his father Jim Henson died, with care in every frame. The songs are strong, the London streets look properly cold, and Caine never winks at the audience. He treats the Muppets like real actors. The result is the most faithful and the most fun version of the story on this list.

One tip matters here. Disney Plus carries two versions, and the full length cut hides under the Extras tab. Pick that one. It restores the song When Love Is Gone, the scene where Scrooge loses his first love, and the film is better with it. At 85 minutes in its theatrical cut, it is the shortest film in the contest, which makes it the perfect warm up act.

6. Violent Night (2022) – Team New

Team New opens with a punch. David Harbour plays Santa Claus as a burned out Viking warrior who has lost his faith in Christmas, and he walks into the wrong house on the wrong night. A team of mercenaries has taken a rich family hostage, and Santa has to fight his way through them with whatever is in his sack. Tommy Wirkola directs it like Die Hard in a mansion, with a very angry Saint Nick.

This is the wild card of the contest. The film is rated R for strong bloody violence and language, so it is strictly for after the kids are asleep. Underneath the action, it has a real heart. Santa rediscovers why he does the job, and a little girl named Trudy reminds him someone still believes. A sequel is already set for December 2026, which tells you the gamble paid off.

Do not watch this one with children, and do not watch it expecting a cozy classic. Watch it when the family films are done and the grown ups want something rowdy. At 112 minutes, it is the most action packed night here. It is the film Team New uses to prove that Christmas movies can still surprise you.

7. Klaus (2019) – Team New

Klaus is the best film on Team New, and it is not close. Sergio Pablos tells a brand new origin story for Santa Claus, hand drawn like a storybook come to life. Jesper is a lazy postman sent to a frozen town where two families have feuded for so long that nobody remembers why. He teams up with Klaus, a reclusive toymaker voiced by J. K. Simmons, and they accidentally invent Christmas.

The animation is gorgeous, with lantern light glowing in every scene. But the story is what makes it a classic in waiting. Jesper starts out selfish and ends up changed, not by magic, but by watching kindness spread from child to child. It won the BAFTA for Best Animated Film and earned an Oscar nomination. It is the only film on Team New that already feels timeless.

This is the one to watch with the whole family, all ages, no exceptions. It is funny for kids and moving for adults, and at 97 minutes it never drags. If Team Classic wins this contest, Klaus is the reason the margin stays close. It is the new film most likely to still be on your list in twenty years.

8. The Holdovers (2023) – Team New

Paul Giamatti plays Paul Hunham, a grumpy teacher at a New England boarding school who has to stay over Christmas break with the students nobody claimed. One is Angus, a bright and angry teenager played by Dominic Sessa. The school cook Mary, played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph in an Oscar winning turn, has just lost her son. The three of them spend a snowy two weeks together, and something like a family forms.

Alexander Payne directs with a 1970s look and a patient hand. Nothing explodes, and nobody learns a big lesson in one scene. It just lets three lonely people share meals, watch old movies, and slowly drop their guards. It earned five Oscar nominations and 97 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. It is also the longest film in the contest at 133 minutes, and it earns its length.

This is the grown up pick of the contest, and the one to save for a quiet evening. It is funny in a dry way, sad in an honest way, and warm in a way that sneaks up. If you think Christmas movies peaked in the past, The Holdovers is the film that will make you rethink that. It feels like a classic already.

9. 8-Bit Christmas (2021) – Team New

Jake Doyle is ten years old in the late 1980s, and he wants a Nintendo Entertainment System more than anything in the world. Neil Patrick Harris plays the grown up Jake, telling the story to his own daughter, and Winslow Fegley plays the young Jake with real charm. Michael Dowse directs a film that plays like A Christmas Story for the video game generation, right down to the parents, the bullies, and the neighborhood schemes.

It is not trying to be deep. It is trying to be true to one kind of childhood Christmas, where the gift mattered because everyone wanted the same one. The period detail is spot on, from the wood panel living room to the playground console wars. It is light, funny, and a little wistful about a time when getting the right present felt like the most important thing in the world.

This is the nostalgia pick for anyone who grew up in the eighties, and it pairs perfectly with A Christmas Story on the other team. Watch them back to back and see how much they share. At 97 minutes, it is an easy watch, and it is the film on Team New most likely to make you call your siblings after the credits.

10. Falling for Christmas (2022) – Team New

Lindsay Lohan stars as Sierra, a spoiled hotel heiress who falls off a mountain, loses her memory, and wakes up in the care of a kind lodge owner and his young daughter. It is a familiar story, and the film knows it. Janeen Damian directs it as a warm, glossy Netflix romance, with snow, a small town lodge, and a Christmas festival at the end.

Falling for Christmas has the lowest IMDb rating in the contest at 5.3, and it does not hide its flaws. The plot is predictable, the jokes are gentle. Lohan is charming, the lodge looks like a postcard, and the film never asks much of you. Sometimes that is exactly what a December evening needs.

This is the cozy pick, the one to watch with a blanket and zero expectations. It is Team New’s weakest player on paper, but it is also the most honest about what it is. If you love Hallmark style Christmas romances, this will feel like home. If you do not, it will still make a fine background film while you wrap presents.

Team Classic wins December, but only just. The final score is 7.8 to 7.0 on the IMDb averages, and the gap is smaller than it looks. The classics win because every single one of them is a film you can watch every year without getting tired. They have the jokes you quote, the scenes you wait for, and the endings that still land. That is a hard thing for any new film to beat, and it is why the old team holds the title.

But Team New deserves real credit, and two of its films are keepers. Klaus is a future classic, the kind of film that will be on lists like this one for decades. The Holdovers is already one of the best Christmas films of the century, and it will age beautifully. Violent Night is a great party film for the grown ups. The new team loses the contest, yet it wins the future, because it proves that Christmas movies are still being made with care.

So here is the December plan. Start with the classics, one per weekend. Then give Team New its shot on the weeknights, starting with Klaus and The Holdovers. Finish the season with Ebenezer in theatres on November 13, a new Scrooge for a new year. The classics keep the crown this time. The new films are coming for it, and that is good news for every December after this one.

John Smith

John Smith is the founder and CEO of Karaoke Machines Guru. He is a karaoke tutor and karaoke enthusiast and has been passionate about karaoke since he was a child. He also writes about karaoke-related tips, guides, and product reviews on this website.
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