Between shopping, wrapping presents, putting up lights, and finding the perfect Christmas tree, sometimes decking the halls can feel like a full-time job. That’s why it’s important to savor the season’s little moments and traditions — like re-watching your favorite Christmas movie! To help you out, we here at BetGeorgia.com is taking a holiday from following the fight for Georgia sports betting and continuing our arts and culture coverage of topics that may interest state residents. With that in mind, we’ve set out to rank the top five best Christmas movies according to the Peach State population.
To determine Georgia’s five favorite Christmas movies we started with a long list of the 40 movies that generated the most search engine traffic around the world last year (via analytics platform AhRefs). Next we fed those movies through Google Trends to find which ones Georgia residents searched for the most over the past three Christmases.
Unwrap the results below!
Favorite Christmas Movies in Georgia
Rank | Christmas Movies | Interest Over Time |
1 | Home Alone | 11 |
T-2 | How The Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) | 9 |
T-2 | The Polar Express | 9 |
4 | National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation | 7 |
T-5 | Elf | 6 |
T-5 | Die Hard | 6 |
Kevin McCallister Alone Again: This Time, On Top
In terms of search engine interest, “Home Alone” is the number one Christmas movie in the state of Georgia.
The beloved holiday classic about Kevin McCallister battling a bumbling duo of home invaders has been charming audiences since 1990. In fact, after taking in over $475 million internationally, “Home Alone” sat as the highest-grossing Christmas movie of all time until 2018. Meanwhile, the movie’s sequel “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” became the number two film on that list following its release in 1992.
A Tie For Number Two Spot
The film that dropped “Home Alone” and its sequel to number two and three spots on the list of the all-time highest-grossing Christmas movies was 2018’s “The Grinch.” But while that computed animated take on the classic Dr. Seuss story failed to make our list of Georgia’s favorite Christmas movies, the 2000 adaptation “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” lands in a tie for number two on our own list of Mississippi’s favorite Christmas movies. For its part, the Jim Carrey-starring live-action adaptation of Seuss’ anti-commercialism fable is the fourth highest-grossing Christmas movie of all time, earning $345 million
“The Polar Express,” which is tied with “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” for Mississippi’s second favorite Christmas movie, managed to bring in $315 million at the box office back in 2004. That was good enough to become the sixth-highest-grossing Christmas movie of all time. And if you’re wondering, the fifth highest-grossing Christmas film happens to be 2009’s “A Christmas Carol,” which uses the same motion capture technology as “The Polar Express” to bring the classic Dickens story to life. Both films are directed by Robert Zemeckis, who had a bit of a mo-cap obsession throughout the early-2000s.
Three Major Christmas Movies Round Out Top 5
Fourth on the list of Georgia’s favorite Christmas films is “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” which stars Chevy Chase reprising his role as the patriarch of the Griswold family. The popular series of films was inspired by a short story written by “Home Alone” producer and scribe John Hughes, who wrote all the first three “Vacation” films, including “Christmas Vacation.”
The fifth and final films on our list of Georgia’s top Christmas movies are “Elf,” which stars Will Ferrell as a human boy mistakenly raised as one of Santa’s elves. In 2010, the hit Christmas film was adapted into a Broadway musical that has toured internationally — and happens to be playing at the Springer Opera House in Columbus this month. "Elf" tied with the 1988 action thriller "Die Hard," which audiences are insisting is now a Christmas staple despite its gun violence and language.
Author
Jeff Parker is an entertainment writer for BetGeorgia.com. A writer for film, television and the internet, Jeff is a life long movie buff, with a Masters Degree in Popular Culture. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he works full time as documentary filmmaker and producer.
