Ten of the best Christmas movies to get you in a feel-good festive mood

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

Acted to the parsimonious hilt by the human Scrooge (Michael Caine), and framed by author-narrator Charles Dickens (the Great Gonzo) addressing his rodent audience (Rizzo the Rat), the story survives. All the pen-pushing glovesters in Scrooge's office run on fear of dismissal, a topical note, with Bob Cratchit (Kermit the Frog) negotiating but nervous. Not so his wife Miss Piggy, ready to have a go at Scrooge, but mindful of the needs of their family, a brood as mixed as you would expect from pigs and frogs, which explains the medical condition of Tiny Tim, a froglet with a cough on crutches. The three ghosts of Christmas are wonderful. Elsewhere, Fozzie Bear bears a resemblance to Francis L Sullivan in the David Lean Dickens adaptations, and there's a shop called Micklewhite. As an actor, Kermit can corrugate his forehead vertically. Good fun.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

A treat from Hollywood's most unlikely Midas: an original fairy tale, screenplay by Caroline Thompson from a story and characters created by Tim Burton, adapted by Michael McDowell and told in stop-motion animation with a lively score by Danny Elfman. Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, is bored with his annual Halloween triumph. A chance visit to nearby Christmastown gives him an idea: he and his spooky friends will stand in for Santa this Christmas! This beautifully realised confection will delight grown-ups of all ages.

It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)

The only Yuletide favourite to pivot around an attempted suicide, Capra’s post-war fable is a fascinating melange of social and personal impulses and the questionable charms of home. James Stewart is impeccable as George Bailey, the Bedford Falls boy-next-door whose dreams are continually deferred by the demands of family and national upset: rather than exploring and building new worlds, he runs a building society, marries and raises children. Mapping his frustrations and joys onto the contours of recent US history, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ puts individual and group interests in tension. Denied the opportunities for individualist enterprise that are the stock in trade of American cinematic heroism, George is pulled towards communal effort and self-effacement.

Elf (2003)

Comedy legend Bob Newhart immediately raises a smile as the elderly elf framing the story of Santa's biggest little helper. Buddy (Ferrell) is different because he's a human, brought back to the North Pole as a baby when he strayed into the old boy's sack during the Christmas run. He's been raised in the traditional elfin ways of industrious good humour, but now it's time for him to venture to distant New York and discover his real father is a grumpy publisher (Caan), who naturally thinks his 'son' is a dangerous loony. Must be the tights and the pointy hat. What follows is a fairly predictable 'fish out of water' romp with seasonal bells on. Nevertheless, Favreau delivers the cornball sentiments with an adept balance of irony and sincerity, sprinkling felicities in the margins - cult crooner Leon Redbone voicing a stop-motion snowman, indie fave Zooey Deschanel as the department store helper giving Ferrell understandable tingles, and a particularly successful running gag enshrining the significance of etch-a-sketch in elf culture.

Bad Santa (2003)

Willie T Stokes (Billy Bob Thornton) is a shopping-mall Santa with a difference: a cynical, safe-cracking alcoholic with a penchant for hefty women and a wholly unconcealed dislike of kids. Indeed, he only does the job as a cover for the felonies he perpetrates with Marcus (Tony Cox), his criminal-mastermind elf. But then Willie has two not-quite-life-changing encounters: one with self-confessed Santa-groupie Sue (Lauren Graham); the other with parentless eight-year-old Thurman Merman (Brett Kelly), whose innocence verges on idiocy and who happens to live in a mansion that’d make a great home for Willie.

Admittedly, this black comedy – from an idea by the Coens and directed by the esteemed creator of ‘Crumb’ and ‘Ghost World’ – is pretty much a one-joke film; true, too, that at the very end it sweetens much of what’s gone before with a spoonful of sentimentality. But it is, for the most part, quite hilarious in its foul-mouthed malice and disenchantment with all things wholesome and familial; few films have been as funny about greed, lust, and incontinence.

Home Alone (1990)

After Planes, Trains and Automobiles, writer/producer John Hughes turns once more to the nightmare of travel, this time from a child's perspective. Set to spend Christmas in Paris with parents and assorted relatives, young Kevin (Culkin) wishes everyone would just disappear, a desire granted when he is accidentally left behind by his preoccupied parents (Heard and O'Hara). But the novelty starts to wear off when a couple of burglars (Stern and Pesci, excellent) target the house. Hughes confidently mixes elements of precocious self-awareness with childlike wonderment: the boy truly believes his dream has become manifest, so he gorges on junk food and television until the reality of the situation brings loneliness and fear.

The Snowman (1982)

Raymond Briggs’s book came to life once a year throughout many childhoods, as the animated film was shown on British TV with religious precision. Nominated for an Oscar, the short film tells of a boy whose snowman magically becomes real – but not forever. Add the haunting song ‘Walking In The Air’ and you have a true Christmas classic.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

The ultimate in cuddly Christmas afternoon movies, this original stars Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle, who must prove he is in fact Santa Claus – not least to a young girl (Natalie Wood) who has lost the true meaning of Christmas.

Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)

Hideous Christmas jumpers weren’t always considered cool like they are today. So we can’t blame our protagonist Bridget Jones’s (Renée Zellweger) less than pleasant reaction when she sees her potential love interest, Mark Darcy (a wonderfully stuffy Colin Firth), wearing a sweater with a giant reindeer face on it. It does, however, kick off this sharp romantic comedy-drama about navigating twenty-first-century dating and the pitfalls of having an affair with a caddish, dashing Hugh Grant.

Arthur Christmas (2011)

This smart and very British 3D animation from the Aardman stable opens with one of life’s great questions: how does Santa visit so many homes so quickly? The answer, it seems, is a high-tech army of elves dispatched, SAS-style, from a silent spaceship disguised as a cluster of stars. But it never used to be like this, not before Santa’s eldest son, Steve (Hugh Laurie), modernised the operation. Nevertheless, one parcel slips through the net, so it’s left to Santa’s sensitive younger son, Arthur (James McAvoy), and the retired, grumpy Grandsanta (Bill Nighy) to deliver the package using reindeers and sleigh. All of which inspires a frenzied inter-continental dash and one too many padded-out mishaps.