The 45 highest-grossing Christmas movies of all time

Domestic box office total: $14,812,144

Critic score: 0%

What critics said: "Miracle on 34th Street this ain't." — Desson Thomson, Washington Post

Domestic box office total: $16,655,224

Critic score: 30%

What critics said: "Not for the faint of heart, the movie is unsettling and startlingly true to life." — A.O. Scott, New York Times

Domestic box office total: $17,320,136

Critic score: 59%

What critics said: "The overall effect is enjoyable and cuddly like a warm fire on a cold night. It also harkens back to a bygone, simpler time." — Leonard Klady, Variety

Domestic box office total: $17,782178

Critic score: 23%

What critics said: "This film is far from perfect, but it made me and some other terribly frightened folks laugh for a while in the dark." — April Wolfe, L.A. Weekly

Domestic box office total: $18,587,135

Critic score: 67%

What critics said: "Prancer remains a real curiosity — a movie that's far from being successful on its own terms, yet better than those terms would suggest." — Dave Kehr, Chicago Tribune

Domestic box office total: $20,605,209

Critic score: 89%

What critics said: "Delightfully entertaining, with a wryly amusing narration to keep the adults in the audience smirking." — Don Peretta, Time Out

Domestic box office total: $23,717,291

Critic score: 21%

What critics said: "A holiday honey of a film for the entire family." — Dolores Barclay, Associated Press

Domestic box office total: $27,281,507

Critic score: 74%

What critics said: "There's no great show of wit or tunefulness here, and the ingenious cross-generational touches are fairly rare. But there is a lively kiddie version of the Dickens tale, one that very young viewers ought to understand." — Janet Maslin, New York Times

Domestic box office total: $28,202,109

Critic score: 36%

What critics said: "Only marginally insufferable, the Ernest movie is ... a big-screen example of the TV-sitcom tendency to go broad and sappy with a token Yuletide show each December." — Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine

Domestic box office total: $34,562,556

Critic score: 20%

What critics said: "A slickly packaged and engagingly sentimental fantasy-comedy that stands out as one of the season's most pleasant surprises!" — Joe Leydon, Variety

Domestic box office total: $35,061,031

Critic score: 68%

What critics said: "For all its pretensions to bad taste, this is surprisingly heartwarming festive fare." — Tom Huddleston, Time Out

Domestic box office total: $35,093,569

Critic score: 6%

What critics said: "It's a holiday ritual: Each year, American moviegoers get the misanthropically stupid, plastic-satire-of- a-plastic-society Christmas comedy they deserve." — Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

Domestic box office total: $37,629,831

Critic score: 38%

What critics said: "One of the incidental points of the film, particularly powerful, is that doing the right thing isn't easy, even in the face of divine assurance." — Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Domestic box office total: $40,852,824

Critic score: 44%

What critics said: "Unless you have tiny, religious children, it's probably best to avoid it." — Helen O'Hara, Time Out

Domestic box office total: $42,158,780

Critic score: 52%

What critics said: "The movie takes a few calamitous turns at its climax, dangerously approaching broad slapstick and villainizing a character we've come to love. But mainly, it's a fun and boisterous countdown to the big meal." — Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out

Domestic box office total: $42,725,475

Critic score: 66%

What critics said: "When Krampus departs, so does disillusionment. As I watched the final few minutes of Krampus, I realized that this anti-Christmas movie was really just a Christmas-Christmas movie in disguise." — Adrian Van Young, Vice

Domestic box office total: $43,047,372

Critic score: 66%

What critics said: "Seth Rogen bursts with inventive exuberance in this schematic but genial holiday comedy about millennials settling down." — Richard Brody, New Yorker

Domestic box office total: $46,462,469

Critic score: 92%

What critics said: "This witty, handsomely appointed 3-D animated feature is the most delightful Santa biopic since Edmund Gwenn donned the fat suit." — Scott Marks, San Diego Reader

Domestic box office total: $48,102,795

Critic score: 59%

What critics said: "The Preacher's Wife qualifies as old-fashioned Hollywood movie making at its corniest and most saccharine. But the mostly African American cast puts an engaging spin on the chestnut, and it works beautifully." — Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle

Domestic box office total: $49,121,934

Critic score: 55%

What critics said: "If the real-life Christmas experience tends too often to be marred by the rude contradiction between expectations and reality, movies like the ultra-bland holiday family movie This Christmas are at least partly to blame." — Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star

Domestic box office total: $52,543,354

Critic score: 20%

What critics said: "Larry the Cable Guy and Madea are an oddly perfect pairing. They're both comedians in drag - Larry just gets to wear pants." — Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly

Domestic box office total: $52,766,998

Critic score: 34%

What critics said: "But like A Wrinkle in Time, Nutcracker and the Four Realms is an expensive but clunky fantasy, mashing together mythical elements but mostly hitting discordant notes." — Brian Lowry, CNN

Domestic box office total: $54,767,494

Critic score: 41%

What critics said: "Like most office Christmas parties, you should skip it." — Adam Graham, Detroit News

Domestic box office total: $60,060,328

Critic score: 78%

What critics said: "Once the rude shock of a profane Claus wears off, there's not really much to do except await the next outrageous remark." — Michael Agger, New Yorker

Domestic box office total: $60,328,558

Critic score: 70%

What critics said: "Despite the juicy, on-the-edge craziness, Murray is able to layer his outrageous histrionics with an inner sensibility, making his ultimate transformation not only believable but Christmas-cheer uplifting." — Duane Byrge, Hollywood Reporter

Domestic box office total: $60,592,389

Critic score: 16%

What critics said: "I liked a lot of the movie, which is genial and has a lot of energy, but I was sort of depressed by its relentlessly materialistic view of Christmas, and by the choice to go with action and (mild) violence over dialogue and plot." — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Domestic box office total: $70,525,195

Critic score: 70%

What critics said: "Even if some of the crudeness and the drama feel forced, it's hard to hate." — Nicolas Rapold, New York Times

Domestic box office total: $71,319,526

Critic score: 64%

What critics said: "Christmas Vacation may not be a fancy package, but it is a diverting stocking stuffer." — Rita Kempley, Washington Post

Domestic box office total: $72,006,777

Critic score: 20%

What critics said: "Fred Claus turns out to be not bad for a Santa movie, which I suppose could be interpreted as either faint or excessive praise, depending on your view." — Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times

Domestic box office total: $72,110,659

Critic score: 30%

What critics said: "Maybe they should take a lesson from the movie itself: Stressed out moms deserve better." — Stephanie Merry, Washington Post

Domestic box office total: $73,780,539

Critic score: 5%

What critics said: "Stinks like the unrefrigerated ham its studio sent me as a promotion several months ago." — Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post

Domestic box office total: $75,082,668

Critic score: 95%

What critics said: "This full-length animated movie was shot in stop motion, with all the febrile, twittery fascination that the medium exerts; it has a magic-toy shop feeling, with unexpected objects stuttering into life." — Anthony Lane, New Yorker

Domestic box office total: $84,500,122

Critic score: 17%

What critics said: "Frost turns the occasion into a swag-saturated consumer orgy, which the film condemns even as it hams up product placement for Red Bull." — Stephen Garrett, Time Out

Domestic box office total: $104,029,443

Critic score: 19%

What critics said: "By any standard, every person in the world of Daddy's Home 2 would be scarred for life by the events in the film. The real happy ending is that no one in the audience has to go home with these people." — Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle

Domestic box office total: $120,146,040

Critic score: 24%

What critics said: "We've enjoyed their cocky selfishness; just as much, we bask in schadenfreude when they get guilted into making the familial trail of tears." — Amy Nicholson, Boxoffice Magazine

Domestic box office total: $137,855,863

Critic score: 54%

What critics said: "Does this entertainment achieve a timelessness beyond its exquisite source material? Not even. Yet there's pleasure to be had and relief in feeling the filmmakers didn't Scrooge it up either." — Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post

Domestic box office total: $139,236,327

Critic score: 55%

What critics said: "It's as home-entertainment ready as a shrink-wrapped sack of microwave popcorn. But at least it works hard at finding ways of pushing this one-joke premise ahead a space or two." — Gene Seymour, Newsday

Domestic box office total: $144,833,357

Critic score: 74%

What critics said: "This is Allen's movie debut, and it's easy to see why his show is a ratings smash. There's an effortless quality to his humor, but it's also got a quietly urgent edge to it." — Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times

Domestic box office total: $173,398,518

Critic score: 83%

What critics said: "Ferrell is a hoot. So is much of this witty holiday family entertainment, which, up until the end, when the 'true spirit of Christmas' must be reaffirmed, happily favors slapstick over treacle." — David Ansen, Newsweek

Domestic box office total: $174,585,516

Critic score: 30%

What critics said: "Let's face it: Culkin's self-reliant suburban warrior has entered a whole generation's pop mythology. He's their Knight in Shining Parka, safely beyond criticism." — David Ansen, Newsweek

Domestic box office total: $186,493,472

Critic score: 56%

What critics said: "At some point very early in the 3-D IMAX version of The Polar Express, technology trumps banality and you helplessly surrender to the shock and awe of this big, often thunderous movie." — Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine

Domestic box office total: $224,217,865

Critic score: 58%

What critics said: "It's best for kids and adults who just can't handle the angry, diabolical monster of films past." — Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post

Domestic box office total: $260,044,825

Critic score: 52%

What critics said: "If you have little moviegoers around for the holidays, you should still make the trip to Whovillie." — Paul Clinton, CNN

Domestic box office total: $285,761,243

Critic score: 63%

What critics said: "The movie is quite enjoyable as long as it explores the fantasy of a neglected little boy having an entire house of his own to explore and play in, and it still manages to be fun when he exhibits superhuman ingenuity and resourcefulness." — Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader