Let me save everyone some time. There are only three Christmas movies that matter: A Christmas Story, Scrooged and Die Hard, (four if you count Bloodsport). That's it. Oh, sure, there are plenty of other decent Christmas movies, but those are the only important ones (A Christmas Story is your "classic," it satisfies love of nostalgia and Christmases past; Scrooged marries real warmth and balls-out comedy; and Die Hard has everything else).

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But that's just my personal tiny gripe on the subject. My real problem with these articles isn't that they should all only be three entries long. The thing is, a typical "Best Christmas Movies Ever!" list is always going to just look like a list of 10 or so Christmas classics that everybody already knows and loves (It's a Wonderful Life, Rudolf, Grinch, A Christmas Story, Muppet Christmas, etc). No one will ever read a list of great Christmas movies and be surprised, because everyone sees all of those movies growing up (because every network plays all of them for an entire month leading up to Christmas). No one's ever surprised; people just read those lists and say, "Oh, yes, good, I am aware of and a fan of that movie, yes." Here's the real problem: That list will never change, because we don't know how to make great Christmas movies anymore. Maybe we've grown too cynical as a nation, or maybe there was just a finite amount of great Christmas movies and we already made them. Whatever the reason, the bottom line is that we're out. We'll never make another Christmas Story, there will never be another Bill Murray and the latest Die Hard took place during the summer. There won't be any new Christmas classics, so every "Best Christmas Movies Ever" list will look the same every year, and 20 different websites will publish that list. How many times do you really need to read "Scrooged was a good movie and took place during Christmas?"