Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas: Revised & Updated Edition

by Alonso Duralde

Don't waste a second of your valuable holiday time on another boring Christmas movie. In this merry and informative guide, film critic Alonso Duralde takes us on a tinsel-bedecked tour of the best-and worst-films of the Yuletide season. Whether you're looking for the classics, family favorites, holiday horror, seasonally themed crime epics, or the most wonderfully awful cinematic lumps of coal, Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas serves up delightful recommendations in prose as brisk as a winter sleighride. From White Christmas to Bad Santa, Eyes Wide Shut to Gremlins, you'll find a marvelously electic selection of holiday fare and a thorough breakdown of the many screen Scrooges, including Alistair Sim, Jim Carrey, and ...Tori Spelling? And get ready to encounter movies you may never have heard of, from the gritty noir Blast of SIlence (filmed in New York City over Christmas 1959 without a single permit), to the loony Santa Claus, a Mexican kiddie movie in which St. Nick teams up with Merlin to fight the devil! Fun facts abound-did you know the actor cast as Uncle Billy in It's a Wonderful Life was also in the running to play mean old Mr. Potter?-making this a stocking stuffed with goodies you'll turn to every Christmas season.

This fully revised and updated edition includes all Christmas movies of note to have been released in the fifteen years since the first edition was published, as well as gems omitted from the first edition.

Genres: Christmas, Media Tie In, Nonfiction

229 pages, Paperback

Published September 18, 2025

About the author

Alonso Duralde is reviews editor at TheWrap, as well as the author of Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas and 101 Must-See Movies for Gay Men; he is also the co-author of I'll Be Home for Christmas Movies with the hosts of the Deck the Hallmark Podcast. He is the co-host of the Linoleum Knife; A Film and a Movie; The Untitled Ify, Drea, and Alonso Project; and Breakfast All Day podcasts, and has discussed film on CNN, PBS, TCM, ABC and FilmStruck, as well as in numerous documentaries.

Reviews

[Anthony Ruiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must have for fans of Christmas, movies, and Christmas movies. Mr. Duralde is both a film scholar and a lover and Christmas, and this updated edition of his already fabulous book is filled with more than a hundred new titles. Need a guide to Christmas classics? This book has it. The perfect Christmas Carol adaptation? It’s here. Films to avoid like the plague? They’re here too.

Mr. Duralde knows his movies and he knows his Christmas. This wonderful and comprehensive catalog of all things Christmas movies is a perfect book for the holidays and a great gift for the Christmas cinephile in your life.

[Ruth E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't realize there were so many movies I haven't seen. It seems like many of the best ones were made in the 1940s. But I like old movies, so I have plenty to watch. I liked how he divided the movies/chapters into categories and gave a synopsis of each movie. Most of the "Fun Facts" didn't matter much to me, but some were interesting tidbits.

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book that mentions a lot of long forgotten Christmas movies, however, for what I expected to be a compendium of Christmas movies, it is missing a lot of movies. It doesn't mention The Polar Express, The Family Guy, One Magic Christmas, Deck the Halls, Jingle All the Way -- just to mention a few. Not all of them are stellar films, but certainly should be included in a book about Christmas movies. There are a lot of Christmas movies, but not that many that they couldn't all be included in the book, especially an "updated" edition.

[Scott Delgado · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great pre-Christmas gift. I found myself taking notes while reading, making my own list of films to watch this holiday season. Check it out and broaden your Christmas viewing pleasure.