2025’s Most Popular Christmas Movie Is ‘Christmas Vacation’
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BusinessMedia2025’s Most Popular Christmas Movie Is ‘Christmas Vacation’ByToni Fitzgerald,Senior Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Toni Fitzgerald is a Pennsylvania-based reporter who covers mediaFollow AuthorDec 17, 2025, 06:09pm ESTChevy Chase hides behind the tree in a scene from the 1989 film "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation." It is once again the most popular Christmas movie.Getty ImagesThe most popular Christmas movie of 2025 is once again an old favorite—National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. The tried-and-true holiday hit about a dad, played by Chevy Chase, trying to give his family the perfect old-fashioned Christmas is the most-watched film this holiday season, according to new data released Wednesday. Samba TV, a provider of artificial intelligence-powered media analytics, found that National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation ranks as the No. 1 holiday movie of the year, with 7.3 million U.S. households tuning into the film between November 1 and December 10, the most recent data available. Two other hugely popular family Christmas films followed Christmas Vacation. Viewership for Elf, the 2003 smash starring Will Ferrell as an adopted elf who seeks his birth father in New York City, was close behind Christmas Vacation, with 6.8 million households tuning in during the viewership window. And in third place was the Macaulay Culkin classic Home Alone, in which a family accidentally leaves their 8-year-old home alone on Christmas, only to have him outwit two serial burglars in their neighborhood. That film amassed viewership of 5.3 million. Rounding out the top five most-watched Christmas movies of 2025 are How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Santa Clause. Will Ferrell and Faizon Love in the 2003 film "Elf," which is the No. 2 most popular Christmas movie of 2025.Everett CollectionMORE FOR YOUDecreasing Viewership For Top Two Christmas Movie ClassicsViewers clearly can’t get enough of classic Christmas films, but the top two movies actually saw viewership declines year to year, even though they remain hugely popular. Christmas Vacation viewership is off 23% this year compared to last year, while Elf is down 21%. Interestingly, the reversal is not universal. Home Alone is actually up 27% from last year, while Grinch viewership soared by 57%.
And Santa Clause is up 12%. Such viewership variances usually indicate small changes in viewer behavior, such as shifting availability of movies on streaming services or commercial tie-ins. What is clear is that viewers remain devoted to the same handful of movies year after year. All of them are at least a decade old, and all but one are at least two decades old—with top-ranked Christmas Vacation coming out in the ‘80s. Viewers have built up traditions around these movies, watching them year after year, and they appreciate the predictability amid the busy, sometimes unpredictable holiday season.
Champagne Problems Is The Top New Christmas MovieOf course, streamers release new movies every year that they hope will pique viewers’ interest as much as those older ones. The most popular new streaming Christmas movie of 2025 is Netflix’s Champagne Problems, in which a businesswoman (Minka Kelly) heads to France to acquire a champagne brand with a deadline of Christmas day—and finds herself falling for the heir to the brand’s empire. Champagne Problems attracted 2.2 million U.S. households during the November 1-December 10 window, topping all other new holiday films. But it wasn’t as popular as last year’s No. 1 new Christmas movie, the Lindsay Lohan vehicle Our Little Secret, which drew 3.3 million households in the comparable window for Netflix. Editorial StandardsReprints & PermissionsLOADING VIDEO PLAYER...FORBES’ FEATURED Video