Christmas wouldn’t be the same without a classic movie, but some should probably be retired.
Festive films are meant to bring laughter, fun, and holiday cheer.
But many have not stood the test of time, and it’s not just because they’re no longer entertaining.
From racism to sexism, inappropriate scenes, and major flaws, some Christmas classics have aged poorly over the years.
Movies like Love Actually, White Christmas, and even Home Alone 2 have parts that haven’t held up well.
Let’s take a look at some Christmas movies that have aged badly.
Read more: Elf and The Grinch topped by Britain’s favourite Christmas movie in new UK poll
The Santa Clause
The Santa Clause starts with Father Christmas being killed, so we could just stop there. Toy salesman Scott Calvin, played by Tim Allen, scares Santa while he’s climbing on the roof.
Santa slips and falls to his death in scary scenes that will give kids nightmares – and that’s just the first 15 minutes of the film.
The rest of the movie is based on some rather complex legal wrangling that doesn’t really feel very Christmassy.
Scott slips into the big red suit and finds out he’s legally bound to become Santa and live in the North Pole due to a technicality known as ‘The Santa Clause’.
Not only is it a bad pun, but it’s also quite scary that the title of Santa is passed down to the person who accidentally causes his demise.
If that wasn’t enough, there’s some spooky magic that forces you to leave your entire life behind to deliver toys until your own death, and even transforms your body into a chubby old man with a beard.
This legal contract gets even more eerie in the sequel when Scott realizes that his weight loss and lack of cheerfulness are because he needs a Mrs. Clause.
Plus, none of the elves seem to care that their lifelong friend has died and been replaced by the man seemingly responsible.
Love Actually
Where do we start with Love Actually? There are about 500 different plot lines, each with their own problems.
Richard Curtis’s star-filled 2003 holiday movie has been long-criticized on Twitter – with the rom-com being branded ‘creepy’, ‘sexist’, ‘homophobic’, and ‘fat-shaming’.
Even star Hugh Grant has labelled moments ‘excruciating’.
New-age critics accuse Love Actually writers of being ‘offensive’ in several of the film’s storylines, especially those featuring actresses Keira Knightley and Martine McCutcheon.
One movie expert said the film, which first hit theaters over 18 years ago, was an ‘icky depiction of multiple mediocre men being vile to female characters and generally having their behaviour rewarded’.
Mark (Andrew Lincoln), a character in the film, is seen as a stalker who spends years pining for his best friend’s girlfriend. He films Juliet at her wedding for his own pleasure, thinking no one else will see the tape.
After she marries his best friend, he makes a secret declaration of love by showing her placards on her doorstep while his friend Peter is inside. Some of his words are questionable and one card even has a picture of a dead woman.
Hugh Grant’s character, the Prime Minister, also has a crush on Natalie, a new staff member who is subjected to fat jokes before being essentially fired because the American President harassed her.
The film portrays it as good that Natalie is “distributed elsewhere” after being put in a terrible situation.
Even some of the film’s stars have criticized its portrayal of women. Lulu Popplewell, who played Emma Thompson’s character’s daughter, called the movie “cheesy, s**t and sexist”.
She admitted on the Almost Famous podcast in October: “I think it’s aged badly. All the women in it are sort of passive objects,” and “I think that there was an article describing them as passive objects to be acquired. On re-watching it’s not great.”
In addition there’s a clear lack of LGBTQ+ storylines and the cast is almost-exclusively white.
If the four diverse storylines that were cut from the Christmas-themed film had been included in the theatrical release, things could have been very different.
Home Alone 2
The first Home Alone is bad enough – but it’s a very enjoyable movie.
An eight year old boy, played by Macauley Culkin, is left to fend for himself and attacked by some thugs in his own home.
We can forgive any sins because it’s a great film, but then it happens all over again in the sequel.
Kevin is forgotten for a second time and is separated from his family when he follows the wrong person.
The kid somehow manages to get through all airline security alone and even boards the wrong flight, despite not having the correct boarding pass.
Kevin ends up on a plane going to New York instead of Florida because of the negligence of the airport staff and some writing that doesn’t hold up.
Oh, and don’t forget Donald Trump ‘bullied’ his way into having a cameo in the movie.
When the film was released in 1992, Trump owned the Plaza Hotel in real life and, according to director Christopher Columbus, demanded to have a scene in exchange for use of his hotel for filming.
The cinematographer of the movie, Julio Macat, shared: “We filmed in their lobby and he was around, and he had to be in the movie, he had to photobomb the shoot one day, and came walking in with his entourage, and wanted to walk through the shot.”
They said yes as, after all, it was his hotel, but Trump’s scene was later cut from a Canadian broadcaster’s showing in 2019.
Trump responded to the scandal with humor, suggesting that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was behind the snub. He tweeted, “I guess Justin T doesn’t much like my making him pay up on NATO or Trade!” He added, “The movie will never be the same! (just kidding).”
White Christmas
White Christmas is celebrated as one of the ultimate classics – but it can’t even be shown on TV today in its entirety.
The 1954 American film, starring Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen, and Danny Kaye, is filled with laughs, love, and big musical numbers.
With songs by Irving Berlin, there’s also a new version of the title song ‘White Christmas’ – the world’s best-selling single.
The incredibly popular movie was the highest-earning film of 1954 by a long shot and the top-grossing musical of all time.
White Christmas tells a heartwarming story about a group of friends adjusting to life after World War II.
However, there is one scene that is certainly not appropriate for any movie.
They perform a dance number, ‘Abraham’, about the nostalgia of minstrel shows – a racist form of entertainment which often used black face.
While that isn’t the case in this film, it still celebrates the inappropriate shows with some vile jokes and is often cut out of TV broadcasts.
*** An AI tool was used to add an extra layer to the editing process for this story.***