This Was the Best Year for Christmas Movies Ever (And It’s Not Even Close)

2003 is remembered for numerous cinematic trends and hits, but it hasn’t gotten the recognition it should as the best year on record for Christmas movies. Every holiday season brings with it a new crop of Christmas-themed movies, ranging from fantastical stories about Santa Claus to more grounded holiday season tales. Some even go on to be regarded as Christmas classics, though this usually only happens on the order of one new classic per holiday season.

However, that wasn’t the case in 2003 at all, which delivered a trifecta of instant Christmas classics in Love Actually, Bad Santa, and Elf. Each holiday season comedy has become a Christmas mainstay through a wildly diverse set of elements and stories, and together, Love Actually, Bad Santa, and Elf solidify 2003 as a year to remember for lovers of Christmas movies.

Love Actually Is A Beloved Christmas Rom-Com

First released in November of 2003, Richard Curtis’ Love Actually tells a Christmas anthology of 10 individual holiday season love stories. Included among them are former rock singer Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) scoring a surprise Yuletide season musical hit, multiple love triangles including one involving the U.K. Prime Minister (Hugh Grant) and the American President (Billy Bob Thornton), and an airport jewelry salesman (Rowan Atkinson) whose methods help spark romance between numerous couples.

Love Actually simultaneously keeps its characters on their own separate journeys while finding clever ways to interlock their disparate romances. While each individual story is hilarious and whimsical in its own way, though the Presidential romance brings both dry humor and an unusual level of international stakes not often seen in rom-coms or Christmas movies.

Love Actually also boasts one of the largest ensemble casts of any Christmas movie, including not just the aforementioned stars, but also Liam Neeson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Colin Firth, Martin Freeman, Rowan Atkinson, Kier Knightly, Emma Thompson, and the late Alan Rickman, among many other big stars. Love Actually became a major holiday season hit in 2003, earning $250 million worldwide on a $40 million budget, and it remains a holiday season rom-com anthology with no shortage of laughter, charm, and fun.

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Bad Santa Is The Quintessential Yuletide Black Comedy

Compared to 2003’s nicer Christmas movie hits, Bad Santa relishes being right at the top of the naughty list as an unapologetic black comedy. Bad Santa follows professional thieves Willie (Billy Bob Thornton) and Marcus (Tony Cox), who pose as a mall Santa and elf in order to pull off Christmas Eve mall heists. Things go awry for the duo one holiday season when Bernie Mac’s head of security at their latest mall blackmails them into a cut of their loot, while a young boy named Thurman (Brett Kelly) comes to see the alcoholic, potty-mouthed Willie as the real Santa Claus.

Bad Santa is far from family-friendly holiday viewing material, but it’s dark story and shockingly irreverent humor have made it into a cult classic. Thornton embodies the worst role model imaginable in the utterly unfiltered Willie, who becomes a perverse mentor of sorts to Thurman in dealing with bullies and providing a father figure so terrible, Thurman would be far better off under the non-existent supervision of his invalid grandmother.

Thornton’s commitment to portraying a very bad Santa makes him one of the most memorable, albeit darkest, St. Nicks of all time (Thornton has admitted to intentionally showing up to set inebriated in the scene of a very drunk Willie riding up the mall’s escalator flat on his face.) Bad Santa‘s mean-spirited tone and endless F-bombs make it a very R-rated Christmas movie, but through its dark spin on A Christmas Carol with Willie gradually coming to care for Thurman and literally taking a bullet to get his Christmas gift to him, its a 2003 Christmas classic well worth revisiting, and one that even spawned a sequel, Bad Santa 2, in 2016.

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Elf Is A Heartwarming & Hilarious Christmas Classic

Finally, 2003 also saw the release of one of the nicest holiday season classics, Jon Favreau’s Elf, in which Will Ferrell portrays Buddy, a human who was mistakenly carried to the North Pole in Santa’s sack of toys. Raised as an elf his whole life, Buddy eventually learns that he is human and travels to New York City to meet his father Walter Hobbs (James Caan), with Buddy also romancing department store elf Jovie (Zooey Deschanel).

Elf is a comedy riot from the start, with the movie using forced perspective to mine jokes from Ferrell’s height difference compared to Santa’s other elves. Moreover, Elf is arguably Ferrell’s overall best movie and best performance as the impossibly cheerful Buddy, a self-described “cotton-headed ninny muggins” whose Christmas spirit inspires both confusion and envy in everyone around him. Elf also leapfrogs between two fish-out-of-water stories of Buddy being a man in elf’s world who becomes an elf in man’s world, with hilarious comedy hijinks in both.

Elf is as enamored with Christmas as Buddy, with Santa (Ed Asner) lamenting the world’s declining Christmas spirit causing literal problems in getting his sleigh off the ground. Elf‘s heartwarming climax of Buddy and Jovie helping Santa get his grounded sleigh flying again through summoning pure Christmas spirit in Central Park’s onlookers is as memorable and heartfelt a Christmas movie finale as there has ever been. Over two decades later, Elf remains absolutely right that the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear, and alongside Love Actually and Bad Santa cements 2003 as the year with the most Christmas movie cheer.