Technically, no Christmas movie has ever won a Best Picture Oscar, but one film in which the holiday is prominently featured did win the big prize.
1960โs The Apartment, which takes place primarily from Christmas Eve to New Yearโs Eve, doesnโt so much celebrate the holiday as observe it. Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Jack Kruschen were nominated for their performances and the film won five of the ten it was nominated for including Best Picture, Director (Billy Wilder) and Original Screenplay (Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond).
The first Christmas film to be nominated for Best Picture was 1934โs The Thin Man starring William Powell and Myrna Loy in the first of a series of films they starred in through 1947 in which they played married couple Nick and Nora Charles who solve murders in a comedy mode.
It wasnโt until 1946 that a film about the holiday itself was nominated for Best Picture. That film was, of course, Frank Capraโs Itโs a Wonderful Life in which James Stewart is guided by his guardian angel (Henry Travers) to see what the world would have bene like if he never existed, a modest hit in its day, now amongst almost everyoneโs list of favorite films of all time. The following year two Christmas movies, Henry Kosterโs The Bishopโs Wife starring Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven and George Seatonโs Miracle on 34th Street starring Maureen OโHara, John Payne and Oscar winner Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle aka Santa Claus, were nominated for Best Picture. Kosterโs Come to the Stable two years later earned a sizeable haul of nominations, seven in all, including those for Loretta Young for Best Actress and Celeste Holm and Elsa Lanchester for Best Supporting Actress, but missed out on a Best Picture nomination.
Anthony Harveyโs 1968 film, The Lion in Winter starring Peter OโToole and Katharine Hepburn was the last Christmas movie nominated for Best Picture. It won three of its seven nods include Hepburnโs third award for Best Actress.
Significant Oscar nominated films in which the holiday is either fully featured or plays a major part in the film include 1944โs Meet Me in St. Louis starring Judy Garland and Margaret OโBrien; 1945โs The Bells of St. Maryโs starring Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman in the sequel to Going My Way; 1954’s White Christmas starring Crosby and Danny Kaye in the remake of Holiday Inn in which more than the one holiday was celebrated, 1958’s Auntie Mame in which Christmas comes early one year and The Dead and John Hustonโs 1987 film of James Joyceโs signature work which takes place at a Christmas dinner held in January on the Feast of the Epiphany or Little Christmas, as it is called.
The last Oscar nominated film in which Christmas plays an important role was John Crowleyโs 2015 film, Brooklyn starring Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen and Domhnall Gleeson.
Mention should also be made of the three theatrical versions of Louise May Alcottโs Little Women, all of which received Oscar nods, two of which won one.
In addition to the 29 Oscar nominated films listed at the end of this article, there have been many unforgettable films that celebrate the holiday that went without Oscar nominations. Comments follow on six of them.
ESSENTIAL CHRISTMAS FILMS WITHOUT OSCAR NOMINATIONS
THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940), directed by Ernst Lubitsch and REMEMBER THE NIGHT (1940), directed by Mitchell Leisen
Legend has it that Christmas movies are supposed to open no later than Thanksgiving because once the holiday passes, people are no longer interested in seeing them until the holiday draws near again. These two classics defied the legend, opening days apart in January.
James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan were at their peak as the assistant manager and clerk who canโt stand each other on the job, but are secret pen pals outside of work in The Shop Around the Corner, the Christmas romance that was remade as the musical In the Good Old Summertime in which the holiday completely disappears, then as the Broadway musical She Loves Me and once again on screen as Youโve Got Mail.
Four years before Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray starred in the first great film noir, Billy Wilderโs Double Indemnity, they were a shoplifter on parole and the D.A. who convicted her, now responsible for her until after New Yearโs in this charmer that features great character work from Beulah Bondi and Elizabeth Patterson as MacMurrayโs mother and spinster aunt.
CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT (1945), directed by Peter Godfrey
Stanwyck again, this time playing a Good Housekeeping type writer who canโt cook, but whose scrumptious meals which are the work of chef S.Z. โCuddlesโ Sakall, entice magazine publisher Sydney Greenstreet to invite himself to her โhouseโ for Christmas. Dennis Morgan plays the soldier who is also invited for the holiday and Reginald Gardiner plays Stanwyckโs longtime fiancรฉe who owns the house she calls hers. Una OโConnor is Gardinerโs exasperated cook.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1951), directed by Brian Desmond Hurst
The definitive version of Dickensโ tale of the miserly businessman who is forced to relive his life by the visit of the ghost of his former partner and three other apparitions on Christmas Eve features a priceless lead performance by Alastair Sim as Scrooge. The filmโs lack of Oscar recognition is primarily due to poor marketing. Released only in New York in 1951, it didnโt reach L.A. until the following year. Its legend stems from TV broadcasts later in the decade.
LOVE ACTUALLY (2003), directed by Richard Curtis
โLove Is All Aroundโ is the filmโs theme song and so it is in London in the month before Christmas affecting everyone from the Prime Minister (Hugh Grant) to his sister (Emma Thompson) to her husband (Alan Rickman) to his employee (Laura Linney) to a writer (Colin Firth) to a singer (Bill Nighy) to newlyweds (Chiwitel Ejiofor, Keira Knightley) and their best man (Andrew Lincoln) to a widower (Liam Neeson) and his son (Thomas Brodie-Sangster).
THE FAMILY STONE (2005), directed by Thomas Bezucha
Marketed as a comedy, this family drama with comic undertones was so far above the plethora of theatrical and made-for-TV dysfunctional family films that show up every year around the holidays, that it is a shame that it isnโt better known. Family members and friends include Diane Keaton, Craig T. Nelson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Dermott Mulroney, Rachel McAdams, Luke Wilson, Ty Giordano, Brian White, Paul Schneider, Elizabeth Reaser and Claire Danes.
CHRISTMAS AND OSCAR
- Little Women (1933) โ three nominations โ one win
- The Thin Man (1934) โ four nominations โ no wins
- Meet John Doe (1941) โ one nomination โ no win
- Holiday Inn (1942) โ three nominations โ one win
- Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) โ four nominations โ no wins
- The Bells of St. Maryโs (1945) โ eight nominations โ one win
- Itโs a Wonderful Life (1946) โ five nominations โ no wins
- The Bishopโs Wife (1947) โ five nominations โ one win
- It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947) โ one nomination โ one win
- Miracle on 34th Street (1947) โ four nominations โ three wins
- Come to the Stable (1949) โ seven nominations โ no wins
- Little Women (1949) โ two nominations โ one win
- White Christmas (1954) โ one nomination โ no win
- Auntie Mame (1958) โ six nominations โ no wins
- The Apartment (1960) โ ten nominations โ five wins
- Pocketful of Miracles (1961) โ three nominations โ no wins
- The Lion in Winter (1968) โ seven nominations โ three wins
- Scrooge (1970) โ four nominations โ no wins
- Trading Places (1983) โ one nomination โ no wins
- The Dead (1987) โ two nominations โ no wins
- Die Hard (1988) โ four nominations โ no wins
- Scrooged (1988) โ one nomination โ no win
- Home Alone (1990) โ two nominations โ no wins
- The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) โ one nomination โ no win
- Little Women (1994) โ three nominations โ no wins
- The Preacherโs Wife (1996) โ one nomination โ no win
- How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) โ one nomination โ one win
- The Polar Express (2004) โ three nominations โ no wins
- Brooklyn (2015) โ two nominations โ no wins
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