(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Christmas is, above all else, a time for putting aside the petty grievances and differences that separate us from one another and finding meaning in something greater than ourselves.
Some of the best works of literature and cinema about the season examine this spirit of selflessness, which can seem antithetical to “America First” values when cast in a particular light. But at its core, the spirit of Christmas is quintessentially the same as that which brought millions of people to the polls in November to re-elect Donald Trump.
Attempting to catalog all of the thousands of Christmas movies, of course, would be an impossible feat, but below is a list of nine (plus honorable mentions) that resonate particularly well with the MAGA message.
While the list leaves a lot open to interpretation as to what constitutes a “Christmas” movie or a “MAGA” movie, the one prerequisite was that the themes of both had to be prevalent enough to be immediately recognizable.
Thus, Rambo: First Blood may have included a scene with Christmas decorations in it, but it did not make the cut—even though it might be considered a MAGA classic—because the movie itself does not directly involve the holiday. And although the BB gun subplot in A Christmas Story may have promoted Second Amendment rights for some, that was not an explicit message so much as it was a sign of the times.
Feel free to share your suggestions in the comments or on our X account—and be sure to include your explanation for why they should make the list.
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We will kick things off with the low-hanging fruit—the only Christmas classic (to date) known to include a cameo from future two-time President Donald Trump himself.
9. HOME ALONE 2: LOST IN NEW YORK
Why it counts: Trump
The sequel to one of the most beloved modern Christmas classics is now one of the most beloved MAGA classics due to Trump’s cameo appearance. Much of the film revolves around the iconic Plaza Hotel, which Trump owned at the time but went on to sell in 1995. (Maybe he found out that the desk clerk also moonlighted as a transvestite.)
Another memorable scene takes place at the Wollman Rink, a public ice-skating ring with strong ties to the former Manhattan real-estate magnate. And as an added bonus, the movie features an early appearance from MAGA-friendly comedian Rob Schneider as the bellhop.
Unfortunately, some of its other actors, including Macaulay Culkin and Daniel Stern, have attempted in recent years to use the movie’s renewed relevance as a platform for petty political attacks, and any royalties from it benefit them as well.
Honorable mention: While stylistically very different and not specifically centered around Trump himself, MAGA fans might also consider watching A Lion in Winter, the star-studded 1968 Oscar-winner about an aging ruler who—like Trump—has three sons and must decide who is best fit to carry on his dynasty.
8. ROCKY IV
Why it counts: Peace through strength
The 1985 box-office smash came at the very peak of the Ronald Reagan era, just two years before the famous Berlin speech that saw Reagan urging Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” and four years before the official fall of the Soviet Union. It was the last of the Rocky films to be directed by Trump-backer Sylvester Stallone (who fittingly described the Republican leader as a “Dickensian” character) until 2006’s Rocky Balboa.
While the Cold War-jingoism resonated with Republicans during the Reagan era, Stallone’s climactic victory speech also underscores the ideas of mutual respect and healthy dialogue as a means to peace.
“In here, there were two guys killing each other, but I guess that’s better than 20 million,” Rocky Balboa says after his defeat of Ivan Drago. “I guess what I’m trying to say, is that if I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!”
He then wishes his son a Merry Christmas, as the fight took place on Christmas Day. Although the holiday does not figure prominently into the plot, it is one of several action movies whose inclusion of Christmas elements has sparked debate.
However, because the Soviet Union was typically hostile toward religion and did not formally recognize Christmas as a holiday, Balboa’s sacrifice in forgoing the holiday season for the greater good of his country may have been an important reminder that many of those in uniform did not have the luxury of returning home for the holidays.
Honorable mention: The aforementioned Rambo: First Blood has holiday decorations, but the ever-controversial Die Hard, set during the Christmas season, is the best known of all the Christmas “action” movies that have audiences divided, featuring rogue cop John McClane (portrayed by Bruce Willis—another rare Hollywood Republican) taking on a network of terrorists in New York City.
7. THE REF
Why it counts: Political incorrectness
Ref star Denis Leary unfortunately made the decision in a 2016 appearance with late-night host James Corden to attack Trump by rewriting the words to his 1990s gag song “A**hole” for that year’s campaign against Hillary Clinton. It was a hamfisted attempt at comedy then, and it has aged particularly poorly given Trump’s resonance with the American voting public—many of them the same blue-collar types whom Leary tried to appeal to with his updated Archie Bunker schtick.
Leary’s 1994 holiday hit The Ref also aged poorly for its other star, Kevin Spacey, but those able to suspend their disbelief can appreciate the fantastic comedic timing that Spacey and co-star Judy Davis have as a bickering couple on the verge of divorce. There may be one or two obligatory Republican “digs” slipped into the script, but those only accentuate the absurdity of an affluent and insufferable New England family that loves to virtue-signal but finds itself utterly out of touch with anything beyond their own selfish needs and desires—until the outside world forces its way into their lives.
Leary, as a cat-burglar caught in the middle of a hostage situation gone awry, is the perfect foil for the limousine liberals, presaging the “Tea Party” movement that would arrive 10 years later.
Honorable mention: While the only reference to American politics in 2003’s Love Actually may be the scene with Billy Bob Thornton as a Bill Clinton/George W. Bush hybrid of an uncouth, self-serving American president, the movie’s other plots have become well known for their anachronisms—including toxic, anti-MeToo workplaces, trans/LGBT humor and fat shaming, plus a kid gatehopping past airport security and not getting shot. For those who don’t know the holiday classic by heart, consider pouring everyone a cup of spiked eggnog and turning it into a fun drinking game every time something happens that you could never get away with 20 years later.
6. THE HUDSUCKER PROXY
Why it counts: Anti-corporate subversiveness
Like other selections on the list, the star of this early Coen Brothers movie, Tim Robbins, is an outspoken leftist in real life, which can make it difficult to identify with the character. Yet, it also serves as a reminder than many of the classically liberal values once embraced by the Left have now been embraced and appropriated by MAGA-style populism.
It involves a corporation (with the great Paul Newman as a member of its board of directors) that selects Robbins’s character as its top executive in hopes of tanking the stock to permit a corporate buyout. But Robbins generates an idea that is both deceptively simple and wildly appealing, leading the scheme to backfire.
The movie is set over Christmas, with its climax occurring on New Year’s Eve, and has some yuletide thematic elements at the end appearing to echo stories like A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life.
Honorable mention: Others have pointed out in the past that when the full set of facts is taken into consideration, the true hero of It’s a Wonderful Life is Henry Potter, a stockholder in the Bailey Building and Loan company who is forced to pay the price for its bad business decisions. Like Trump, Potter falls the victim to a socialist plot that uses propaganda and lawfare to slander him into submission. Although the movie ends with George Bailey having prevailed, there are hints that a world where Potter never existed would be far worse than one where Bailey never existed.
5. EYES WIDE SHUT
Why it counts: Globalist elites’ excesses/depravity
Stanley Kubrick’s final movie, based on Austrian author Arthur Schnitzler’s 1926 novella “Dream Story,” changes the events from a Mardi Gras celebration to a Christmas one, adding more to the surreal quality of the cinematography.
The 1999 Tom Cruise film has secured a unique place in pop culture, even inspiring a recent AI tribute by the Dor Brothers that featured world leaders attending a similar masked ball.
Lies Wide Shut
Song: Jocelyn Pook – Masked Ball (MiraculuM's Remix)@elonmusk @realDonaldTrump @stillgray @TomBilyeu @jordanbpeterson @lexfridman @joerogan pic.twitter.com/jGD3vSvG2v
— The Dor Brothers (@thedorbrothers) October 9, 2024
Kubrick also drew much of the film’s aesthetic from accounts of a real-life 1972 black-tie ball hosted by Baroness Marie-Hélène de Rothschild that was heavy on Satanic symbolism.
Theories about members of the globalist elite engaging in such bizarre behavior, often connected to Satanic undertones and sex-cults, have continued to snowball in recent years, ranging from the secret cover-up of Jeffrey Epstein’s client list to the rumors of the Clinton–Podesta Pizzagate conspiracy, to the accounts of cocaine-fueled orgies involving members of Congress and the annual Davos conference hosted by the World Economic Forum.
Honorable mention: Rod Serling’s 1964 made-for-TV adaptation of A Christmas Carol, titled Carol for Another Christmas was a star-studded propaganda piece commissioned by the United Nations to persuade Americans that the UN did not have a communist agenda in the aftermath of the JFK assassination. It resurfaced in 2012 after Turner Classic Movies began re-airing it. But hindsight makes the propaganda all the more obvious and blatant, perhaps exposing just how left-wing globalist groups like the UN have used Hollywood to undermine American interests.
4. BRAZIL
Why it counts: Deep-state resistance
Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam directed this 1985 dystopian tale (released just weeks after Rambo IV) about a cog in the system who, shortly before Christmas, discovers a serious mistake caused by a literal bug in the machinery. The discovery sends him into a Kafkaesque spiral of tension-escalating plot twists. While trying to break free from the system, he is himself detained and tortured, with the ending leaving it ambiguous as to whether freedom in this society is truly attainable.
Honorable mention: The Nativity Story, a 2006 retelling of the birth of Jesus, conveys the familiar tale with an emphasis on the Magi (not to be confused with MAGA), the three wise men who arrived on Jan. 6—known to Christians as the celebration of the Epiphany. King Herrod of Judea sought help from the visiting Oriental trio in locating the Jewish messiah, whom he feared would supplant him as ruler. Although the king resorted to drastic measures—demanding the slaughter of innocent babies, much like the modern Left’s abortion agenda—the Magi refused to cooperate, making them the original J6 political dissidents.
3. FRIDAY AFTER NEXT
Why it counts: Blue-collar empowerment
The 2002 third installment in the comedic series that coined the phrase “Bye Felicia” finds friends Craig (portrayed by red-pilled rapper Ice Cube) and Day-Day forced to get jobs as security guards after a thief dressed as Santa steals all their Christmas presents. The movie also features a turn from Terry Crews (another red-pilled actor, best known for his role as President Camacho in the modern cult classic Idiocracy) as a newly-released inmate who picked up homosexual tendencies while incarcerated.
Honorable mention: Jim Varney’s redneck hero Ernest P. Worrell returns to his most famous role in 1988’s Ernest Saves Christmas, in which the hero becomes Santa Claus after the original Santa leaves his magic bag in the back of Ernest’s cab in Orlando.
2. SILENT NIGHT
Why it counts: Vaccine skepticism
Made during the peak of the COVID-19 hysteria, this 2021 movie, with an ensemble cast led by Keira Knightley, begins as the typical “home for the holidays” comedy set at a British country estate. However, it later takes a genre-bending turn that is as jarring and drastic as the arrival of the pandemic was in March 2020. It is one of the few on this list that may have spoilers, so viewers who don’t mind dampening the holiday spirit (definitely not one to watch with the kids) should see it for themselves.
Honorable mention: The Stephen Spielberg-produced Gremlins, written by future Harry Potter director Chris Columbus, remarkably is considered a kid-friendly movie—or, at least, it was when it first came out in 1984. However, it too blends heartwarming and nostalgic family comedy with significantly darker elements after a specimen of Chinese origin, the mogwai, makes its way to small-town America. A scientist (biology teacher Mr. Hanson) then ignores the rules for containing it, leading to a catastrophic epidemic that seems a lot like the gain-of-function research advocated by ex-COVID czar Anthony Fauci.
1. A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS
Why it counts: Winning the culture war
With the exception of The Nativity Story, none of the films listed connect with the religious component of the Christmas holiday. That has much to do with its commercialization and sanitization by Hollywood and others to make it more profitable.
I, for one, take no issue with the idea of everyone sharing in a seasonal yuletide spirit regardless of belief (this year, Christmas happens to coincide with the start of the relatively minor Jewish holiday of Hannukah), just as the MAGA movement is one of inclusivity.
But ultimately, there is only one thing that “Christmas is all about,” and nobody articulates that as well as Linus in this 1965 animated classic, which has prevailed over all the efforts by the Left to memory-hole it.
Honorable mention: Aliens, envious of Earth’s culture, travel there to kidnap two children, along with Santa Claus, but later decide that it is unreconcilable with their own culture in 1964’s Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, which was made for an estimated budget of around $200,000. They attempt to sabotage Santa’s toymaking industry and to replace Santa with one of their own kind, but the plan fails, much as the Left’s so-called Great Replacement strategy via open borders cannot conquer the Western cultures they are seeking to supplant with their reverse-colonization scheme.
Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.
