The Nice List: Top 5 Movie Santas

As old as his tongue and a little bit older than his teeth, Santa Claus is an indelible figure in our culture, the embodiment of giving and charity, kindness and hope, the representation of the magic adults leave behind but children know in their hearts is real. He is the Spirit of Christmas personified, and even when we stop believing, he makes us smile. Hollywood has had plenty of Christmas movies featuring St. Nick over the decades, and while it wouldn’t be very Christmassy to criticize any of them – not today, anyway – celebrating is appropriate. Here are my top five movie Santas, ranked.

Check out The Naughty List.

Honorable Mention: David Harbour, Violent Night (2022)

“Santa Claus is coming to town.”

Yeah, the movie is about thirty seconds old, which is why David Harbour is an honorable mention. I get annoyed when people make something they’ve just seen the best fill-in-the-blank ever, and I try to be cognizant of things like emotion and hype. But I still want to highlight Harbour because his – and the film’s – take on Santa Claus is sensational, and it hasn’t left my mind all Season. He’s a Kris Kringle who’s lost his faith in Christmas and himself, and through one bloody Christmas Eve and the wonder of an innocent child, he’ll rediscover what makes Christmas so magical. Harbour’s Santa is not what you’d call a traditional interpretation of Father Christmas; he loves a good beer, and he beats down and dispatches a lot of bad guys. But Harbour keeps the soul of Santa Claus alive all the way through. I can’t recommend Violent Night enough if you haven’t gotten to check it out yet.

5. Ed Asner, Elf (2003)

“Some people, they just lose sight of what’s important in life. That doesn’t mean they can’t find their way again, huh? Maybe all they need is just a little Christmas Spirit.”

Who’d have thought gruff, tough, perennially grouchy Ed Asner would have made a wonderful, heartwarming Santa Claus? Jon Favreau, I suppose, and as he did with Tony Stark, he chose an unlikely actor to play a role nobody would have pictured him in, and movie magic was the result. Asner’s Santa is sort of a wise old hand, having millennia of ho-ho-hoing under his belt but retaining his glee and excitement beneath the gravelly voice. There’s a bit of a father – or perhaps grandfather, lest we detract from Bob Newhart’s Papa Elf – to Asner’s pep talk when he prepares Buddy for his trip to New York City, from caution against yellow snow and gum on the street to identifying the true Original Ray’s Pizza.

These attributes resurface when Santa returns in the final act; his response to Michael asking if he’s the real Santa – a bemused “You never can tell, kid” – and the joy he takes in showing a young boy his name on the nice list (“Lookee here!”) compound the aura of the experienced but still enthusiastic veteran. And, as with Papa Elf, he contrasts well with James Caan’s Walter Hobbs – a role most would have associated Asner with more than St. Nick; when Walter tells Santa to give him his hat and coat, Santa’s innocence keeps him from understanding what streetwise New Yorker Walter is up to. Santa may be wise, but he’s not cynical, and he loves people too much to resort to trickery of his own accord. His mighty “Ho-ho-ho” as he flies into the night over an astonished Central Park gathering is the icing on the cookie.

4. Douglas Seale, Ernest Saves Christmas (1988)

“Christmas is going on!”

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve left a lot of the kid-oriented things I loved as a child behind, but I still have a soft spot for Ernest. While Ernest Scared Stupid may be the best Ernest movie (search your feelings; you know it to be true), Ernest Saves Christmas is not far behind, and it features one of the great movie Santas in Douglas Seale. Seale – who was the voice of the Sultan in Aladdin – doesn’t exactly measure up to the popular image of Santa physically; while Ernest makes a joke about him shaking his belly like a bowl full of jelly, it’s hard to imagine Seale being able to jiggle. But he’s got an unmatched twinkle in his eye, a child’s joy at the magic of Christmas, and a knowing wink he gleefully delivers to kids who can feel that they’re in the presence of the real Santa Claus.

Ernest Saves Christmas is a sort of spiritual forefather to a Christmas classic that would wed itself to the Season a few years later; in the Ernestverse, Santa Claus is an identity passed down from one man to another, and Seale’s St. Nick has held the title past his sell-by date. His explanation is obvious – “Because I loved it so much” – but feels genuine because of the warmth with which Seale says it. But now, he’s looking for his replacement, a children’s entertainer named Joe Carruthers in danger of being beaten down by the real world. Along the way, he runs into a teenage runaway going by Harmony, a false name meant to bury a painful past. And every knock he takes brings him closer to losing hope that Christmas will endure past his tenure, till he finally just gives up… but it’s his faith in the ultimate goodness of humanity that saves him because it first saves Joe and Harmony. Douglas Seale’s Santa believes in us, and though his time in the sleigh may be passed, we’ll always believe in him.

3. Kurt Russell, The Christmas Chronicles (2018)

“Live and in person. One night only.”

I didn’t expect much from The Christmas Chronicles when I finally saw it (three years after it premiered on Netflix). Kurt Russell playing Santa Claus felt like a novelty that would wear thin after a while. I was delightfully wrong because The Christmas Chronicles is now officially on my Christmas Movie Watch List (the second one, not so much). And Kurt Russell is the key because he doesn’t use his image as a crutch; he dives right into playing Santa, reveling not just in the mild subversions but in the hallmarks of the myth. Russell’s Santa is a little cooler than usual – a little slimmer, a little sarcastic, a little rock-and-roll – but at his heart is the same loving figure of joy and giving who wants everyone on Earth to have a Merry Christmas.

Those classic Santa attributes underscore everything Russell does in the film. He beseeches a pub full of annoyed patrons to loan him some cash, not because he thinks he’s owed anything but because he believes people would want to help him (and that they’d believe he was Santa Claus). He turns his jail cell into a rock concert to give some petty criminals and their jaded jailers a shot of Christmas Spirit. He inspires goodness and charity in others by demonstrating it himself. And he goes to extraordinary lengths to help two sad kids be the best they can be because he’ll never give up on anyone, even those on the Naughty List. His occasional harshness and sarcasm are used not to insult the kids but to motivate them. Kurt Russell runs the Santa gamut in this movie, and he very quickly shot to the top of my – and, I’ll wager, a lot of other people’s – Best Movie Santas list.

2. Tim Allen, The Santa Clause (1994)

“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! When I wake up, I’m getting a CAT scan!”

While Ernest Saves Christmas showed the anointing of a new Santa Claus from the perspective of the outgoing one, The Santa Clause tells the story through the new Santa’s eyes, and it’s pure magic. Tim Allen plays Scott Calvin, a divorced executive at a toy company who, while spending Christmas Eve with his son Charlie (Eric Lloyd) – who’d rather be with his mom (Wendy Crewson) and stuffed-shirt stepfather (Judge Reinhold, movie god) – accidentally kills Santa Claus. Luckily for children all over the world, there’s a contingency plan for this kind of mess: Scott must put on the suit and become the new Santa. Throughout the next year, Scott grows into the role – in more ways than one – and finds the burden placed on himself and his son more than he may be able to bear.

The joy of The Santa Clause is watching Scott slowly but surely become Santa Claus, not just in name and title but in persona. He begins the film as a relatively cynical guy who lives for work and doesn’t see much of his son. But once he puts on the suit and the Santa Clause takes effect, he starts to change in little ways. For example, he brings morality into a board meeting at his company when he’s expected to care solely about profits. He walks down the street taking note of which children have been naughty and which have been nice. He spends more time with his son. And as he changes, so does his body, little by little becoming the perfect image of Jolly Old St. Nick, replete with his heart beating to the tune of “Jingle Bells.” The imagery in the movie is fantastic, especially what is almost certainly the best representation of the North Pole and Santa’s workshop ever put to film; Scott taking in the wonder of Christmas is pivotal, and even on that first Christmas Eve, you can see him start to change, start to believe. The next Christmas, he is Santa Claus, through and through, and you can see it by the way he interacts with the little girl whose house we see him visit. The first year, he’s angry, annoyed, and threatens to take her presents away if she doesn’t go to sleep; next year, he lovingly wishes her a Merry Christmas as he strokes her hair and departs.  (He also sucks down soy milk, which is proof enough that he’ll do anything to make a child happy.) When he makes a believer out of Charlie’s stepfather, a coldly realistic psychiatrist, Tim Allen makes you believe it, and by the end of the film, we all believe in Santa Claus.

1. Edmund Gwenn, Miracle on 34^th Street (1947)

“Would you please tell her that you’re not really Santa Claus, that there actually is no such person?”

“Well, I’m sorry to disagree with you, Mrs. Walker, but not only is there such a person, but here I am to prove it!”

Could there be any doubt? I’m a believer in “To each his own,” but this is one thing that may be beyond dispute. Edmund Gwenn’s Santa, who mostly goes by Kris Kringle, is the version by which all others are measured. At different points throughout Miracle on 34^th Street, he possesses key attributes from all of the other versions I mentioned: David Harbour’s self-doubt; Ed Asner’s grandfatherly wisdom; Douglas Seale’s faith in humanity; Kurt Russell’s willingness to steer children on the right track; and Tim Allen’s ability to get the doubtful to believe. At the heart of it is Gwenn himself, with an innate kindness and love for all that radiates from him every second he’s on-screen. The Santa suit never looked so perfect on anyone.

This is crucial to the film because the whole point is that Gwenn may not be the real Santa Claus. He appears in the opening shot as if out of nowhere, much like the Joker in The Dark Knight. He has no name other than Kris Kringle, with his only identifying information being the address of an old folks’ home where the head doctor knows him as Kris. But that’s crazy talk; every seemingly fantastical element to him has a rational explanation, so of course, he must just be a nice old man who thinks he’s Santa, mustn’t he? And yet, there’s always a “But what about…?” Could a simple old man really bring the Christmas Spirit back to cynical New York City, speak Dutch at the drop of a hat, bring business rivals Macy’s and Gimble’s together, and make believers out of a woman and her daughter determined never to succumb to flights of fancy? One by one, everyone in the movie begins to believe that Kris Kringle is Santa Claus, and the viewer does too. Gwenn is the lynchpin to this because he has to make us believe what our minds tell us can’t be so, and he does. By the end of the film, all those logical reasons for his presence are cast aside, and like Doris, Susan, Fred, and the rest of the world, even a hardnosed businessman like R.H. Macy, we know in our hearts that he’s Santa Claus.

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As long as there are movies, there will be new depictions of Santa Claus, but as of now, these are my favorites. If you’ve never seen any of these films, I hope you’ll give them a try, and however you picture him, I hope Santa is good to you this year.

Merry Christmas!