Celebrating the festive season with Christmas classics, old Hollywood favorites, and modern hits from across the decades is every cinephile’s idyllic way to mark the arrival of December.
Christmas films based on festive books are given a head-start in the public consciousness, given that the source material is often already established, popular, or even pre-existing in the canon.
Read on to discover six films, originally based on books, that we love to love every holiday season.
1. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Arguably the most beloved and enduring Christmas film of all time, It’s a Wonderful Life is actually based on Philip Van Doren Stern’s short story The Greatest Gift, published just three years before the movie’s release, in 1943. In turn, The Greatest Gift is based loosely on Charles Dickens’s 1843 novella A Christmas Carol.
Philip Van Doren Stern was an American writer and Civil War historian. He was a celebrated author of various Civil War books, which were recognized as authoritative by contemporary scholars. He worked as an editor at Simon & Schuster and Alfred A. Knopf where he compiled many anthologies of short stories.
His greatest contribution to the field of American literature came in 1943. He began writing his story, The Greatest Gift, in 1939 and finished it in 1943. However, Stern was met with a wall of disinterest—publishers were not keen on his 4,000-word story, feeling it sat in an unmarketable position between short story and novella. Undeterred, Stern self-published 200 printed copies, which he sent to friends as Christmas cards in 1943. Eventually, the story was published as a book the following Christmas.
One of Stern’s original pamphlets came across the desk of acclaimed Hollywood Director Frank Capra, who said he “had been looking for it all his life.” Capra’s adaptation starred James Stewart and, upon its release in 1946, received five Academy Award nominations. The movie leaned closely on the source material, and the pivotal scene in which Clarence saves George from suicide is taken almost verbatim from Stern’s short story:
“The water looked paralyzingly cold. George wondered how long a man could stay alive in it. The glassy blackness had a strange, hypnotic effect on him. He leaned still farther over the railing. . .
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ a quiet voice beside him said.
George turned resentfully to a little man he had never seen before. He was stout, well past middle age, and his round cheeks were pink in the winter air as though they had just been shaved.”
Its lasting message of friendship, community, and courage means that It’s a Wonderful Life remains just as wonderful, nearly 80 years on from its release.
2. The Snowman (1982)
Raymond Briggs’s wordless picture book, The Snowman, was first published in the UK in 1978. Four years later, television producer John Coates created an animated version of the tale, commissioned by Channel 4. It was broadcast on Boxing Day, December 26, 1982, in the channel’s inaugural year of broadcast. It has been shown every Christmas since. In 1983, the animation was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Film. That same year, the film won a BAFTA award (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) for Best Children’s Program.
By 1984, The Snowman’s popularity had soared to such an extent that global superstar David Bowie was asked to record a special introduction to the film. He did, embodying the character of the boy as an adult, and the short scene became synonymous with the animation as a whole.
In 2012, The Snowman and the Snowdog, a sequel to the original, was created by the same producer, John Coates, to mark the 30th anniversary of The Snowman. In reverse order, the book of the sequel was released in 2015.
3. The Polar Express (2004)
For Chris Van Allsburg’s 1985 fantasy picture book, the writer and illustrator won the annual Caldecott Medal for illustration of an American children’s picture book. It would be his second win, after Jumanji (another of his books, which was made into a box office hit film!).
The book opens with a boy in his bed on Christmas Eve, listening for the sounds of Santa’s sleigh. Instead, he hears a steam train outside. The book is set in Michigan, but soon escapes realism when the boy boards the steam train bound for the North Pole. The train is a magical, idyllic space where cocoa, candies, and carols are limitless.
When the train and the passengers reach the North Pole, the conductor tells them that Santa Claus will choose one of them to receive the first gift of Christmas. The boy is chosen and asks for a bell from Santa’s sleigh. A kindly elf takes a bell from the sleigh and offers it to the boy, which he takes and stores carefully in his dressing gown pocket. When it is time to return home, the boy discovers the bell has disappeared. On Christmas morning, the boy opens a box and finds the bell, delivered by Santa. When the boy rings the bell, only he and his sister can hear its gentle din.
An allegory for childhood innocence and believing in the magic of Christmas, the book ends with the boy’s adult reflection:
“At one time, most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I’ve grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe.”
In 2004, a film based on the book was written, produced, and directed by Robert Zemeckis, using human actors (including Tom Hanks, Daryl Sabara, and Jimmy Bennett) who were animated using a live-action performance capture technique. The film remains such a festive staple that the “Polar Express Experience” was created in 2016, providing steam train journeys across the United States, Canada, and the UK to replicate the magical world of Allsburg’s original storybook.
4. The Bishop’s Wife (1947) / The Preacher’s Wife (1996)
Robert Nathan’s 1928 novel The Bishop’s Wife has inspired two festive remakes. The first, 1947’s The Bishop’s Wife, starred Hollywood favorites Cary Grant, Loretta Young, and David Niven.
The film was adapted by Leonard Bercovi and Robert E. Sherwood (a Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winner), following the novel’s plot closely. Cary Grant plays the angel Dudley, who comes to Earth on a mission to earn his wings from God. To do so, Dudley must save a human soul. His project is Bishop Henry Broughman, who prays for divine guidance to find the funds to support the building of a new cathedral for his community.
Dudley supports Henry in more spiritual endeavors, patching up strained relationships with his wife, Julia, and their daughter, Debby. In early previews, audiences disliked the film, prompting copious rewrites. When the film premiered, it was acclaimed by critics, but failed to perform at the box office. The producers carried out market research that showed people avoided the film as they thought it was religious.
In 1996, the film was remade, with the title The Preacher’s Wife, starring a new generation of Hollywood stars. The screenplay was written by new scriptwriters, though credits were given to the scriptwriters of The Bishop’s Wife and to Robert Nathan for his original text. Superstar Whitney Houston starred as Julia, alongside Denzel Washington as Dudley and Courtney B. Vance as Henry. This time, the film was an instant hit and received the Academy Award for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score. Whitney Houston’s movie soundtrack became the best-selling gospel album of all time, and the film itself propelled Houston’s career to new heights.
Denzel Washington produced the film through his company Mundy Lane Entertainment. He told Variety Magazine that the story carries a universal message of family and faith, all thanks to Robert Nathan’s novel, which, at over 100 years old, has stood the test of time.
5. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
Sally Benson was an American writer of short stories and scripts. She was best known for her stories for adolescents, including the creation of Judy Graves, the heroine of the Junior Miss stories published in The New Yorker. In 1942, she wrote Meet Me in St. Louis, a set of fragments from a year in the life of a family. The story was part of Benson’s long-running New Yorker series, 5135 Kensington (the name of the family home).
In 1944, the story was turned into a Technicolor Hollywood musical featuring the now iconic Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and The Trolley Song. Irving Brecher and Fred F. Finklehoffe adapted Benson’s Kensington stories, which were later published as a novel.
The movie was a critical and commercial success, becoming the second-highest-grossing film of 1944. In 1994, on its 50th anniversary, Meet Me in St. Louis was recognized by the Library of Congress as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and added to the United States National Film Registry.
6. The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
The Muppet’s Christmas Carol is often considered one of the most accurate and entertaining versions of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
Following in the footsteps of many screen adaptations came a unique concept: A Christmas Carol, told by the Muppets alongside a live actor, Michael Caine, as Ebeneezer Scrooge.
Brian Henson was the first creative hired for the project, as director. This would be his first feature film and would mark the passing of the torch from his father, Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets, who had died two years earlier.
Henson’s previous work on films such as Labyrinth and The Witches armed him with a capacity for showing both the darkness and the light in a story concurrently—something he mastered in the bittersweet scenes featuring a puppet Tiny Tim and the Cratchits (Kermit and Miss Piggy).
The movie was not a huge success upon its release on December 11, 1992, though it grossed $27.2 million (making back its $12 million budget). But the movie has only grown in popularity. A 2022 survey by Radio Times revealed that 63% of respondents watch the film every year, and it consistently ranks high on seasonal streaming charts, with an 86% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
