What 13.4 Billion Streams and Downloads Reveal About the World’s Favourite Christmas Films

Every December, the same thing happens. A small set of films surges in popularity across the world, year after year, regardless of which platforms are pushing new releases or what is trending on social media. Christmas viewing is one of the most predictable seasonal behaviours in entertainment, and it is genuinely global.

To understand what people actually watch at Christmas, we turned to Discover Demand. This dataset measures global film consumption via unlicensed channels, capturing viewing behaviour that sits outside any single platform, catalog, or marketing cycle. Instead of showing what is available, it shows what audiences seek out and watch.

We analysed over 13.4 billion film streams and downloads worldwide from 2022 to 2024, covering a universe of more than 150,000 films. From that, we identified the 75 titles that consistently spike during the Christmas period every year. To focus on established seasonal favourites rather than recency effects, we only included films released on or before 2020.

The result is a clear view of the world’s Christmas film canon, and it contains a few surprises.

The top 10 Christmas films by global demand

Ranked by Discover Demand consumption over the Christmas period (2022-2024):

• The Grinch (2018)
• Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)
• Home Alone (1990)
• The Polar Express (2004)
• Die Hard (1988)
• Klaus (2019)
• Elf (2003)
• Home Alone 3 (1997)
• Love Actually (2003)
• National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)

A few things stand out immediately. Modern family animation is hugely dominant at the very top, led by The Grinch, The Polar Express, and Klaus. At the same time, Home Alone is not just a classic, it is a franchise-level ritual, with multiple entries ranking high globally. And yes, Die Hard sits comfortably in the top five, confirming that audiences treat it as a Christmas staple in practice, not just in online debates.

Daily demand spikes each December for The Grinch, reflecting a yearly Christmas rewatch surge.

What the wider top 75 tells us

Looking beyond the top 10, the full seasonal list reveals how Christmas demand really works.

• Franchises and repeatable worlds matter more than single films: Christmas viewing is sticky. When audiences return to a world, they tend to return to it as a series. The list includes five Home Alone films, three Grinch adaptations, multiple Santa Clause sequels, and a cluster of Christmas Chronicles titles. This is rewatch behaviour, not discovery behaviour. At Christmas, people want familiarity.
• Christmas rituals cut across generations: Titles spanning eight decades spike at the same time each year. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) rises alongside 2010s releases. White Christmas (1954), A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964), and Frosty the Snowman (1969) all show sustained seasonal demand. These films are inherited traditions, passed from one generation to the next.
• Non-traditional “Christmas films” are real Christmas films: Discover Demand picks up a canon that audiences have built for themselves. Die Hard isn’t an outlier. Trading Places, Gremlins, and The Nightmare Before Christmas all show reliable Christmas spikes. These films might not be about Christmas on paper, but they function as Christmas movies in living rooms worldwide.
• There’s a stable Christmas horror and dark-comedy audience: Seasonal viewing is not only cosy. Krampus, Better Watch Out, and three different versions of Black Christmas all recur in the top 75. Add Bad Santa and Santa’s Slay and you get a clear counter-programming pattern: a meaningful global audience wants Christmas with teeth.
• Global demand surfaces regional traditions too: While Hollywood dominates the upper ranks, the broader list includes local holiday favourites that reliably spike in their home markets and contribute to global totals. Angel (2005), a Czech Christmas film, and Natale in India (2003), a popular Italian holiday comedy, are two examples already well known. Other notable inclusions point in the same direction, such as the French titles Christmas & Co. (2017) and A Christmas Tale (2008). Christmas is global, but traditions remain local.

The MUSO Difference: Demand vs. Distribution

Most Christmas movie lists are built from critic rankings, single-platform charts, or TV schedules. Useful, but they reflect what is being surfaced to audiences in a given market at a given moment. Discover Demand shows something else: what audiences really want to watch.

Because the data tracks consumption independent of any one service, it lets us see viewing behaviour free from platform availability, pricing differences, and recommendation engines. Put simply, it is a closer proxy for the question: “What would people watch if they had unrestricted access to every film ever made?” By monitoring a vast audience outside those constraints, we get a clearer read on underlying demand rather than distribution effects.

That kind of insight is practical. This Christmas analysis is just one example of what cross-platform demand data can do for film and TV decision makers:

• Content strategy and research: identify which catalog titles behave like annual rituals, which genres are truly seasonal, and which films have hidden rewatch value.
• Acquisition and windowing: spot proven demand patterns early, then license or relicense titles with confidence that they will perform in the right period.
• Scheduling and programming: demand rankings shift dramatically by country. A regional broadcaster can use local demand spikes to decide what to schedule, when to schedule it, and which classics deserve the prime slots.
• Marketing and audience growth: if a title is already spiking in unlicensed consumption, that is a strong signal of latent audience intent. Marketing can lean into that momentum, rather than trying to manufacture it.

In short, Discover Demand helps separate distribution-driven popularity from true audience pull. The Christmas canon makes that visible in a way everyone intuitively understands, but the same approach applies year-round to any genre, window, or market you need to plan for.

Takeaway

Christmas viewing is one of the clearest examples of repeatable audience behaviour. Across 13.4 billion streams and downloads from 2022 to 2024, a small set of films reliably surged every December, mixing evergreen family classics with a few “unofficial” holiday staples like Die Hard.

More importantly, this is a proof point for how cross-platform demand data can be used. When you can see what audiences seek out beyond the influence of any single service, you get a cleaner read on real intent. And because demand patterns vary sharply by country, these insights become actionable at a regional level, whether that means programming a seasonal schedule, prioritising licensing, or marketing catalog titles that already show organic pull.

This Christmas ranking is one seasonal snapshot. The same lens can be applied year-round to uncover which stories audiences truly return to, and where.