Holiday Box Office Titans: The All-Time Top Grossers, December 2025

Holiday movies make money. Wild amounts of money. Exhibit A: in 1990, Home Alone hauled in $476.7 million. Adjust that to today and you are looking at north of $1 billion. So yeah, there is a reason studios keep wrapping everything in tinsel.

How I ranked this

Quick ground rules so nobody throws an ornament at me: this is a list of actual holiday movies, not movies that just happen to hang out at Christmas. So no Die Hard 2 or Batman Returns, even though they did fine at the box office. I pulled each title's original worldwide gross, adjusted those numbers for 2025 inflation, and ranked accordingly. The summaries are here for context, in case you somehow missed one during a lifetime of December programming.

1. Home Alone (1990)
   Box Office:
   Original: $476.7 million
   Adjusted: $1.1 billion

   Macaulay Culkin is Kevin McCallister, an 8-year-old who gets left behind when his chaotic family bolts for Paris. Two burglars (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern) pick the wrong suburban Chicago house to rob, and Kevin turns Christmas Eve into a booby-trapped obstacle course. Annual rewatch energy: off the charts.

2. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)
   Box Office:
   Original: $359 million
   Adjusted: $800 million

   Chris Columbus is back, and so is Kevin, who swears he will not be forgotten again. Cut to airport chaos, a wrong plane, and Kevin landing in New York City at peak holiday magic with his dad's credit card. The Wet Bandits resurface, because of course they do.

3. The Grinch (2018)
   Box Office:
   Original: $540.8 million
   Adjusted: $670 million

   Illumination goes full Seuss with directors Scott Mosier and Yarrow Cheney. Benedict Cumberbatch voices the famously grumpy green guy who wants to wreck Whoville's big day, only to get blindsided by Cindy Lou Who and some inconvenient heart growth.

4. Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
   Box Office:
   Original: $345.8 million
   Adjusted: $630 million

   Ron Howard swings for the fences with a hyper-chaotic live-action take. Jim Carrey disappears into latex and green fur as the Grinch, sulking atop Mount Crumpit until he decides to swipe Christmas from the Whos down in Whoville.

5. The Polar Express (2004)
   Box Office:
   Original: $315.2 million
   Adjusted: $520 million

   Robert Zemeckis leans on motion-capture for a story about a kid who lost his Christmas spark and jumps aboard a mysterious train to the North Pole. The animation hits that uncanny valley that some people love and some people do not. Themes of bravery, friendship, and belief land nicely. Pro tip: stick through the credits for Josh Groban's original song "Believe" if you want the full emotional gut punch.

6. A Christmas Carol (2009)
   Box Office:
   Original: $325.3 million
   Adjusted: $475 million

   Zemeckis again, this time with Disney's mo-cap spin on Dickens. Jim Carrey pulls multiple duties, most importantly as Ebenezer Scrooge, who gets the classic visits from the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.

7. Love Actually (2003)
   Box Office:
   Original: $245.2 million
   Adjusted: $420 million

   Richard Curtis writes and directs the definitive British ensemble rom-com, weaving several stories over the six weeks before Christmas. The cast is stacked: Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Keira Knightley, and a scene-stealing Bill Nighy. Resistance is futile during December.

8. The Santa Clause (1994)
   Box Office:
   Original: $190.5 million
   Adjusted: $417 million

   Tim Allen plays Scott Calvin, a divorced dad who accidentally knocks Santa off his roof. A card and a suit later, he is contractually obligated to become the new Santa. Over the next year he morphs into the role, clashing with his corporate job, his ex, and her new husband, who all think he has lost the plot.

9. Elf (2003)
   Box Office:
   Original: $225.1 million
   Adjusted: $380 million

   Buddy (a human raised at the North Pole) heads to New York to find his real father, Walter Hobbs, a grumpy children's book publisher who believes in neither Christmas nor Buddy's elf backstory. Buddy's relentless cheer collides with real-world cynicism as Santa deals with what happens when people stop believing.

10. The Holiday (2006)
    Box Office:
    Original: $205.9 million
    Adjusted: $320 million

    Nancy Meyers writes and directs this cozy transatlantic swap: one woman in Los Angeles, one in England, both done with love and the men currently wasting their time. They swap houses for Christmas, and naturally love finds them anyway. Under the glossy meet-cutes are solid threads about friendship, finding yourself, and plain old gumption. Stars Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, and Jack Black.

Bottom line

When you adjust for today, Home Alone still clears the field by a mile, and the rest is a mix of two Grinches, two Zemeckis experiments, and a handful of comfort-food favorites that basically own December programming. The market has spoken: deck the halls, count the receipts.