A big part of the holidays is rewatching our favorite Christmas movies. From It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street, to Home Alone and Die Hard, every December we reconnect with our most treasured seasonal films like they’re family. But classics aren’t the only holiday fare served up every winter. Each year brings with it new contenders to vie for a sacred spot in our annual viewing lineup. Which ones have a chance to breakthrough the way Elf did? We don’t know, but this map showing each state’s favorite new Christmas movie from the last six years tells us which ones are off to a good start.
It also tells us just how many recent Christmas movies we’ve never even heard about.
Researchers at the pro-consumer website Comparitech used Google to determine what each state considers the best new Christmas movie. The site explained its methodology behind the rankings:
“Using the best current Christmas movies according to Google at the time of writing, we searched each film individually on Google Trends to find which state scored the highest. This was then the designated film for that state. If any state came up twice, we used the film that ranked higher on Google Trends. If a state didn’t appear top for any of the movies, we searched through all of the 50 films to see which was most popular in the state according to Google Trends.”
Three films appeared the most. The Grinch (the most recent animated one starring Benedict Cumberbatch) easily led the pack as seven states’ favorite. Krampus and Black Christmas tied for second with three states each. Some of our favorites from the last few years also popped up. Including Klaus, Noelle, and The Christmas Chronicles.
Some real weird ones made the cut too, though. Movies we know nothing about. We have no idea what A Shoe Addict’s Christmas is. Same with Why Him? and A Godwink Christmas: Miracle of Love. If we couldn’t look them up ourselves we wouldn’t even be sure they’re real. (They are. We did look them up. Twice just to be sure.)
We have no idea if our new favorites will eventually become part of everyone’s yearly Christmas movie watch. But we’re willing to wager some states’ preferred choices ultimately won’t make the cut.
