People who already have everything can have you stumped for gifts each year. This year, consider giving them DVDs of the vintage Christmas movies they love.
If you’re looking for more holiday movies that the whole family will like, check out our list of the Best Christmas Movies for Kids that the Whole Family Will Enjoy.
Everyone loves “It’s a Wonderful Life,” but what else is available on Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble, or Borders?
Consider these wonderful old movies with a Christmas theme for the nostalgic old movie buff on your gift list. Many old movies have been re-released on DVD.
December is fast approaching, which means it’s time to put on your coziest soft socks and matching family pajamas and curl up with a holiday film, or charming Christmas novel, or if you want something different, try watching these Nostalgic Vintage Christmas Movies that celebrate the best things about the holiday – love, family, peace and joy.
Table of Contents:
Vintage Christmas Movies
- Factory sealed DVD
- Fredric March, Basil Rathbone (Actors)
A Christmas Carol
A Bitter Old Man Thaws Out During a Christmas Eve Visit to the Past and Future.
You can choose from one of a dozen versions of this classic tale of a cold-hearted man who changes his ways after a tour of his life with an angel on Christmas Eve. Try the 1954 version with Basil Rathborne as Joseph Marley and Fredric March as the man without a heart, Ebenezer Scrooge.
To continue this unit study, check out A Christmas Carol Activities.
White Christmas
Two talented song-and-dance men (Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye) team up after the war to become one of the hottest acts in show business.
- Amazon Prime Video (Video on Demand)
- Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet (Actors)
Christmas in Connecticut
How a Desperate Writer Comes up with a Farmhouse, Husband, and Baby.
Christmas in Connecticut, produced in 1945, is a hilarious tale of a New York writer, Barbara Stanwyck, who writes a column describing her quaint Connecticut farm life, complete with baby and marvelous cooking, from her single New York apartment.
Journalist Elizabeth Lane is one of the country’s most famous food writers. She describes herself as a hard-working farm woman and an excellent cook. But this is all lies.
When war hero Dennis Morgan wants nothing more than an old-fashioned Christmas holiday in her snow-covered home, Stanwyck and her publisher scramble to find a suitable house, husband, and baby to pull off the illusion. Naturally, all turns out well in the end but the slapstick scrambling that fills the movie is thoroughly enjoyable.
- Amazon Prime Video (Video on Demand)
- James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore (Actors)
It’s a Wonderful Life
George Bailey Learns That His Life Has Meaning in a Christmas Classic.
When considering vintage Christmas movies, you just can’t leave out the 1947 story of George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart “the richest man in town”, who spent most of his life wishing her were somewhere else doing something else. Donna Reed plays his supportive wife.
After George Bailey wishes he had never been born, an angel is sent to earth to make George’s wish come true. George starts to realize how many lives he has changed and impacted, and how they would be different if he was never there.
Since this movie plays almost continuously from Thanksgiving on, it may not be on the top of your giving list, but watching it without commercials and the chop job some stations do when editing may be worth the price.
- Amazon Prime Video (Video on Demand)
- Peter Billingsley, Melinda Dillon, Darren McGavin (Actors)
A Christmas Story
In this holiday classic, Ralphie, a young boy growing up in the ’40s, dreams of owning a Red Rider BB gun. He sets out to convince the world this is the perfect gift.
- Factory sealed DVD
- Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Natalie Wood (Actors)
Miracle on 34th Street
Kris Kringle Comes to Macy’s and Has the Court in an Uproar.
Produced in 1947, this is the story of a girl, played by a very young Natalie Wood, who doesn’t believe in Santa because her somewhat bitter mother, played by Maureen O’Hara has made sure she didn’t. When the Santa hired for the Macy’s parade falls on the job, a substitute Santa steps into the job and the family’s life.
A department store Santa is out to prove he’s the real Claus in this spirited 1947 holiday classic.
Played by marvelous actor Edmund Gwenn, Kris Kringle is more than your everyday department store Santa–but is he the REAL Santa? It takes time, but by the end of the movie, even the young cynic–and her mom–are ready to go to bat for Santa in court. Even better, the next-door neighbor has brought mom out of her hard shell.
- Factory sealed DVD
- Michael Caine, Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmore (Actors)
The Muppet Christmas Carol
The Muppet’s rendition of Charles Dickens’s classic tale puts a unique twist on a favorite holiday story.
- Factory sealed DVD
- Mary Steenburgen, Harry Dean Stanton, Gary Basaraba (Actors)
One Magic Christmas
Award-winning actress Mary Steenburgen gives a solid performance as Ginny Grainger, a young mother who rediscovers the joy and beauty of Christmas, thanks to the unshakable faith of her six-year-old daughter Abbie and Gideon, Ginny’s guardian angel.
- Special Edition
- Come To The Stable
Come to the Stable (1949)
Two French nuns are faced with a series of obstacles when they set out to build a children’s hospital in New England.
- Cary Grant, Loretta Young, David Niven (Actors)
- Henry Koster (Director)
The Bishop’s Wife (1947)
A Non-Sappy Tale of an Angel Who Saves a Minister’s Marriage.
This Christmastime angelic intervention sparkles with good humor as Dudley the angel is sent to help a bishop and his wife survive their attempt to finance a new cathedral.
The original 1948 version starred David Niven as the minister too tied up in congregation politics to even think about the deeper meaning of Christmas, his suffering wife, Loretta Young, and the angel that comes to put their lives back together, Cary Grant.
A wonderful story about the real meaning of Christmas that’s more sophisticated than The Grinch That Stole Christmas but just as moving.
![Holiday Inn (2-Disc Special Edition) [DVD] [1942]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/517tR0oAKVL.jpg)
- English (Subtitle)
- Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Holiday Inn (1942)
“White Christmas” and other Irving Berlin tunes highlight the tale of an inn that is only open on holidays.
- Robert Mitchum, Janet Leigh, Wendell Corey (Actors)
- Don Hartman (Director)
Holiday Affair (1949)
Classic Christmas romantic comedy stars Janet Leigh (“Psycho,” Touch of Evil”) as a poor young widow torn between a boring successful businessman and a romantic ne’er-do-well.
- Don DeFore, Ann Harding, Charles Ruggles (Actors)
- Roy Del Ruth (Director) - Everett Freeman (Writer) - Roy Del Ruth (Producer)
It’s Happened on 5th Avenue (1947)
A hobo and friends take up residence in a mansion whilst the family is away on the Christmas holiday.
- Margaret Sullivan, James Stewart (Actors)
- Ernst Lubitsch (Director)
The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
James Stewart is a Budapest store clerk who finds himself feuding with his co-worker, Margaret Sullavan, only to unknowingly fall in love with her.
- Factory sealed DVD
- Harry Carey, Charles Winninger, Aubrey Smith (Actors)
Beyond Christmas
This uplifting story begins on Christmas Eve in New York City, as three elderly businessmen prepare to enjoy a festive dinner together. They receive visits from two kind-hearted strangers, each has come to return a wallet they believe one of the gentlemen has lost.
This charming 1940 holiday classic is perfect for the Christmas season. Expertly restored and in Color for the first time!
The bottom line is – Old Movies Make Wonderful Gifts for the Hard-to-Buy For or Movie Buffs.
Rather than making your hard-to-gift loved ones search high and low for their favorite movies each holiday season, give them a version for their very own. Some old movies play only occasionally; having their favorite at their fingertips adds joy to their Christmas season.
More Christmas Gift Ideas:
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- Gift Guide for Hallmark Channel Lovers
- How to Give a Netflix Gift Subscription
- How to Give Streaming Gift Card vs Gift Subscription
- How to Give A Movie Theater Gift Card
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