20 Christmas Movie Screenplays to Download and Study for Free

From IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE to ELF, I've curated a collection of scripts that should inject some holiday spirit into your screenwriting education

The festive season ain’t for everyone, I get it. But in my life, Christmas has always been a wonderful time of year. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t come without its emotional challenges, especially how it leads to me grieving anew those I’ve lost and mourning family gatherings I will never have again — at least the way I remember them — but the joy that still comes with the season, especially since I’ve had children, is undeniable.

What was slips away and becomes something else regardless of how we feel about it.

We’re left with nostalgia - which most of the 20 Christmas movie screenplays I’ve compiled here for you are steeped in. Nostalgia for Christmases long gone, for childhoods relegated to family photos and home videos, even for decency, kindness, and charity that can feel missing from the world today. Most of all, for a kind of magic that often seems to only exist at this time of year.

All these screenplays tend to vanish, as all things do on the Internet. Download ASAP for your personal educational purposes. If you want more resources like this one, be sure to check out these other articles:

“Read the 10 Feature Screenplays the WGA Thinks Are the Best of 2023”
“10 Screenplays by the Great Walter Hill to Download and Study”
“15 Iconic '90s Pilot Scripts to Download and Study”
“30 Brilliant BBC Drama Scripts to Download and Study for Free”
“40 Great Action Screenplays to Download and Study for Free”
“50 Essential 21st-Century One-Hour Pilot Scripts to Download and Study for Free”
“50 Great Screenplays by Women to Download and Study for Free”
“50 Great Screenplays by People of Color to Download and Study for Free”
“60 Great Comedy Screenplays to Download and Study for Free”
“60 Screenplays About Love and Heartbreak to Download and Study for Free”
“100 Horror Screenplays to Download and Study for Free”

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8-BIT CHRISTMAS (2021) by Kevin Jakubowski

This screenplay is a bit of a greatest hits take on Christmas films, leaning heavily on A CHRISTMAS STORY. But it does so with such heart, sincerity, and nostalgia for the Golden Age of Nintendo gaming systems that I’ve watched the film it resulted in two years in a row and intend to again this Christmas.

BAD SANTA (2003) by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa

If you like your Christmas vulgar, this film is for you.

BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974) by A. Roy Moore

This is a Christmas horror script and not necessarily a very good one, but I think it’s a fascinating opportunity to look at a script in rapid evolution. I mean, there are pages written in long-handed on notebook paper. Interestingly, the film was directed by Bob Clark, whose name you’re about to see again on this list.

A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983) by Jean Shepherd, Bob Clark, Leigh Brown

Many would tell you this is their favorite Christmas film. I’m not one of them, but I will say it’s one of my favorites and every year I live, I find it climbs my personal rankings. A masterpiece of nostalgia for long-lost childhoods and Christmases.

DIE HARD (1988) by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza

It’s a Christmas film.

ELF (2003) by David Berenbaum

A wonderful distillation of Christmas films and, as important, animated specials of the past. In almost every way, it’s just a retelling of the Rankin/Bass “RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER”.

GREMLINS (1984) by Chris Columbus

A Christmas horror-comedy with oodles of heart. It shouldn’t work. It does.

THE HOLIDAY (2006) by Nancy Meyers

I’m not ashamed that I’ve watched this film fifteen or so times now. It’s Christmas porn, it’s Nancy Meyers kitchen porn, it’s Jude Law in glasses porn. Oh, and Eli Wallach playing a sweet old screenwriter. Perfection.

HOME ALONE (1990) by John Hughes

One of three John Hughes scripts on this list and the second of three appearances Chris Columbus makes. It’s a perfectly structured film that somehow features a child protagonist and yet is eminently watchable by audiences of all ages.

HOME ALONE 2: LOST IN NEW YORK (1992) by John Hughes

No idea if this sequel is any good. I haven’t seen it in more than three decades. However, my nine-year-old thinks it’s hilarious.

HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS (2000) by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman

I am not a fan of the film itself, which I find visually frightening for all the wrong reasons, but its script wonderfully evolves Dr. Seuss and the animated special’s story.

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, and Frank Capra with additional scenes by Jo Swerling

Do I really have to explain why this film is so good?

KISS KISS BANG BANG (2005) by Shane Black

It’s not a Shane Black film if it’s not set at Christmas.

LOVE ACTUALLY (2003) by Richard Curtis

There is so much to marvel at in this script. It’s a sprawling ensemble that centers the boundlessness of love and the unseen connections all around us over a single Christmas season. It’s also…kind of mean. The fat-shaming is relentless, and it’s worn on me over the years. And after living in Southeast London, I also struggle with how a city that’s almost 50% non-white is depicted as almost monolithically white. I’ll love the film forever, because that’s true love I guess - a riff on a line Emma Thompson utters in it - but, given the profundity of its message, I wish it had done so much better.

THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS (2017) by Susan Coyne

I’ve never been able to watch this film, as it killed a project someone very, very dear to me was developing. But hey, I needed twenty scripts because “19 Christmas Movie Scripts” doesn’t have the same ring as “20 Christmas Movie Scripts” - so this is the filler. I hope it’s worth your time.

NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION (1989) by John Hughes

Remove the nostalgia for WHITE CHRISTMAS I feel, CHRISTMAS VACATION is my favorite Christmas film of all time. It perfectly captures my yearning for my eighties childhood, the chaos of family, and the insanity of the Christmas season. It’s also packed with all the heart you would expect from a John Hughes film.

THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (1993) by Caroline Thompson

Caroline Thompson, Tim Burton, and Danny Elfman. It really doesn’t get better than that. Except it does here, because the director of this twisted classic of a stop-motion Christmas film is the brilliant Henry Selick.

THE POLAR EXPRESS (2004) by Robert Zemeckis and William Broyles Jr.

I struggle with watching this film. The animation is…unsettling. But the script is quite lovely.

THE SANTA CLAUSE (1994) by Leo Benvenuti and Steve Rudnick

A rather grim premise for a Disney film — Santa falls off a roof and dies, resulting in Tim Allens’ character inheriting the title by happenstance — but I dig that kind of macabre. The film quickly evolves into a heartwarming holiday classic…which, unfortunately, the Mouse House has milked to death over the years.

SCROOGED (1988) Mitch Glazer and Michael O'Donoghue

Easily the best modern retelling of Charles Dickens’ A CHRISTMAS CAROL ever made. It’s every bit as scary and cruel and ultimately uplifting as the novella. It’s also a lot funnier, in no small part because of the performance Bill Murray delivers.

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