And bad holiday movies can happen to good actors, including Keira Knightley.
With her “visceral childhood memory,” of attending The Nutcracker ballet with her mom, she went all in on bringing the performance to life in 2018’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, even affecting a sweet AF, high-pitched voice to transform herself into the Sugar Plum Fairy.
“[It’s] mostly the idea of that sense of magic,” she shared with Entertainment Weekly of the story ahead of its release. “Of all of these sweets and these toys coming to life, which is what every kid wants when you’re playing with toys. You want it to be real.” But the as magical as it seemed, the movie didn’t exactly have filmgoers waltzing out of theaters.
And though Michael Keaton‘s Jack Frost had a heart-melting premise in theory—after dying in a car crash, a dad comes back to spend time with his son as the titular friendly snowman—the 1998 film proved more haunting than heartwarming.
So which Christmas films over the years have failed to become classics, instead becoming go-to examples of the holidays gone very wrong? We’ve made a list and checked it twice. You’re about to find out who we’ve deemed naughty and nice.