New Jersey’s Top 5 Favorite Christmas Movies
1946: American actor James Stewart (1908 - 1997) as George Bailey, hugs actor Karolyn Grimes, who plays Zuzu his daughter, in a still from director Frank Capra's Christmas classic film, 'It's a Wonderful Life'.
We all have a favorite, and I’ve stated on several occasions that Elf is my go-to Christmas movie. We all have a number one, but how does it compare to the rest of the state or the country?
A new study based on searches online has crowned It’s a Wonderful Life as New Jersey’s favorite Christmas movie.
CSGOLuck.com analyzed the number of searches for more than 180 Christmas movies to determine which ones are New Jersey’s favorites. The titles of each movie were combined with terms such as ‘buy,’ ‘blu ray,’ ‘Netflix,’ and ‘watch online,’ to cover the various ways people watch these movies.
1. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Ranking as New Jersey’s favorite Christmas movie is It’s a Wonderful Life, with 10,005 monthly Google searches on average. The 1946 classic, starring James Stewart and Donna Reed, follows George Bailey, a businessman contemplating suicide on Christmas Eve, who thinks the world would be better off without him.
He is reminded of the positive impact he has had on his community and the people he loves when a guardian angel shows him a timeline in which he never existed.
2. The Holiday (2006)
New Jersey’s second favorite Christmas movie is 2006’s The Holiday, with 5,838 average monthly searches. Starring Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Jack Black, and Cameron Diaz, The Holiday is a romantic comedy that follows two unlucky-in-love women, one from Los Angeles and the other from England, who arrange a house swap for the holidays to get away from their troubled love lives.
3. Elf (2003)
Elf is New Jersey’s third favorite Christmas movie, with 4,899 average monthly searches. The 2003 comedy stars Will Ferrell as Buddy, a human raised by Santa’s elves from birth, as he discovers his true identity and that his biological father is still alive. He sets out for New York City to find him and get him off Santa’s naughty list.
4. Bad Santa (2003)
With 4,791 average monthly searches, Bad Santa is New Jersey’s fourth favorite Christmas movie. Starring Billy Bob Thornton as the bad Santa, Willie T. Soke, this black comedy follows his life as an alcoholic thief who robs shopping malls on Christmas Eve under the pretense of working as a mall Santa. However, his addictions see him become increasingly unable to play the role of Santa.
5. Scrooged (1988)
Scrooged sits fifth for New Jersey’s favorite Christmas movies, with 3,797 monthly searches on average. A modern retelling of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, Scrooged stars Bill Murray as Frank Cross, a selfish TV executive more interested in his career than the people around him. He is visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, who show Frank the error of his ways.
Ben Stiller's 6 Funniest Movies Ranked
Ben Stiller was born on November 30, 1965, in New York City to comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. His parents frequently took him on the sets of their appearances, including The Mike Douglas Show when he was a kid. His older sister, Amy Stiller, has appeared in many of his productions, including Highway to Hell, Reality Bites, DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story, and Zoolander. Growing up, Ben showed an early interest in filmmaking and made Super 8 movies with his sister and friends. By nine years old, Stiller made his acting debut on his mother’s short-lived television series, Kate McShane.
Stiller’s Early Life and Career
In the late ’70s, Stiller performed with the New York City troupe NYC’s First All Children’s Theater. After being inspired by the television show Second City Television in high school, Stiller realized that he wanted to get involved with sketch comedy. As a teenager, Stiller dabbled in music and was even the drummer of the post-punk band Capital Punishment. The band released the studio album Roadkill in 1982. Stiller briefly enrolled as a film student at the University of California before leaving school to move back to NYC. In 1986, Stiller was cast in the Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of John Guare’s The House of Blue Leaves.
After Stiller created a parody of Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money with a 10-minute short titled The Hustler of Money, his work got the attention of Saturday Night Live, which aired it in 1987. Two years later, SNL offered Stiller a spot as a writer. However, since the comedy sketch show didn’t want him to make more short films, he left after four episodes. Despite things not working out long-term at SNL, Stiller had his own show titled The Ben Stiller Show, which went from MTV to Fox to Comedy Central. Among the principal writers on the show were Stiller and Judd Apatow, with the show featuring the ensemble cast of Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Andy Dick, and Bob Odenkirk.
With an impressive 135 acting credits beneath his belt, Stiller also produced 51 projects for film and television and directed 20 projects. Take a look below at our ranking of Ben Stiller’s six funniest movies:
Joel Katz is the Morning Show Personality, Assistant Program Director, Podcast Host, Voiceover artist, audio producer, and Digital Content Writer for Magic 98.3. Joel has been working in New Jersey radio since college and started at Magic in 2002 as the Morning Show Host, “I can’t think of another place where I’d fit more perfectly; it’s just a great company with awesome people.” Joel is married to Kathleen, his elementary school sweetheart (they were each other’s first dates at age 9), shares a birthday with his oldest son, Ty, and has twins, Kiera and Liam. Joel runs at least 3.1 miles every day and enjoys playing basketball, doing laundry, saving his turn signal for when he really needs it, kissing dogs through a fence, using coasters, making that cool noise by rubbing his fingers on balloons, and chasing after ping pong balls on a windy cruise ship.
