What is your favorite Christmas movie? Just thinking about this question probably brings back fond memories of Christmas—whether it’s holiday traditions, family get-togethers, or twinkling Christmas tree lights.
There are hundreds of Christmas movies and at least as many opinions. But we decided to analyze the data to determine which Christmas movie was the most popular in each state.
We started with Rotten Tomatoes’ Top 100 Christmas Movies of All Time and then used Moz to filter down to the top 20 by search volume. From there, we used Google Trends data to determine which states searched for certain Christmas movies the most.
Most Popular Christmas Movies
While the list included many holiday classics like Elf, The Polar Express, and Home Alone, there were some non-traditional options as well. Whether you think movies like Die Hard, Edward Scissorhands, or Trading Places should be considered a Christmas movie, there’s no denying the data that Google searches for these movies are skyrocketing in November and December each year.
Films that have been favorites in most states include:
- Trading places – Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania.
- Polar Express – Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina
- Grinch – Kentucky, Louisiana, Texas, West Virginia.
- Real Love – Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Virginia, DC.
Here’s the full list of the top 20 movies by search volume in the US:
- Edward Scissorhands
- Elf
- The nightmare before christmas
- tenacious
- Alone at home
- Grinch
- Miracle on 34th Street
- Real love
- Krampus
- Jack Frost
- It’s a wonderful life
- Trading places
- Chrismas story
- Claus
- National Lampoon Christmas Holidays
- polar Express
- Frosty the Snowman
- Santa Claus
- ring all the time
- White Christmas
Which states have the most Christmas spirit?
Judging by the number of times the state has appeared in the top five searches for twenty movies on the list, Utah came out on top with a whopping twelve positions in the top five. Not to be left behind, West Virginia placed second in the Top 5 searchers of eleven films, while New Hampshire came in third with seven.
States with the least Christmas spirit include Hawaii, Florida, Mississippi, New York, and Louisiana. These states did not appear in the top five searches for any of the films on the list.
Most Popular Christmas Movies by State
- Alabama – polar Express
- Alaska – Jack Frost
- Arizona – Edward Scissorhands
- Arkansas – Grinch
- California – Edward Scissorhands
- Colorado – Claus
- Connecticut – It’s a wonderful life
- Delaware – Trading places
- Columbia area – Real love
- Florida – Edward Scissorhands
- Georgia – Trading places
- Hawaii – Trading places
- Idaho – tenacious
- Illinois – Alone at home
- Indiana – Chrismas story
- Iowa – Christmas Holidays
- Kansas – Miracle on 34th Street
- Kentucky – Grinch
- Louisiana – Grinch
- Maine – ring all the time
- Maryland – Real love
- Massachusetts – Real love
- Michigan – Krampus
- Minnesota – ring all the time
- Mississippi – polar Express
- Missouri – It’s a wonderful life
- Montana – tenacious
- Nebraska – Elf
- Nevada – Elf
- New Hampshire – It’s a wonderful life
- New Jersey – Trading places
- New Mexico – Edward Scissorhands
- New York – Trading places
- North Carolina – polar Express
- North Dakota – Alone at home
- Ohio – Alone at home
- Oklahoma – polar Express
- Oregon – Real love
- Pennsylvania – Trading places
- Rhode Island – Jack Frost
- South Carolina – polar Express
- North Dakota – Christmas Holidays
- Tennessee – Santa Claus
- Texas – Grinch
- Utah – Elf
- Vermont – Miracle on 34th Street
- Virginia – Real love
- Washington – Claus
- West Virginia – Grinch
- Wisconsin – It’s a wonderful life
- Wyoming – Krampus
Methodology
We selected the top 100 Rotten Tomatoes Christmas movies and then used Moz to determine the search volume for each of the 100 movies. We then took the top 20 movies by search volume and used Google Trends to rank each movie separately to determine the relative search volume of each movie’s status. The data was collected between 11/12/2022 and 11/13/2022 using Google trend data for the last twelve months.
To determine the most popular movie in a given state, we looked at where it ranks highest on Google Trends. In the event of a tie, the film with the highest total search volume was selected.
Andrew Herrig is a financial expert and financial nerd, and the founder of Wealthy Nickel, where he writes about personal finance, part-time jobs, and entrepreneurship. As an avid real estate investor and owner of several businesses, he has a passion for helping others create wealth and shares his family’s experiences on his blog.
Andrew holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Texas at Dallas and a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University. He has worked as a financial analyst and accountant in many aspects of the financial world.
Andrew’s expert financial advice has been featured on CNBC, Entrepreneur, Fox News, GOBankingRates, MSN and more.