The 12 Best Santa Clauses In Movies, Ranked
Santa Claus first appeared on film all the way back in 1898, when he starred in a short film by George Albert Smith called, appropriately, "Santa Claus." In it, a silent Santa sneaks across a rooftop, climbs down a chimney, and leaves gifts for a little girl and boy who are nestled in their beds.
Ever since, holiday films have been stuffed with depictions of Father Christmas. Some are nice, and some are naughty. Some are jolly, and some are degenerate. Most are merry, but a few are murderous. Many films try to put their own spin on the Santa mythos, too, trying to make their St. Nick stand out from the pack of present-carrying holiday patriarchs. But others simply try to spread holiday joy, offering something jolly to put on while you sip hot cocoa and trim the tree.
With an eye toward giving you a little bit of everything that might be on your wishlist, we've made our own list of cinematic Santas and checked it twice. Here's a rundown of the best Santa Clauses in movie history, ranked from worst to best.
12. John Call — Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
Let's get this out of the way up top: "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" is a terrible movie. The sets seem to be made of cardboard, the green Martian makeup is absurd and poorly applied, and the script is so thin that you can see straight through it. Or, to put it a little differently: With the right mindset, "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" is a blast.
The children of Mars (who have names like Bomar and Girmar, because they're a boy and a girl — get it?) become depressed around Christmas time. News broadcasts from our planet teach them that there's a jolly fellow who might be able to cheer them up, so a troupe of Martians kidnap Santa, bring him back to the Red Planet, and force him to make toys.
The rest of the plot isn't worth mentioning, but John Call's Santa Claus is one of the few things in the movie that actually works. He seems to have stepped straight out of a Coca-Cola commercial; his laughs are hearty, his cheeks rosy, and his beard is snowy white. "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" may be memorable for all the wrong reasons, but Call's Santa holds the whole thing together — or, at least, he tries.
11. Stan Francis — Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Santa (Stan Francis) doesn't have all that much to do in "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," Rankin/Bass' 1964 adaptation of the popular Christmas tune. Sure, he's there when Rudolph (Billie Mae Richards) is born, and he returns at the end; after all, he needs to ask the young reindeer to guide his sleigh, just like the song says. For the most part, though, the beloved TV special is about the shiny-nosed deer's adventure, during which he visits the Island of Misfit Toys with an elf who wants to be a dentist (Paul Soles).
What lands this Santa on this list is his musical number. The Rankin/Bass Christmas specials are full of original songs, and in "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," Santa gets to sing a particularly underrated little number called "Jingle Jingle Jingle." Francis' warm voice easily conveys that this Santa is a jolly old man, and the song's lyrics, which include lines like "I am ol' Kris Kringle / I'm the king of Jing-a-ling," are simple yet effective. It's a catchy little ditty that's engineered to get stuck in your head, leaving you humming it all season long.
10. James Cosmo — Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
While C.S. Lewis' book explicitly calls him Father Christmas, Santa is never named as such in the film adaptation of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe." C'mon, though. Who else is the bearded fellow driving the reindeer-pulled sleigh? He's a jolly fellow who hands out presents to children. As the poet once said, it must be Saint Nick.
Here, he's played by James Cosmo, and though he's only in one scene, Father Christmas is important to the story for several reasons. First, his appearance indicates that the powers of the White Witch (Tilda Swinton) are waning. For hundreds of years, she has delighted in keeping Narnia frozen in winter, but makes sure that it's never Christmas. Second, the gifts he hands each of the Pevensie children prove to be very important. Little Lucy (Georgie Henley) gets a bottle of healing elixir and a small dagger, Susan (Anna Popplewell) receives a bow and quiver's worth of arrows, and Peter (William Moseley) is gifted a sword, all of which come in handy as the film continues.
Cosmo's Father Christmas fits right in with the world created by the film, and it's a nice twist that he greets the arrival of the children in Narnia with the same wonder that they feel when they see him. "Told you he was real," Lucy says, grinning, as Santa leaves, and it's hard not to smile along with her.
9. Jeff Gillen — A Christmas Story
Christmas is a happy time. Aside from the occasional horror movie, most movie Santas reflect the character's inherent jolliness. However, when you're still a kid who's only experienced Christmas a few times, Santa can seem weird, even frightening. Your parents want you to sit on a man's lap in the middle of a mall, where you're supposed to tell him your deepest desires while having your photo taken? What's happening here?
So, you can understand the reaction of Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) in "A Christmas Story," the perennial Christmas favorite that gets its own TV marathon every year. The movie is essentially a series of holiday-themed vignettes about everything from trouble with bullies to Christmas morning embarrassments. Fittingly, one of the most memorable sequences includes one of cinema's most memorable Santas. The family visits a department store to do some Christmas shopping, and Ralphie is made to wait in line for Santa (Jeff Gillen) with his younger brother, Randy (Ian Petrella).
As they get close to the front, the boys realize that this Santa isn't jolly. In fact, he and his elves are miserable. In a series of shots that put the leering St. Nick up close to the camera, Santa snarls, "What's your name, little boy?" The elves yell at a stricken Ralphie to hurry up, and Santa continues. "What do you want for Christmas, little boy?" Ralphie freezes, unsure how to respond. When you're a kid, no question in the world seems more important, and through Gillen's Santa, "A Christmas Story" captures that panic on celluloid.
8. Alec Baldwin — Rise of the Guardians
"Rise of the Guardians" tells the tale of Jack Frost (Chris Pine), a magical being who controls the cold. He enjoys giving kids snow days and inspiring snowball fights, but Jack is lonely. In this day and age, no one believes in him. However, when the Boogeyman (Jude Law) threatens to fill the world with nightmares that'll make kids stop believing in magic, Jack still joins forces with the Guardians of Childhood to repel the attack. The Guardians are a team made up of figures like the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman), the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), the Sandman, and Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin), who here goes by the name "North."
The Santa who appears in "Rise of the Guardians" is a unique one. Baldwin gives him a Russian accent, and he's tattooed, with his forearms bearing the words "naughty" and "nice." He's not afraid to fight off the bad guys, sometimes even wielding two swords at once, but he's also a big softie. A lot of modern incarnations of St. Nick cut the character's childlike love of Christmas with a healthy dose of cynicism, but North gives himself over to the wonder of the season. "I was born with eyes that have always seen the wonder in everything, eyes that see lights in the trees and magic in the air," he tells a jaded Jack. "Rise of the Guardians" is a big-hearted movie, and North is an excellent Santa.
7. J.K. Simmons — Klaus
Plenty of films attempt to tell Santa Claus' origin story, putting their own spin on the big man's mythology. One such movie is Netflix's "Klaus," which re-images Santa (J.K. Simmons) as a benevolent woodsman who lives in the far north. The movie centers around Jesper (Jason Schwartzmann), a postman-in-training who's sent to the remote island town of Smeerensburg to raise support for the mail service. What Jesper doesn't know is that Smeerensburg is embroiled in a centuries-old rivalry between its two main families. The children aren't even sent to school, instead conscripted into daily skirmishes between households.
After Jesper meets the reclusive Klaus, however, he realizes that they can help one another. By having the children mail letters to the toymaker in exchange for presents, Jesper can raise his post office's numbers while also helping the locals bring laughter back into their lives. It's a charming story that includes a number of clever explanations for various aspects of the Santa mythos, such as when Klaus tosses Jesper down a chimney to help deliver a gift. The animation is gorgeously rendered, too; there's a reason it won the Annie Award for best feature.
Klaus himself is a gentle giant. In other projects, Simmons can be downright frightening, but here the woodsman is a kind character, making "Klaus" a lovely holiday watch.
6. Brandon Maggart — Christmas Evil
Christmas should inspire feelings of warmth and love, and a lot of Yuletide media reflects that. Some movies, however, lean hard into the feelings of isolation and detachment that sometimes come with the holidays. "Christmas Evil" is one of them. The marketing campaign for Lewis Jackson's 1980 slasher explicitly positioned the film as the successor to "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th." Some of its posters even featured a play on the "Halloween" tagline, selling the movie as "...the night he dropped in."
The "he," of course, is Santa ... except not really. In "Christmas Evil," Brandon Maggart plays Harry, a Christmas-obsessed weirdo who works in a toy factory. After a traumatic childhood incident involving Santa, Harry is now desperate to spread Christmas cheer. To that end, he spies on the children in his neighborhood, meticulously recording each instance of misbehavior he witnesses.
When Harry finally snaps, he starts believing that he's Santa and embarks on a murderous rampage. Good girls and boys get presents and toys; their parents, though, get an axe to the head. Maggart's portrayal of Harry is unforgettable. He's incredibly unsettling, but unlike the stars of other low-budget slashers that focus on the killer — "Maniac," for example — Harry is also weirdly sympathetic. He just really loves Christmas! The movie is creepy and unintentionally funny, looks cheap, and is oddly effective anyway. It's no wonder that John Waters loves it.
5. Tim Allen — The Santa Clause franchise
For many millennials, Tim Allen is the movie Santa. In Disney's "The Santa Clause," Allen's divorced suburban dad, Scott Calvin, finds himself taking up the mantle of that other S.C. when he accidentally startles the real deal on the roof, making Santa fall to his demise. In the aftermath, Scott and his son (Eric Lloyd) are whisked away to the North Pole. There, they learn that, by putting on the red suit, Scott has triggered "the Santa clause," meaning that he's now responsible for delivering presents to the world's children every Christmas. Over the course of the following year, Scott gains weight, grows a beard, and develops a love of milk and cookies.
Making Santa into a job title for a reluctant normie is a fun concept for a holiday film. However, while it's enjoyable to watch Scott wrestle with what's happening to him, it's even better when he gives in to his new lifestyle. The "Santa Clause" sequels involve finding a Mrs. Claus (Elizabeth Mitchell) and battling an evil Jack Frost (Martin Short); there's even a Disney+ series that sees Scott searching for his successor. While the series offers up diminishing returns, the original film remains one of cinema's most memorable trips to the North Pole.
4. David Harbour — Violent Night
When we first meet David Harbour's Santa Claus, he's drunk in a pub in England, taking a break on Christmas Eve because he's so disillusioned by the world's lack of holiday spirit. These days, it seems that kids only want video games or cash, and Santa's considering retirement. However, while delivering toys to the home of an ultra-rich family in Connecticut, Santa slides down the chimney and into the middle of a home invasion thriller. Festively-named criminals led by someone calling himself Mr. Scrooge (John Leguizamo) are attempting to steal $300 million from the vault in the basement, and they don't care how many security personnel (or family members) they have to kill to do it.
"Violent Night" is as brutal as its title suggests. Before the night is over, Santa has punched, kicked, stabbed, slashed, immolated, crushed and blown up countless bad guys, and that's not including those he dispatches with a snowblower or candy cane. However, as he does on "Stranger Things," Harbour imbues his character with a warm, beating heart underneath the gruff exterior. Sure, this Santa loves the sound of a person's skull crunching under a sledgehammer, but he's also moved to tears by the purity of a child leaving him homemade cookies.
3. Mickey Rooney — The Year Without a Santa Claus
"The Year Without a Santa Claus" is the best of the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials, thanks in large part to Mickey Rooney, who plays Santa. It's a tremendous vocal performance, full of all the warmth, wit, and wonder one wants from a stop-motion Santa. Here, Santa wakes up shortly before Christmas with a sniffle. He's soon convinced to take a year off, assured that the children of the world will understand. As soon as he makes the announcement, though, he regrets it; the next thing he knows, he's flying to Southtown, USA in an attempt to rescue a reindeer and two elves who have gone to find some lingering Christmas spirit.
"The Year Without a Santa Claus" is perhaps most memorable for its weather-controlling brothers, Heat Miser (George S. Irving) and Snow Miser (Dick Shawn). The emotional crux of the film, however, is "I Believe in Santa Claus," a song that Rooney sings with several other characters. It's an ode to choosing to believe in the things that make life worthwhile, like Saint Nick himself. "Wipe that question from your mind! Yes, he does exist," Santa sings. For years, I believed him.
2. Kurt Russell — The Christmas Chronicles
Kurt Russell is one of cinema's most reliable badasses. He was Snake Plissken in "Escape from New York" (and its sequel). He was R.J. MacReady in "The Thing." He's a fixture of modern-day westerns, appearing in the likes of "Bone Tomahawk" and "The Hateful Eight." Who could have guessed, then, that one of his best late-career performances would be as Santa Claus?
In 2018, Russell led the cast of Netflix original holiday movie "The Christmas Chronicles." The film is about two kids (Judah Lewis and Darby Camp) who stow away on Santa's sleigh, causing him to crash. In the process, he misplaces both his magical hat as well as his bag of presents. In order to save society's flagging Christmas spirit, Santa and the children must find the presents and get them delivered on time.
The movie trades on Russell's star image, making Santa into quite a rascal. It even includes a show-stopping performance of Elvis Presley's "Santa Claus is Back in Town." Russell, of course, played the King in John Carpenter's made-for-TV biopic, and it's delightful to see him turn on the rocker's charm while wearing the red suit. "The Christmas Chronicles" ends with a charming cameo, introducing Russell's real-life partner Goldie Hawn as Mrs. Claus. They would both return in "The Christmas Chronicles 2," a less-successful follow-up that nevertheless solidifies Russell as one of the best movie Santas of all time.
1. Edmund Gwenn — Miracle on 34th Street
When I was younger, my parents told me that mall Santas were actually the big guy's helpers, but that the Santa in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was the real deal. It's a concept they may have picked up from "Miracle on 34th Street," the 1947 comedy about a man who calls himself Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn). Kris is tapped to ride in the Thanksgiving Day Parade, then hired to be the Santa at Macy's throughout the holiday season. However, it's soon clear that he believes that he's the actual Father Christmas.
"Miracle on 34th Street" is a charming movie helped immensely by a delightful performance from a young Natalie Wood. She plays Susan, a girl who doesn't believe in Santa until she meets Kringle. The film builds to a court case where Kringle must prove that he's the real Santa; if he loses, he'll be committed to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric help. It's a heady angle for a movie aimed at kids, but Gwenn anchors the film with his committed performance and the twinkle in his eye. His beard is real — he invites Susan to tug on it for proof — and it's easy to be won over by the character's love of the season.
Gwenn is so good in "Miracle on 34th Street" that he won an Oscar. In his acceptance speech, he beamed, "Now I know there's a Santa Claus." He's an easy pick for the best onscreen Santa of all time.