Best movies like An American Christmas Carol
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
In Depression-era New England, a miserly businessman named Benedict Slade receives a long-overdue attitude adjustment one Christmas eve when he is visited by three ghostly figures who resemble three of the people whose possessions Slade had seized to collect on unpaid loans. Assuming the roles of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future from Charles Dickens' classic story, the three apparitions force Slade to face the consequences of his skinflint ways, and he becomes a caring, generous, amiable man.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, touching, serious, emotional
Best tv shows and movies like An American Christmas Carol (1979):
Similar in 82%
A Carol for Another Christmas (1964)
Plot Summary:
Director Joseph Mankiewicz's first work for television, the 90-minute ABC drama was publicized as having an all-star cast (which meant that names of some supporting cast members were not officially released). In Rod Serling's update of Charles Dickens, industrial tycoon Daniel Grudge has never recovered from the loss of his 22-year-old son Marley, killed in action during Christmas Eve of 1944. The embittered Grudge has only scorn for any American involvement in international affairs. But then the Ghost of Christmas Past takes him back through time to a World War I troopship. Grudge also is visited by the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Future gives him a tour across a desolate landscape where he sees the ruins of a once-great civilization.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: christmas horror, black and white, dark fantasy, historical drama, political drama
Similar in 90%
Ebbie (1995)
Plot Summary:
In this updated retelling of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," ruthless business-woman and shopping store owner Elizabeth "Ebbie" Scrooge is taught the true spirit of Christmas by three Spirits who visit her.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 744
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
Angel in the Family (2004)
Plot Summary:
Sarah Bishop and her estranged sister Beth are reunited after their father Buddy suffers a mild stroke. Buddy, who's never accepted the loss of his wife Lorraine, wants only one thing-to return home for Christmas. With sweet memories of a life gone by, Sarah makes an impossible wish that her mother could be there, too. By morning, it is as if a winter prayer has been answered. Bearing a message of hope, healing, and everlasting love, a miracle has arrived.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 591
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, sweet, emotional
Similar in 79%
Christmas Comes Twice (2020)
Plot Summary:
When Cheryl visits the Christmas carnival in her hometown, she gets a second chance in life when she is transported to Christmas five years in the past.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 755
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: light, romantic, feel good, humorous
Similar in 87%
The Christmas Choir (2008)
Plot Summary:
Based on a true story, The Christmas Choir is the inspiring account of how one man can make a remarkable difference simply by giving of himself. Workaholic accountant Peter Andrews (Jason Gedrick) has overlooked Christmas, friends and even his fiance for far too long. As a result, his life begins to fall apart. But a chance encounter with a homeless man named Bob (Tyrone Benskin) changes everything and inspires Peter to start a choir that eventually goes on to enormous success. With the help of the unconventional Sister Agatha (Rhea Perlman) and his new found friends at the shelter, Peter learns that Christmas is not a season but a state of mind and that everyone deserves a second chance at life and love.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 668
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 78%
Christmas Child (2004)
Plot Summary:
A life-sized nativity leads a man to learn about his past and lost family.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 646
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, sincere, captivating, christian film, feel good
Similar in 88%
Christmas Carol (1978)
Plot Summary:
In this one-man show starring Rich Little, Ebeneezer Scrooge (played by Rich as W.C. Fields) hates Christmas, and it's up to the Ghosts of Christmas Past (played by Rich as Humphrey Bogart), Present (played by Rich as Columbo) and Future (played by Rich as Inspector Clouseau) to convince him otherwise.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 403
Genere: Comedy, Fantasy
Country: Canada
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: christmas horror, spoof, parody, one man show
Similar in 75%
One Christmas (1994)
Plot Summary:
TV film that was to be Katherine Hepburn's last performance. Based on Truman Capote's bittersweet tale of a young boy's adventures with the father he's never known in New Orleans in the 1930s.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 751
Genere: Drama, Family
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, uplifting, touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 85%
Chasing Christmas (2005)
Plot Summary:
Jack Cameron is a single dad that decides not to observe Christmas because his wife left him around that time. The ghosts of Christmas past and present try and get Jack to relent, but they screw up their jobs and send themselves on a wild ride through time showing up at various times in Jack's past. As they try and rectify the timeline and get back to the real present, some things are not what they used to be.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 891
Genere: Comedy, Fantasy
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags: sentimental, humorous, semi serious, feel good
Similar in 76%
Ms. Scrooge (1997)
Plot Summary:
Television movie updating Charles Dickens' story, "A Christmas Carol." Businesswoman Ebenita Scrooge treats her employees and customers poorly. She has no time for Christmas or the holiday spirit. On Christmas Eve, she is visited by the ghost of her dead partner Maude Marley and then by other spirits who remind her of her happy past and chronicle the bitterness and greed that have taken over her life. At last, she is shown her own death and funeral. No one is there to mourn her. This revelation shocks her into opening her heart and her checkbook.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 446
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: touching, captivating, thought provoking, sad
Similar in 77%
Ebenezer (1998)
Plot Summary:
No overview found.A Wild West retelling of Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol," with Scrooge as a land baron, gunfighter, and card cheat who is visited by three spirits who attempt to teach him the true meaning of Christmas.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 286
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Western, Family
Country: Canada
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: christmas horror, sentimental, offbeat, feel good, humorous, semi serious
Similar in 79%
A Christmas Carol (1977)
Plot Summary:
"If I could work my will, every idiot that goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips would be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly in his heart" So spoke the immortal words of Christmas’ most famous miser, Charles Dicken’s Ebenezer Scrooge. Too mean to join in with the festivities; he sits alone on Christmas Eve. The scene is set for a visitation by the ghost of his late business partner, Marley, now bound to earth by eternal chains and his introduction to the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. For it is they who will take him through his life to face the truth about himself….
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 561
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: UK
Duration: 58 min
Plot tags: spiritual, christmas horror, independent film
Similar in 90%
The Christmas Box (1995)
Plot Summary:
A ski-shop owner reluctantly moves himself, his wife, and his daughter in to an estate as live-in help for an elderly widow. While struggling to balance his career and family life, he has recurring dreams about an angel.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, feel good, semi serious
Similar in 77%
It's Christmas, Carol! (2012)
Plot Summary:
The story of driven, heartless, publishing executive, Carol Huffman, who on Christmas eve is visited by the ghost of her former boss, Eve. Eve tells Carol that she has lost sight of the things that are truly important in life and that she is there to show her the errors of her ways. Eve explains that normally there would be three ghosts for the job but due to budget cut backs she is in charge of Carol's journey through her past, present and future.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Family, Fantasy, Romance
Country: Canada
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: feel good, exciting, sincere, captivating, light, humorous, sentimental, semi serious
Similar in 81%
A Christmas Carol (1999)
Plot Summary:
Scrooge is a miserly old businessman in 1840's London. One Christmas Eve he is visited by the ghost of Marley, his dead business partner. Marley foretells that Scrooge will be visited by three spirits, each of whom will attempt to show Scrooge the error of his ways. Will Scrooge reform his ways in time to celebrate Christmas?.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: christmas special, gothic horror, christmas horror, sentimental, atmospheric, feel good, semi serious
Similar in 84%
A Christmas Carol: The Musical (2004)
Plot Summary:
Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Musical
Country: Hungary, USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: sentimental, feel good, emotional, captivating, christmas horror, uplifting, touching, semi serious
Similar in 77%
A Diva's Christmas Carol (2000)
Plot Summary:
A remake of the Dicken's classic, "A Christmas Carol" featuring a very nasty pop singer who gets a reality check by three Christmas spirits.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Musical, Fantasy, Romance, Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: sentimental, feel good, humorous, semi serious, christmas comedy
Similar in 86%
A Christmas Visitor (2002)
Plot Summary:
A father struggles with the past. A daughter fights for the future. A mother searches for answers. The Boyajians have not celebrated Christmas in 11 years. They lost their faith when they lost their son to the Persian Gulf War. Now a stranger has joined them - around the same age the boy would have been.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 79%
Noel (2004)
Plot Summary:
Christmas Eve in New York, and the lonely divorced publisher, Rose Collins, needs a miracle to improve the health of her mother, interned in a hospital with Alzheimers. She feels sorry for another patient and meets his visitor. Meanwhile, Nina Vasquez breaks her engagement with her beloved fiancé Mike due to his suffocating jealousy, but misses him. Mike is stalked by a stranger, bartender Artie Venzuela. The poor Jules arranges to spend Christmas Eve in the hospital, where he spent the best Christmas of his life when he was a teenager. The lives of some of these characters cross with others along the night.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: touching, humorous, emotional, sentimental, sincere, realistic, semi serious, independent film, gloomy, iconic
Similar in 85%
12 Days of Christmas Eve (2004)
Plot Summary:
Calvin Carter, a successful business executive, has it all, but neglects those closest to him. On Christmas Eve, all that changes when the sign on his office building falls on him. He awakes in a hospital bed, attended to by Angie, a nurse who soon lets him know he has 12 days (12 chances) to get his act together and achieve the "perfect" Christmas Eve. If he doesn't, there will be dire consequences.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: touching, feel good, humorous, semi serious, christmas comedy
Similar in 87%
To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday (1996)
Plot Summary:
David loves his wife, Gillian. Unfortunately, she died two years ago. David deals with his grief by continuing his romance with Gillian during walks with her "ghost" on the beach at night. While David lives in the past, other family problems crop up in the present in the real world.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, emotional, melancholic, sex comedy, serious, talky, erotic, inspirational, romantic
Similar in 88%
Da (1988)
Plot Summary:
A New York playwright is summoned to Ireland to bury his father (his "Da"). While at his boyhood home, he encounters his father's spirit and relives memories both pleasant and not.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 504
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: independent film, sentimental, uplifting, touching, feel good, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 78%
Edge of the Garden (2011)
Plot Summary:
When Brian lets his girlfriend, decides to change city and way of life. Attracted by the incredible offer, purchase a large house outside keeping a big secret. One day you have the impression of seeing a woman in the garden and can also talk to her ... is how both discover that one of us is in the wrong era.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Canada
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: sentimental, atmospheric, captivating, psychological, romantic, touching, offbeat, serious
Similar in 87%
Call Me Mrs. Miracle (2010)
Plot Summary:
Mrs Merkle (or Mrs. Miracle as she is know by some) finds herself in a toy department of a department store that is having all kinds of financial problems, but leave it to this kind lady as she will get the Christmas spirit flowing very freely at this store.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Romance
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: feel good, humorous, semi serious, light, captivating, christmas comedy, touching
Similar in 85%
Naughty or Nice (2011)
Plot Summary:
Krissy Kringle receives a delivery intended for Santa Claus. A magical book that shows if a person has been naughty or nice. She uses the book's power to find out about those around her, which leads to some very unusual and unintended results. Krissy realizes that everyone has some good and some not so good in them.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: sweet, captivating, entertaining, disturbing, christmas comedy
Similar in 81%
Scrooge (1970)
Plot Summary:
The classic Charles Dickens' Christmas ghost tale told in musical form.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Drama, Family, Fantasy, Musical, Romance, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: christmas horror, christmas special, hilarious, offbeat, feel good, humorous, semi serious, independent film, sentimental, light
Similar in 89%
A Carol Christmas (2003)
Plot Summary:
A Carol Christmas follows the basic plot of "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, but the story has been modernized. The traditional "Scrooge" character is a talk show host named Carol.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Family, Comedy, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: feel good, humorous, semi serious, light, sweet, christmas comedy
Similar in 77%
Christmas Story (2007)
Plot Summary:
Hundreds of years ago in Lapland, a little boy named Nikolas loses his family in an accident. The villagers decide to look after the orphaned boy together. Once a year - at Christmas - Nikolas moves to a new home. To show his gratitude, Nikolas decides to make toys for the children of the families as good-bye presents. Over the years, Nikolas's former adoptive families become many, and soon almost every house has presents on its doorstep on Christmas morning. At thirteen, Nikolas is sent to live and work with Iisakki, a grumpy old carpenter, who forbids Nikolas to continue making presents for Christmas. Gradually, however, Nikolas wins Iisakki's trust. Together they begin to look after the Christmas traditional that Nikolas has begun. When the aged Iisakki has to leave Nikolas and move away, the tradition of Christmas presents is once again at risk. Thankfully, Nikolas comes up with a solution that brings children joy every Christmas, even continuing to today.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Family, Fantasy
Country: Finland
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: touching, feel good, captivating, serious
Similar in 76%
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
Plot Summary:
A retelling of the classic Dickens tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, miser extraordinaire. He is held accountable for his dastardly ways during night-time visitations by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and future.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 67000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Musical
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: funny, christmas special, humorous, talky, feel good, not serious, exciting, sentimental, light, slasher
Similar in 85%
A Christmas Carol (1984)
Plot Summary:
An old bitter miser who makes excuses for his uncaring nature learns real compassion when three ghosts visit him on Christmas Eve.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama, Family, Fantasy
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, touching, sentimental, christmas horror, feel good, humorous, semi serious, christmas special, fairy tale, light