With several new Christmas movies debuting on streaming services this year, movie watchers had numerous options to turn on and celebrate the holiday.
However, some classics remained at the top of the most-watched movies.
According to a study from the tech company Samba TV, nostalgia won out, with classic Christmas movies remaining the top watched over newer holiday flicks on both traditional TV and streaming.
The study examined TV and streaming analytics from Nov. 8 to Dec. 11 and found that out of the top 10, only two of the most watched movies were released this year.
Those films were both released from Netflix: "The Noel Diary," based on a famous Richard Paul novel, and Lindsay Lohan’s ‘Falling for Christmas.’
The top spot went to "National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation," with 8.6 million U.S. households watching the movie during the time span, despite its release 33 years ago.
In the number two spot was "Home Alone," with 8.4 million households in the U.S. turning the movie on, and in third was Will Ferrell’s classic, "Elf," which had 7.9 million households.
Rounding out the top five on the study included "Four Christmases" with Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon and the classic "A Christmas Story," which recently had a sequel released on HBO Max, "A Christmas Story Christmas," that was ranked at 16th on the list.
The two Netflix movies in the top 10, "Falling for Christmas" and "The Noel Diary," came in at sixth and seventh, respectively. However, both were a ways off from the top contenders, only having 2.5 million households watch the movies each.
Rounding out the top 10 included "Die Hard," "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and "The Holiday."
The study from Samba TV highlighted the importance and dominance of streaming, as the company’s co-founder and CEO Ashwin Navin shared that holiday classics are more available now than ever before.
“Gone are the days where the only way to watch a handful of holiday movies was tuning into the broadcast networks,” Navin shared in a release.
“Now, we have hundreds of holiday-themed movies and specials at our fingertips via streamers like Netflix and Disney+, which are re-airing many of the old classics we love, while also featuring entirely new made-for-streaming releases.”
The study shared that 11 of the top 15 movies had more viewership than they did during the same time last year, and streaming plays a major role. For example "Elf," available on HBO Max, had an increase in viewership of 224%.
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