Among the Swedish Christmas films, Bergman must be excused, first and second place goes to Lasse Åberg.

The company trips to the Canary Islands and the Alps evoke a time and a Swedishness that one is both ashamed of and tender for. 

Swedish bronze for Fanny and Alexander thus.

And for all, part four Oscars. 

Cartoon?

A Charlie Brown Christmas - not only for Vince Guaraldi's dreamy Christmas jazz, but also for the 60s-scented commercial critical message. 

The romantic comedies are many, but it has proved difficult (impossible?) to get past The Holiday and Love Actually which are understandably many people's favourites:

Don't buy drugs kids! 

The fact that comedies are rarely given top marks is the 10,000 kroner question of film criticism.

Comparing Fanny and Alexander and Bad Santa is idiotic.

That both are 5 plus films goes without saying.

Best Christmas promotion

Hollywood of the 80s and 90s also delivered the absolute best Christmas-themed action movies.

And there are two filmmakers who stand out: American Shane Black and Finnish Renny Harlin.  

Shane Black broke through as a 22-year-old with the script for the hit Lethal Weapon.

Without Black, we wouldn't have Danny Glover and Mel Gibson's mismatched radar couple, which is impossible not to love.  

Renny Harlin directed Die Hard 2, which as a film may be worse than its predecessor in the Nakatomi Scraper in Los Angeles, but as a Christmas film it wins because of the weather: It snows and snows and snows at Dulles Airport in Washington DC.

What is Kevin saying in Home Alone 2?

Who is stupid enough to celebrate Christmas in tropical heat?

Geena Davis hardest of all

And then the film they made together.

Screenplay by Black and directed by Harlin: Long Kiss Goodnight.

A dark and violent action comedy in which Geena Davis plays the elementary school teacher who suddenly remembers that she is a secret agent with the right to kill.  

She's tougher than James Bond and Jason Bourne combined.

As hard as Samuel L Jackson's slightly half-baked private investigator is soft.

His attempt to regain his son's trust makes the heart pound.  

And that's what Christmas is all about.

Our hearts beating for each other.

Of course it is true, as Ferlin wrote, that the stars pay off equally whether someone is born or dead, but we are not stars, thank God.