You’ve probably seen countless articles and YouTubers digging into the new Spidey flick. No Way Home is a bonafide hit with enough cameos and reveals to make your head spin, so it makes sense that the oversaturated market of explainer videos and Easter Egg hunters are out in force fighting for clicks. But one question that lingers above the who’s who and ranking lists is a simple one: Is Spider-Man: No Way Home a Christmas Movie? Released the week before Christmas, there are just enough elements – which I’ll get into – to potentially make it qualify, but does it make the cut?
What defines a “Christmas Movie” is hotly contested and largely subjective. Just take the ongoing and very stupid discourse around John McTiernan’s 1988 action classic, Die Hard. A movie that takes place at Christmas but seems worlds away from perennial holiday standbys like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or It’s a Wonderful Life, since it centers around a hostage crisis with automatic weapons*. One could argue that almost any movie with some Christmas dressing is a Christmas movie. Movies like Meet Me in St. Louis and White Christmas are considered Christmas classics, but the bulk of both films is not set during the holiday. What people remember most are Judy Garland singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and Crosby and Clooney singing “White Christmas,” not the Halloween scene in the former or the nightclub scenes in the latter.
All this means we need a rubric, or at least some categories to determine whether a movie fits the bill or not. Christmas movies have an entirely different level of signifiers, as compared to, say Sam Raimi’s 2001 Spider-Man, which is very clearly a Thanksgiving movie with its pseudo Macy’s Day Parade floats, and Willem Dafoe hamming it up as he prepares to carve turkey. After some thought, the categories for consideration as a Christmas movie are:
1. Time/Setting
The movie should take place at or lead up to Christmas. It helps if the entire movie is set during the holiday season, but it must feature prominently in the film.
2. Christmas Dressing
Christmas movies feature the classic set dressings of the season, including lights, decorated pine trees, snow, and maybe even Santa.
3. Christmas Songs
Even though not every Christmas movie is a musical, a Christmas movie must have at least one classic Christmas song to qualify.
4. Christmas Spirit
Christmas movies are all about loving relationships and altruism. The stories can involve families (relatives or found), friends, or complete strangers, but ultimately there is a sense of connection with others and putting them ahead of yourself. The best Christmas movies are all about giving.
To test this out, let’s do some quick controls using a four-point scale and then I’ll dig into No Way Home’s chances.
Ex. 1 – Elf (2003)
Time/Setting – 4/4 – Movie is set leading up to and on Christmas
Dressing – 4/4 – Movie is overflowing with Elf Culture
Christmas Songs – 4/4 – While not a musical, features a fantastic soundtrack of Christmas classics
Christmas Spirit – 4/4 – The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear. Elf’s entire final act hinges on spreading Christmas spirit to save the day.
Total: 100% Elf is a Christmas Movie
Ex. 2 – One Crazy Summer (1986)
Time/Setting 0/4 – Movie is set during the Summer
Dressing – 0/4 – Movie has no Christmas iconography whatsoever
Christmas Songs – 0/4 – No Christmas songs at all.
Christmas Spirit – 1/4 – While One Crazy Summer is about friends coming together to help each other in a time of need, it’s not related to Christmas in any way.
Total: 6% – One Crazy Summer is not a Christmas Movie
On to the main event! Let’s see how Spider-Man: No Way Home does on this scale.
[Please note that if you have not seen No Way Home yet and do not want any spoilers, stop here!]
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
Time/Setting
No Way Home starts immediately after the reveal at the end of Far From Home that the world now knows Spider-Man is Peter Parker. The film progresses quickly through an indeterminate amount of time but the bulk of the movie takes place in November right after Halloween through the Christmas season. MJ is asked to take down Halloween decorations in the diner she works at, and Peter gets the idea for reaching out to Dr. Strange by looking at a strand of lights that look like little Dracula (or is that Black Tom?) heads. By the end of the film the same diner is decorated for Christmas.
Score: 1/4 – Since most of the movie takes place in November, we don’t really get to Christmas until the very end of the movie.
Dressing
The first wintery thing we encounter is snow. Someone left a portal open to Siberia inside the Sanctum Sanctorum and now the entire place is covered in a post-blizzard white blanket that two interns (one of whom looks suspiciously like Zelma from Aaron & Bachalo’s recent run) are shoveling. Later as Spidey flees from Strange through the mirror dimension, he briefly swings through a department store all lit up with lights and garland as “Deck the Halls” plays. In one of the film’s final scenes, it’s snowing, and the streets are filled with wreaths and decorations, as is the diner where MJ works which is lit up with lights, a Christmas tree, and a menorah for Hanukkah. The movie ends with Peter heading out into the snow with a new Spider-suit. He swings over Rockefeller Center and does a brief pose in front of the famous Rockefeller Christmas Tree as ice skaters skate below.
Score: 2/4 – This may be a high score given what I just described, but there’s enough here to at least give it a few points, especially since it ends on strong Christmas imagery in a film released right in the Christmas season.
Christmas Songs
Aside from the very brief clip of “Deck the Halls” heard in the mirror dimension scene, No Way Home features no Christmas songs.
Score: .1/4 – A Christmas carol at the end of the movie would have gotten some extra points, but Giacchino’s score fits the scenes better.
Christmas Spirit
Where No Way Home really excels is hitting home the need for Peter to help his adversaries instead of doom them, even if it means the ultimate self-sacrifice of his loved ones. Christmas movies are about giving and being altruistic, and Aunt May’s edict that Peter cannot simply send his interdimensional foes packing to their deaths guides almost the entire story. Peter is forced to make choices that will benefit more than just himself, choices that may even benefit those who he deems beyond saving. The recontextualizing of Dafoe’s Goblin and the rest of Spider-man’s enemies not just as crazed lunatics, but also actually people that need help, is the core theme that helps connect to it to the previous franchises and solidify Holland’s Spider-Man as the embodiment of the character. There’s not much more Christmas-y than wanting to help your fellow human being no matter what their struggle, and it’s a sentiment we don’t always see in big blockbuster entertainment. No Way Home succeeds largely because – tying franchises together aside – it dwells on this theme and follows through on it without compromise.
Score: 4/4 – No Way Home is filled with the Christmas Spirit. It has a valuable lesson about how to work with others and help everyone no matter what our preconceived notions of them. Peter’s gift to the world is to be forgotten so that it may survive, even if it means losing those closest to him. Aunt May’s charitable spirit provides the movie’s key takeaway.
Total: 44% – Well below half, No Way Home doesn’t quite meet the standard for an official Christmas Movie using the rubric. But remember, what is or isn’t a Christmas Movie isn’t a solely mathematical process. The real Christmas Movies are the ones you enjoy time and time again every year as you enjoy the holiday season. And based on the reaction so far to No Way Home, this will be a movie that fans revisit time and again for years to come.
Merry Christmas!
*Just so we’re clear, Die Hard scores a solid 81%. It’s a Christmas movie.
Adam Reck is the cartoonist behind Bish & Jubez as well as the co-host of Battle Of The Atom.
