The Christmas films where a dog genuinely matters are The Grinch (2018), the 1966 How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Lady and the Tramp, The Nightmare Before Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas and The Snowman and the Snowdog. We have left out the many films where a dog simply wanders through a scene, because a list padded with those helps nobody choose.
What counts as a dog film here
Our rule was simple. The dog has to change something: the plot, the ending, or the way you feel about the lead. A family pet that barks in the background and is never seen again does not qualify, and a surprising number of well-known Christmas films have exactly that kind of dog.
The Grinch (2018)
The Grinch · Film guide →Our pick for a gentler Grinch evening, and the dog is a large part of why. The title grump lives alone above a valley town with a small, long-suffering dog who does most of the practical work around the place and nearly all of the emotional work. Every scene between the two of them is the film's best argument that the lead is worth saving, which matters in a version so interested in why he became like this.
It carries 95/100 Festive Factor. Rated U, with mild slapstick and very mild bad language. Worth knowing: the UK cinema version was trimmed slightly to hold its U, and the BBFC says an uncut PG was available. Check the certificate on your edition.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)
The animated television special adapts Dr Seuss’s book in under half an hour. It is our pick when time is short. The dog is pressed into service with a makeshift antler strapped to his head and made to haul the sleigh on his own, and his expression while doing it carries half the comedy. There is also a live-action version from 2000; the dog is the least tiring thing in it.
Lady and the Tramp (1955)
Christmas here is a frame rather than the whole picture, but it is a frame at both ends: the story opens with a puppy given as a Christmas present and closes on another Christmas. Everything in between is a dog's-eye view of a household changing around her, and the film is far more affecting on that than its reputation for one spaghetti scene suggests. Not strictly a Christmas film, but the season does real work at the start and the finish.
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
The dog here is a small ghost, and on Christmas Eve his glowing nose lights the way for the sleigh through the fog. The glowing nose borrows a familiar Christmas delivery idea. The 1966 Grinch’s dog also has sleigh duties, but this one gets to be the guiding light.
A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)
A short television special in which the lead frets about how commercial Christmas has become, while his dog decorates his kennel for a neighbourhood lights contest and wins it. That one joke is the whole argument of the special, delivered by the only character who has no worries about the season at all. Twenty-odd minutes, with a jazz score that is a large part of its appeal.
The Snowman and the Snowdog (2012)
The sequel to The Snowman, made for Channel 4 thirty years after the original. A boy who has lost his dog builds a snowdog beside his snowman, and both come to life. The dog is central to the story, rather than a passing bit of comic relief. It includes the death of the boy’s old dog, so take that into account if your household has recently lost a pet. The official story page sets out that premise.
The original The Snowman makes a good companion watch, but it is a separate film and has a sad ending of its own. Neither short needs to be treated as an automatically gentle choice just because it is animated.
The ones we left out
Several well-loved Christmas films have a family dog in the house, getting underfoot at the dinner table or chasing something through the living room. None of them made the cut, because in each the dog is a gag rather than a part.
For a house with a dog in it, our order is the Snowdog at teatime, The Grinch after that, and the 1966 version last thing, with the dog already asleep on the sofa.
