All I Want for Christmas is… Analytics?

Starting as early as October, turning on the TV or any streaming service results in a display of any number of Christmas movies available for viewing. In addition to the perennial classic films, there is always a plethora of new content being produced in this genre. In fact, some of the big players in this field (such as Hallmark, Lifetime, and Netflix) have all increased their Christmas movie content by more than 20% in the past few years.

With such an abundance of Christmas movies out there, it is no surprise that there is also a substantial amount of data available about Christmas movies. And where there is data, there are data scientists playing with it. In this case, they’ve been able to find a variety of interesting Christmas movie questions to analyze. We’ve highlighted a few of these here for your entertainment:

What is the best Christmas movie?
While what constitutes “the best” Christmas movie is undoubtedly a matter of opinion, this analysis looks at twitter data to determine if there is any consensus on the issue.

Is there a magic formula for Christmas movies?
We know they’re predictable, but are Christmas movies formulaic enough for AI to replicate? Many attempts have been made, but one of the most detailed breakdowns of methodology that I have seen is laid out in this two-part blog post:
Part One
Part Two

Does where you live affect your favorite Christmas movie??
Not to delve into correlation/causation here… but the question of “What Christmas Movie is Most Popular in Each State?” comes up every year. A quick search results in analyses on this point from 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020.

While these analyses mostly used data from IMDB and Google Trends, they were performed by different parties and with slightly different methodology – so there can’t be any truly scientific conclusions garnered other than, perhaps, the fact that we as a nation are perennially fascinated by our own fascination with Christmas movies.

It is also interesting to note that a state’s favorite Christmas movie does not necessarily correlate to a movie being SET in that particular state.

And finally –  maybe the most important of question all – addressing one of the key debates of our time:

Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?
Perhaps the proof is in the pudding… or rather, in the data!

While the above analyses might not resolve all of the arguments around your holiday dinner table, at least they provide the opportunity for these discussions to become more data driven!

Happy Holidays from the Dataspace team, and all the best to you and yours as we bring this year to a close!

-Katie