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Before seeing Red One, 10 classics about Santa Claus in peril for Christmas with a twist

From a film about the ‘real’ Kris Kringle to a Tim Burton-esque movie to Die Hard with Santa, 10 other times Christmas has been on the line

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JK Simmons (left) as Santa Claus and Dwayne Johnson as Callum Drift in a still from Red One. Before you watch this new film, we have 10 other Christmas films for you. Photo: Frank Masi/Prime Video

They say Christmas comes but once a year, but festivities are starting early this season with the release this week of action comedy Red One.

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The film stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the head of North Pole security, who is forced to recruit a sceptical bounty hunter, played by Chris Evans, after Santa Claus (JK Simmons) is kidnapped.

But it is far from the first time Santa has had to fight for his right to spread peace and goodwill. Here are 10 more Christmas classics, in which St Nick – and the fate of Christmas itself – hangs in the balance.

1. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Miracle on 34th Street (1947) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers

This perennial seasonal favourite sees a New York department store Santa, played by Edmund Gwenn in an Oscar-winning performance, claim to be the real McCoy, a proclamation that escalates all the way to the city courthouse.

Maureen O’Hara and a pint-sized Natalie Wood play the mother and daughter who befriend the elderly Kris Kringle, but it is the film’s deft balance of capitalism and genuine Christmas cheer that make it so enduringly popular.

Miracle was remade in 1994 with Richard Attenborough as Kringle, but it is the warm embrace of the original to which audiences fondly return year after year.

2. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers

One can hardly claim this low-budget 1964 oddity to be a good film – in fact it regularly appears on worst films of all time lists – but there remains something endlessly lovable about its unvarnished charms.

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