As the story goes, the Grinch stole Christmas... but in 2023, the green anti-festive cynic may be stealing Christmas from himself. That's because two adaptations of the classic Dr Seuss story are battling it out on Netflix right now.
The 2000 Jim Carrey movie How The Grinch Stole Christmas recently appeared on the Netflix most-streamed movies list, and it currently sitting at the 6th spot above rival festive movie The Christmas Chronicles.
This new ranking is despite the fact that the movie isn't new to Netflix. It's been added and removed from the streamer several times, but most recently was re-added in September 2023. It's been on Netflix's most-watched movies list for 8 weeks overall, between its various stints on the platform
Carrey's classic depiction of The Grinch has one more hurdle to overcome, however, and that's in beating Dr Seuss' The Grinch.
Both films tell the same story, based on Dr Seuss' famous 1957 book, of a grumpy creature called The Grinch that tries to ruin Christmas for the nearby town of Whoville, until his actions cause him to better understand the nature of Christmas.
This 2018 animated take on the story, called Dr Seuss' The Grinch, was made by Illumination, of Despicable Me, Minions and The Super Mario Bros. Movie fame, and it's been on Netflix's most-watched films list for 10 concurrent weeks at the time of writing. It was added to the streamer when the Jim Carrey movie was, at the beginning of September, and simply never left the top list!
At the time of writing, the movie is sitting at spot #4, but started off at #2 upon its debuted week and after jumping about the rankings reached #3 in the weekly rankings of the week ending Sunday, November 12. So it's had a spectacular run so far — but could it be running out of steam?
It's worth noting that while both of these festive movies are proving popular on Netflix, they're also both available to stream on Prime Video, where they've not gone down so well. Neither is in that streamers' top-10 ranking, though it's worth noting that Prime Video has one combined top 10 list for both movies and TV shows, and so the Grinch may have been nuzzled out by recent shows like 007: Road to a Million and Gen V.
How The Grinch Stole Christmas has been a festive classic for over two decades now, but Dr Seuss' The Grinch has proven a modern hit by the titans of animation. So far the latter is proving a bigger hit with Netflix streamers, which suggests that the older classic may lose to its younger upstart, but the real test is yet to come.
With over a month until Christmas Day, both of these Grinch movies will undoubtedly continue to duke it out on Netflix's top films list over the next 6 weeks, with the real winner being whichever is watched most on the big day itself. Netflix subscribers will have to vote for their favorite simply by watching it lots, with the streamer calculating views by dividing the total hours a movie is viewed by its total run time. With How The Grinch Stole Christmas clocking in at 19 minutes longer, this could give the older movie the edge.
Have you got a favorite? Let us know, and we'll see if your picks are proven right come Christmas day.
