Worst Christmas movie clichés

50 ELO points separate They end up together at the end from There's a moral at the end at the top of the Christmas ranking, after 801 duels.

They end up together at the end dominates with 1312 ELO points and a 64% win rate across 53 duels, establishing the predictable happy ending as the most grating cliché in Christmas TV movies. The couple hates each other at first sits just 2 points behind There's a moral at the end in third place, suggesting voters find these romantic tropes equally tired. The sharpest drop in the ranking separates Santa needs help from The heroine returns to her hometown, with a 66 ELO gap between fourth and fifth place. At the bottom, The heroine hates Christmas scrapes by with 1141 ELO points and a 40% win rate, indicating this character trait annoys viewers less than the formulaic romance beats that crowd the top three spots.

This ranking draws from 801 duels cast by 39 players across 10 contenders, updated on 12 October 2026. The scale of participation reflects how deeply these holiday movie patterns have embedded themselves in popular culture, provoking strong opinions about which worn-out plot devices viewers can tolerate and which have overstayed their welcome. Cast your own vote to shape this ranking and settle which Christmas TV movie cliché deserves the top spot for sheer predictability.

Updated on October 12, 2026

How this ranking is computed

Every duel won lifts a contender and every loss drops them, by an amount that depends on the opponent's strength: beating the leader is worth more than beating the last. It is an ELO, the same principle as in chess. Duels are not drawn at random — an adaptive entropy sort puts the least predictable match-ups first, which settles the ranking far faster than a full round robin. A worldwide ranking is only published past 30 completed plays. Known limit: a contender who has faced few opponents keeps an approximate score, and the bottom of the table moves more than the podium.

How our rankings are made →