When people think of Christmas movies, they typically think of holiday sentiment, snow, gifts, and an overarching message of kindness. But sometimes, a holiday movie can deliver those themes while having a profanity count rivaling that of Goodfellas.
Recently, language tutorial site Preply examined 60 scripts from popular holiday (or holiday-set) films to see which ones contained the greatest number of expletives. While some, like 1990’s Home Alone, are relatively tame (it has just nine swear words), National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) has a relatively robust 23. Nothing, however, comes close to 2003’s Bad Santa, the Billy Bob Thornton vehicle about an inebriated Claus (Thornton) working as a mall Santa, with its astonishing 255 cusses.
Check out the complete list below, but bear in mind the profanity counts are based on scripts: Swears could have been added or subtracted during filming.
- Bad Santa (2003) // 255 swear words
- The Ref (1994) // 86 swear words
- Better Watch Out (2016) // 82 swear words
- Die Hard (1988) // 77 swear words
- Just Friends (2005) // 46 swear words
- Black Christmas (1974) // 39 swear words
- Trading Places (1983) // 37 swear words
- Krampus (2015) // 37 swear words
- Love Actually (2003) // 36 swear words
- The Family Man (2000) // 32 swear words
- Fatman (2020) // 25 swear words
- National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989) // 23 swear words
- Last Christmas (2019) // 18 swear words
- Scrooged (1988) // 17 swear words
- Batman Returns (1992) // 14 swear words
- Shazam! (2019) // 14 swear words
- Surviving Christmas (2004) // 14 swear words
- Serendipity (2001) // 13 swear words
- A Christmas Story (1983) // 11 swear words
- Home Alone (1990) // 9 swear words
Looking for a new movie to watch, or at least a movie that’s new to you? Mental Floss’s new book, The Curious Movie Buff: A Miscellany of Fantastic Films from the Past 50 Years, offers behind-the-scenes details and amazing facts about some of the greatest movies of the past half-century. And it’s available now at your favorite place to buy books, or online right here.