▷ Why Are There No Hanukkah Movies?

Christmas movies, films for Halloween, and Easter specials all come around each year like clockwork. But Hanukkah? You’re lucky to find one Hanukkah film, if any at all. Why are there so few Hanukkah movies?

Hanukkah is a relatively minor holiday compared to much bigger religious celebrations. Christmas, for example, has been celebrated visually in films since the 1930s, when Miracle on 34th Street premiered. Since then, Christmas has become entrenched in popular culture and shot to the forefront of movie-makers’ minds when it comes to choosing films.

In the United States, Hanukkah is not celebrated with the same fervor as Christmas. Hanukkah, celebrated by many Jews, doesn’t have the same observable, tangible markers as Christmas–no trees, no stockings, no lights. While some families may do all these things for Hanukkah, for the most part, the holiday is celebrated with religious services, the lighting of the menorah, and gift-giving.

There’s also the fact that the holiday doesn’t quite fit the tropes of the typical holiday movie. The traditional holiday movie often involves a “wholesome” family (and/or romantic) conflict that gets resolved by the end of the film. A great example is A Christmas Prince. In the same way that Christmas is the perfect backdrop for these stories of (often heterosexual) families and love interests, Hanukkah isn’t quite as “fertile ground” for Hollywood’s story-telling machine.

While there are a few Hanukkah movies out there – Eight Crazy Nights, Broken Hearts Club, Eight Below, Adam Sandler’s The Hanukkah Song, etc. – none of them have attained the same level of popular recognition as the Miracle on 34th Street, A Christmas Story, Home Alone, Love Actually, It’s A Wonderful Life, etc. Even rarer are major releases, such as when Disney released their new animated Hanukkah short Gertie’s Amazing Bravery – a rarity nonetheless.

Perhaps what’s even more telling is that contemporary writers and filmmakers are now creating their own Hanukkah movies. Take for example, 23-year-old Jenna Brooke who wrote the Hanukkah movie, For Love or Money, which debuted at the Sarasota Film Festival in 2019. Alisa Regas’s Hanukkah movie, Adam & Sam, was released in 2018.

This lack of an established canon creates a huge void in the representation of Jewish culture to the world. There are so few Hanukkah films out there, and yet it remains one of the most culturally important holidays for the Jewish faith. Whether it’s innovative independent filmmakers or major studios exploring cinematic representation for Hanukkah, the world would certainly benefit from more of these stories in popular culture. Hanukkah has the potential to become more than a DIY holiday and to rise up and be celebrated by all faiths, much like Christmas has been over the years.

Hanukkah movies will never replace the popularity of Christmas films, at least not in the immediate future. But that doesn’t mean Hollywood can’t explore more stories, more representation for the Jewish faith, and hopefully, build their own Christmas-like of canon of films for Hanukkah over time.

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Last update 2023-11-27. Price and product availability may change.