The weirdly popular Christmas movie that isn't actually a Christmas movie

A still from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Photo / Touchstone Pictures

The most popular Christmas movies in 18 countries have been revealed.

To get the results, money.co.uk analysed the average monthly searches for festive films around the world from October 2019 through to December 2019.

And there were a few surprises (we're looking at you, Brazil and France).

In New Zealand and Australia, the most popular Christmas movie was Love Actually, with 44,400 and 271,500 searches respectively.

Love Actually was also ranked number one in England, Spain and Norway.

Love Actually - it's wet, but we love it. Photo / Universal Pictures

Elf was the most popular Christmas film in six countries, and The Nightmare Before Christmas also took out the top spot in a couple of countries.

But bizarrely, the 1984 classic Gremlins came out on top in Brazil and France.

Not only is that a random choice, but there's also a debate about whether Gremlins is even a Christmas movie.

Nerdist did a deep dive on this last year and determined: "Its plot is not intimately tied to its setting and the movie's major themes aren't particularly Christmas-relevant ones.

Can Gremlins can be classified as a Christmas movie? The French and Brazilians think so. Screenshot / Warner Bros

"While you'll always be able to find some theatre showing it in December, it somehow has never crossed over into being a definitive part of the holiday season the way a movie like Die Hard has.

"As such, Gremlins does not officially qualify as a Christmas movie."

Here's the full list of the most popular Christmas movies around the world:

England – Love Actually – 903,000 searches

Scotland – Elf – 98,400 searches

Wales – Elf – 51,360 searches

Ireland – Elf – 68,100 searches

Canada – Elf – 431,100 searches

USA – The Nightmare Before Christmas – 3,660,000 searches

Brazil – Gremlins – 271,500 searches

France – Gremlins – 330,000 searches

Spain – Love Actually – 271,500 searches

Italy – The Nightmare Before Christmas – 271,500 searches

Germany – Last Christmas – 261,900 searches

Norway – Love Actually – 148,500 searches

UAE – Home Alone – 19,800 searches

South Africa – The Grinch (2000) – 31,830 searches

India – Elf – 135,000 searches

Singapore – Elf – 18,600 searches

Australia – Love Actually – 271,500 searches

New Zealand – Love Actually – 44,400 searches