3. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
This wonderful Tim Burton movie (which was often promoted as "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas") is a stop motion movie that was both a massive critical and box office success. The film relies on such a unique concept - merging two holidays - and is beautifully animated to create a wondrous fantasy experience in an atmospheric world that you can't help but be captivated by. The story is that, in Halloweentown, on Halloween night it is the same routine each year - the monsters come out and perform a real scare. However, on this particular Halloween, the pumpkin king Jack Skellington, bored of the same old palaver, wanders off into the woods with his dog Zero after the usual shenanigans of the evening. When dawn breaks, Jack discovers a clearing of trees with different doors representing various holidays. The Christmas Tree door attracts his attention and he enters the world of Christmas. He is absolutely fascinated with this new idea of Christmas and he feels that he must share it with the citizens of Halloweentown (which none of them initially understand). Ultimately, Jack decides to usurp Santa Claus and has the residents of Halloweentown kidnap old Saint Nick so that he can carry out his job (using a fleet of chilling skeletal reindeers, nonetheless), but Santa puts a stop to the whole thing and reprimands him. With no hard feelings about the whole situation, Santa makes it snow in Halloweentown and its residents get a feel for what Christmas is all about and the movie ends with Jack "getting the girl" (Sally, a rag doll woman who is created by the town's mad scientist and who showed feelings towards Jack throughout the movie).