One Christmas Eve, during a stop at an orphanage, a baby boy named William, captivated by the sight of a teddy bear, crawls into Santa Claus's (Ed Asner) sack of gifts while he is delivering toys. Santa Claus unknowingly takes the boy back to the North Pole, and when discovered, is renamed Buddy because one the elves notices he is wearing "Little Buddy" brand diapers. Papa Elf (Bob Newhart) volunteers to raise him.
Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet), a society column editor for The Daily Telegraph in London, has been in love with Jasper Bloom (Rufus Sewell) for over three years, despite his infidelities. When she finds out that he is engaged to the "other woman," Iris despairs over the state of affairs in her life. Meanwhile, Amanda Woods (Cameron Diaz), a workaholic who owns a company that produces movie trailers in Los Angeles, discovers that her live-in boyfriend Ethan Ebbers (Edward Burns) has been cheating on her with his 24-year-old secretary. She decides she wants to get away for the holidays and visits a home swap website on which Iris had previously listed her "quaint cottage in Surrey.” Amanda contacts Iris about her interest. Iris quickly agrees and the two agree to swap homes for two weeks.
Scott Calvin is a divorced 38-year-old advertising executive, who is also a father to his son Charlie. Charlie's mother, Laura, is now married to psychiatrist Neil Miller. After Scott reads "A Visit from St. Nicholas" to Charlie on Christmas Eve, he and Charlie are awakened that night by sounds on the roof. After confronting a man on the roof, who inadvertently falls off when Scott startles him, then vanishes leaving his Santa Claus outfit behind, they discover eight reindeer on the roof and Charlie convinces Scott to put on the suit and finish Santa's work for him. As the morning comes, the reindeer return to the North Pole to Santa's Workshop, where the head elf Bernard explains that, due to a clausical contract written on a card Scott found on Santa, in putting on the suit and entering the sleigh he has accepted the "Santa Clause" and has agreed to the responsibilities of that position. He tells a skeptical Scott that he has eleven months to get his affairs in order before reporting to the workshop at Thanksgiving permanently.
Lucy Eleanor Moderatz (Sandra Bullock) is a lonely fare token collector for the Chicago Transit Authority. She has a secret crush on a handsome commuter named Peter Callaghan (Peter Gallagher), although they are complete strangers. On Christmas Day, she rescues him from an oncoming train after a group of muggers push him onto the tracks. He falls into a coma, and she accompanies him to the hospital, where a nurse overhears her musing aloud, "I was going to marry him." Misinterpreting her, the nurse tells his family that she is his fiancée.
Eight years have gone by since Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) first took up the Santa Claus suit, and became subject to The Santa Clause. Now Santa is at the top of his game at the North Pole and could not be happier, at least until Bernard (David Krumholtz) and Curtis (Spencer Breslin), the Keeper of the Handbook of Christmas break the news that there is another clause - the "Mrs. Clause".
Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) are an upscale San Francisco couple. Having both come from dysfunctional families, with divorced parents and siblings with out-of-control kids, the two disdain the idea of getting married or having kids. In an effort to avoid their families at Christmas, the two go on vacation abroad while pretending to be doing charity work there. The third Christmas of their relationship, Brad and Kate are trapped at San Francisco International Airport by a fog bank that cancels every outbound flight, and interviewed by a news crew, alerting their families to the fact they're stuck at home for the holidays.
In AD 26, Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) is a wealthy prince and merchant in Jerusalem, who lives with his mother, Miriam (Martha Scott); his sister, Tirzah (Cathy O'Donnell); their loyal slave, Simonides (Sam Jaffe); and his daughter, Esther (Haya Harareet), who loves Ben-Hur but is betrothed to another. His childhood friend, the Roman citizen Messala (Stephen Boyd), is now a tribune. After several years away from Jerusalem, Messala returns as the new commander of the Roman garrison. Messala believes in the glory of Rome and its imperial power, while Ben-Hur is devoted to his faith and the freedom of the Jewish people.
Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) and his wife, Alice (Nicole Kidman), are a young couple living in New York. They go to a Christmas party thrown by a wealthy patient, Victor Ziegler (Sydney Pollack). Bill meets an old friend from medical school, Nick Nightingale (Todd Field), who now plays piano professionally. While a Hungarian man named Sandor Szavost (Sky du Mont) tries to pick up Alice, two young models try to take Bill off for a tryst. He is interrupted by a call from his host upstairs, who had been having sex with Mandy (Julienne Davis), a young woman who has overdosed on a speedball. Mandy recovers with Bill's aid.
Randall “Rand” Peltzer, a struggling inventor, visits a Chinatown antique store in the hope to find a Christmas present for his son Billy. In the store, Randall encounters a small, furry creature called a Mogwai. The owner Mr. Wing refuses to sell the creature to Rand, so his grandson secretly sells the Mogwai to Rand but tells him to remember three important rules that must never be broken – do not expose the Mogwai to bright lights or sunlight which will kill it, do not let it get wet, and never feed it after midnight.
On Christmas Eve, hundreds of Christmas elves helm the command centre of Santa Claus's mile-wide, ultra–high-tech sleigh-esque craft, the S-1. The current Santa: Malcolm and the Christmas elves deliver presents to every child in the world using advanced equipment and military precision. These complex operations are micromanaged by Malcolm's oldest son Steve and his obsequious elfin assistant Peter (among thousands of more elves) at mission control underneath the North Pole, while Steve's clumsy and panophobic younger brother Arthur answers the letters to Santa. During a delivery operation, when a child wakes up and almost sees Malcolm, a Christmas elf back in the S-1 inadvertently presses a button, causing a present to fall off a conveyor and go unnoticed.
On Christmas Eve, New York City Police Detective Lieutenant John McClane arrives in Los Angeles to reconcile with his estranged wife, Holly. McClane is driven to the Nakatomi Plaza building for a company Christmas party by Argyle. While McClane changes clothes, the party is disrupted by the arrival of Hans Gruber and his heavily armed group: Karl, Franco, Tony, Theo, Alexander, Marco, Kristoff, Eddie, Uli, Heinrich, Fritz, and James. The group seize the tower and secure those inside as hostages, except for McClane, who manages to slip away.
In 1916, Tsar Nicholas II hosts a ball at the Catherine Palace to celebrate the Romanov tricentennial. His mother, the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, is visiting from Paris and gives a music box and a necklace inscribed with the words “Together in Paris” as parting gifts to her youngest granddaughter, eight-year-old Grand Duchess Anastasia. The ball is suddenly interrupted by the sorcerer Grigori Rasputin, the former royal advisor of the Romanovs until he was banished by Nicholas II for treason. In retaliation, Rasputin sells his soul in exchange for an unholy reliquary, which he uses to place a curse on the Romanov family, sparking the Russian Revolution. Only Marie and Anastasia are able to escape the ensuing siege of the palace, thanks to a young servant boy named Dimitri who shows them a secret passageway in Anastasia's room. Rasputin confronts the two royals outside, only to fall through the ice and freeze to death. The pair manage to reach a moving train, but only Marie climbs aboard while Anastasia falls, hitting her head on the platform.
Howard Langston (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a workaholic mattress salesman, who does not find time for his wife, Liz (Rita Wilson), and his 9-year-old son, Jamie (Jake Lloyd) — especially when compared to next door "superdad" divorcee, Ted Maltin (Phil Hartman), who continually puts Howard in a bad light. After missing Jamie's karate class graduation, Howard resolves to redeem himself by fulfilling Jamie's ultimate Christmas wish: getting an action figure of Turbo-Man, a popular children's TV superhero toy that everyone is looking for. Along the way, Howard meets Myron Larabee (Sinbad), a postal worker dad with a rival ambition, and the two soon become bitter competitors in their race for the action figure. During his search, Howard repeatedly runs into Officer Alexander Hummell (Robert Conrad), a police officer who had earlier pulled him over for a traffic violation. After several failed attempts to find the toy in a store, Howard attempts to buy a Turbo-Man from a Mall of America Santa (James Belushi) who is actually the leader of a band of counterfeit toy makers. When he accuses the Santa of undermining the values of Christmas, Howard ends up in a brawl with the gang. He narrowly escapes when the police raid their warehouse and gets out by posing as an undercover detective.
Jack Campbell is a single, wealthy Wall Street executive living the high life in New York City. He is in the midst of putting together a multi-billion dollar merger and has ordered an emergency meeting on Christmas Day to ensure its success. The concept of family life clearly has little or no meaning for him. In his office, on Christmas Eve, he is surprised to hear that his former girlfriend, Kate, tried to call him after many years. After reminiscing a bit, he walks into a convenience store where a lottery contestant, Cash, barges in saying that he has a winning ticket worth $238. The store clerk believes that Cash is lying and refuses to give him his winnings. Cash pulls out a gun and is about to shoot the clerk before Jack offers to buy the ticket from him for $200, thus averting disaster. Jack and Cash settle their business deal outside. Jack offers to help Cash. In return, Cash questions Jack, asking him if he is missing anything in his life. Jack assures him he has everything he needs. The two part company, but not before Cash cryptically tells Jack that actions have consequence and that Jack has brought whatever is coming on himself. Jack returns to his penthouse and sleeps away the night alone.