If all you want for Christmas is some very merry movies to stream, then you’ve come to the right place.
Christmas Movies To Stream This Holiday Season
Every December, we rearrange our schedules around gift-shopping, cookie-baking, party-going, carol-singing, and — more than ever — movie-watching. There’s a treasure trove of holiday features that make the season bright, so you’d better queue them up before the New Year rolls around, resolutions kick in, and the long wait for the next holiday season begins.
We’ve picked out 25 such films that are available to stream on Netflix, so you can watch one every single day from the first of the month all the way to the main event. (And we just might have tucked an extra surprise in there, too.) So brew up some cocoa, break out the fuzzy socks, and let the holiday season streaming start!
COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL
Love Actually
Whenever you get gloomy about the state of the world, just queue up Love Actually. Richard Curtis’ beloved 2003 film, boldly (but not wrongly) billed as “the ultimate romantic comedy,” documents a month in London before Christmas, following a large cast of characters and their tangled love stories — romantic, platonic, and familial. The all-star cast includes Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Laura Linney, Bill Nighy, Liam Neeson, and Keira Knightley.
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Best. Christmas. Ever!
Christmas is a competitive sport in Mary Lambert’s new comedy. Heather Graham stars as a suburban mom who ends up, in a bit of comedic confusion, taking her family to spend the holiday with her longtime frenemy (Brandy), whose impeccable facade has long been a source of resentment. Tune in to find out if old tensions give way to a new understanding — or if the setup leads instead to a holiday-hostess smackdown.
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Family Switch
A family of five, generationally disconnected and consumed by busy schedules, gets a powerful jolt of togetherness in McG’s new comedy, based on Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s 2010 children’s book Bedtime for Mommy. Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms star as the parents of three children (and a dog), all of whom are forced to walk in each other’s shoes — literally — when they get body-swapped just before Christmas. ’Tis the season for intensive empathy!
Let It Snow
Based on the YA novel of the same name by John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle, Luke Snellin’s teen romantic comedy follows a large group of teenagers (including Kiernan Shipka, Isabela Merced, and Odeya Rush) on a snowy Christmas Eve. The teens’ various romantic intrigues — including one involving a pop star (Shameik Moore) passing through town — all intensify and intertwine over the course of the day in the lead-up to an epic party that night.
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Falling for Christmas
Ring in December with Falling for Christmas, which marked the triumphant return of Y2K queen Lindsay Lohan to the screen. The Parent Trap and Freaky Friday darling stars in Janeen Damian’s rom-com as a bratty heiress who loses her memory after a skiing accident. Staying in a cozy lodge while trying to figure out who she is, she forges a bond with its proprietor (Chord Overstreet) and his daughter.
Scrooge: A Christmas Carol
Catch Netflix’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ iconic Christmas ghost story, an animated musical interpretation directed by Stephen Donnelly. Luke Evans provides the voice of the miserly protagonist, with Olivia Colman as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Johnny Flynn as Bob Cratchit, and Jonathan Pryce as Jacob Marley, among others. It’s no humbug, we promise!
EVERETT COLLECTION
White Christmas
Two WWII-vet celebrity entertainers (Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye) team up with an obscure sister act (Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen) to stage a musical in an empty Vermont hotel owned by their former commanding officer. Absolutely nothing about it ought to work, but somehow it all does! Credit the monumentally talented lead quartet, directed by Casablanca’s Michael Curtiz, for turning a plot seemingly held together by maple syrup and Christmas wishes into a holiday classic for the ages.
A Christmas Prince
Take a whole Sunday to get cozy and make your way through the entire Christmas Prince saga. The trilogy begins with Alex Zamm’s 2017 rom-com, in which an American journalist (Rose McIver) travels to the fictional country of Aldovia at Christmastime. While snooping around for a scoop, she falls in love with the Aldovian prince (Ben Lamb). Viewers fell in love, too, prompting the release of A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding in 2018 and A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby in 2019.
GARETH GATRELL/NETFLIX
Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey
Critically acclaimed and packed with holiday magic, David E. Talbert’s musical fantasy is a Christmas journey you don’t want to miss. Forest Whitaker stars as the brilliant toymaker Jeronicus Jangle — long ruined since his traitorous apprentice (Keegan-Michael Key) stole his book of inventions. With some help from his daughter (Anika Noni Rose) and granddaughter (Madalen Mills), he strives to reclaim his legacy and feel inspired again.
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Single All the Way
In an effort to preempt his family’s annual interrogations about his relationship status, Peter (Michael Urie) asks his best friend Nick (Philemon Chambers) to pose as his boyfriend over the holidays. What Peter doesn’t expect, though, is that his mother (Kathy Najimy) would set him up with her fitness instructor — nor that there may be more to his bond with Nick than just friendship. Also featuring Jennifer Coolidge as Peter’s eccentric aunt, Michael Mayer’s 2021 rom-com has become a holiday must-watch.
MARK MAINZ/NETFLIX
A Castle for Christmas
Brooke Shields and Cary Elwes star in Mary Lambert’s cozy romantic comedy, in which a recently divorced romance novelist (Shields), under siege from her fans for killing off a beloved character, flies to Scotland to wait out the storm. Upon seeing a castle her father once knew as a child, she impulsively decides to buy it from the grumpy duke (Elwes) who calls it home. You’ll just have to watch to find out if the historic château is the only thing she falls in love with over there!
Alien Xmas
Keeping Christmas earthbound is thinking small. Why not blast some holiday cheer out into the universe? For an intergalactic yuletide adventure, look to Stephen Chiodo’s short and sweet stop-motion film, in which a greedy alien race schemes to steal our planet’s possessions by disabling Earth’s gravity. But when X (Dee Bradley Baker), the extraterrestrial assigned to the mission, touches down on the North Pole, his first taste of Christmas spirit just might change his mind.
Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square
You know what this Christmas could use? More Dolly Parton. Luckily, there’s Christmas on the Square for that. Directed and choreographed by Debbie Allen, the Emmy-winning musical stars Christine Baranski as a rather Scroogeish landowner planning to evict the residents of her hometown and sell the real estate to a mega-mall developer. With the guidance of a sassy Christmas angel (Parton, who also wrote all the film’s songs), she starts to reconsider her scheme — and her own history with the town.
The Princess Switch
Ready for another movie marathon? Queue up Mike Rohl’s Princess Switch trilogy, in which an American pastry chef (Vanessa Hudgens) competes in a Christmas baking contest in the fictional Belgravia, where she meets the prince’s fiancée (also Hudgens) and is shocked to discover they’re seemingly identical. Who could resist such an opportunity for a quick little life swap? And then, who could resist following the look-alikes’ story further, with sequels Switched Again and Romancing the Star?
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The Knight Before Christmas
Even once you’ve watched all of the Princess Switch films, your Vanessa Hudgens holiday viewing is not complete! Monika Mitchell’s zany romantic fantasy The Knight Before Christmas stars the actor as a Midwestern high school teacher who falls in love, improbably enough, with a medieval knight (Josh Whitehouse). The knight has magically traveled through time to fulfill an unspecified cosmic quest by Christmas Eve. As one does!
Klaus
Santa gets a fresh origin story in Sergio Pablos’ holiday flick, which scored an Oscar nomination for best animated feature. J.K. Simmons provides the voice for the title character, an introverted toymaker, whose unlikely friendship with a self-centered postman (Jason Schwartzman) yields an even unlikelier project — delivering toys for local children in the middle of the night. This brings joy to a bitterly divided town in 19th-century Norway.
Holidate
Here’s a story to give hope to everyone who’s flying solo during the holidays. Emma Roberts and Luke Bracey play a pair of singles who, after a disappointing Christmas, make a pact to always be each other’s “holidates” in John Whitesell’s raunchy rom-com. Over the course of a year, they show up for each other on St. Patrick’s Day, the Fourth of July, Halloween and everything in between. But by the time December rolls around again, their feelings about their arrangement — and each other — have totally changed.
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The Noel Diary
This holiday drama from Father of the Bride filmmaker Charles Shyer delivers a little bit of romance and a little bit of mystery. After the death of his mother, a successful novelist (Justin Hartley) travels to his hometown at Christmas to settle her estate. There, he meets a young woman (Barrett Doss) searching for answers about her own family history; together, they confront their pasts — and maybe find a future.
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Holiday Rush
When Rush (Romany Malco), a widowed hip-hop DJ, loses his job after his radio station transitions to pop, he and his four spoiled children are forced to move back to their old home in Leslie Small’s romantic dramedy. As Rush’s family adjusts to their new lifestyle, he and his producer Roxy (Sonequa Martin-Green) buy the small station where they got their start — and realize they might have more than professional feelings for each other.
The Holiday Calendar
As long as we’re counting down the days to Christmas, how about a movie that does the same? Bradley Walsh’s rom-com follows two lifelong best friends (Kat Graham and Quincy Brown), both photographers, whose December reunion is mysteriously mirrored in the daily tokens offered up from an antique advent calendar. So, is the calendar magic? Will our heroes end up together? Only one way to find out!
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The Christmas Chronicles
Who knew that Santa Claus was the role that Kurt Russell was born to play? In Clay Kaytis’ 2018 yuletide adventure, the star brilliantly embodies a Saint Nick who –– when his sleigh is disrupted and bag of presents lost mid-Christmas Eve night –– must team up with a pair of kids to save the holiday before daybreak. In the Chris Columbus-directed sequel, Russell’s real-life partner, Goldie Hawn, takes his side as Mrs. Claus.
BETTINA STRAUSS/NETFLIX
Love Hard
How about some catfishing for Christmas? Nina Dobrev stars in Hernán Jiménez’s romantic comedy as Natalie, a writer who travels cross-country to surprise Josh (Jimmy O. Yang) — whom she met via an app and has only spoken to over the phone — at Christmas, just to discover she’s been duped. Josh introduces her to his friend (Darren Barnet) whose photos he used in his profile, and after spending time with both men, Natalie realizes her true feelings.
JESSICA KOURKOUNIS/NETFLIX
Christmas with You
Rom-com icon Freddie Prinze Jr. returns to the genre in this holiday offering, directed by Gabriela Tagliavini. Aimee Garcia co-stars as an exhausted pop star whose label is demanding a holiday track before Christmas. Seeking inspiration, she travels to upstate New York to meet with a young fan, but when a snowstorm hits, she has to crash with the teenager’s family. Luckily, the girl’s widowed father (Prinze) is a songwriter, too — and it turns out they make pretty good music together.
Christmas Inheritance
It’s a classic Christmas setup: A city-dweller gets stuck in a small town, where they’re at first frustrated and eventually charmed. In this twist on that holiday subgenre from Ernie Barbarash, Eliza Taylor plays the spoiled city girl, Ellen; her CEO father sends her to his tiny New England hometown at Christmas to test whether she’s capable of inheriting his role. There, she meets Jake (Jake Lacy) and his aunt Debbie (Andie MacDowell), whose generous influence changes her perspective.
STUDIOCANAL
A Boy Called Christmas
Christmas Eve is the perfect time to hit play on Gil Kenan’s enchanting A Boy Called Christmas. When the king (Jim Broadbent) promises a reward in exchange for a symbol of hope, young Nikolas (Henry Lawfull) tries to help his father win the prize, and finds himself on an epic quest to reach a city of magic inhabited by elves.
BONUS
Fireplace for Your Home
Episode 1: “Crackling Yule Log Fireplace”
Surprise! It may not be a full-blown Christmas movie, but you’ll spend Christmas Day opening presents and eating roast beast, anyway. So leave on this crackling fireplace (with a corresponding holiday soundtrack!) in the background to maximize the cozy vibes.
