Christmas season is in full swing, and with it comes the annual feast of all things Yuletide-themed and appropriately festive on streaming. Christmas is a holiday that’s inspired a wealth of enduring comedies about the value of family, community, love, and selflessness during the darkest and coldest time of the year. It’s also spawned no shortage of films that push at the boundaries of those well-worn tropes, twisting their holly-jolly exterior into cerebral and occasionally macabre stories that probe at the very darkness the holiday is meant to fend off.
In the spirit of the season and all its incarnations, we’ve pulled together a list of treasured classics and eclectic oddities for audiences to watch in the lead-up to Christmas. Like with Santa’s big ’ol toy sack, there’s something here for everyone!
Christmas rom-coms? We’ve got Christmas rom-coms. Christmas-tinged superhero flicks? You bet. Christmas horror? Yeah, we’ve got some of those too. From undersung hits to all-time classics, here are the best Christmas movies to watch at home this holiday season. Our latest update added Klaus, Dash & Lily, Anna and the Apocalypse, Tokyo Godfathers, Twelve Hundred Ghosts, Scrooged, and The Night Before.
A Christmas Prince
Where to watch: Netflix
If you’re looking for 100% confectionary fluff (and aren’t pumping Hallmark’s Christmas schedule directly into your veins), give this so-much-better-than-you-think-it’ll-be Netflix Original a whirl. Amber (iZombie’s Rose McIver) is a journalist sent to the made-up land of Aldovia for the royal passing-of-the-torch to bad-boy bachelor Prince Richard (Ben Lamb). Amber winds up going undercover in the castle to get all the scoops, but… she gets in too deep! The magic of the Christmas season makes everything too romantic, and awww, you know the rest. —Matt Patches
Anna and the Apocalypse
Where to watch: AMC Plus, Shudder; for free with ads on Tubi, the Roku Channel, and Pluto; for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play
John McPhail’s 2017 zombie apocalypse Christmas musical Anna and the Apocalypse aims at the heretofore-uncharted midpoint between Shaun of the Dead and High School Musical: It’s gory but goofy, equally filled with blood-spraying decapitations and “What do I want to do with my life after high school?” angst. And it treats both those stressors seriously, even respectfully — at least as respectfully as a tongue-in-cheek musical can. Show up for the cheery number where protagonist Anna (Ella Hunt) one-ups Shaun by not just sailing through the zombie-induced collapse of society without noticing, but managing to sing the whole time. Stay for the frantic, bizarre, deeply unexpected villain song about the upside of a Christmas zombie apocalypse. —Tasha Robinson
Batman Returns
Where to watch: Max or for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play
Is Batman Returns a superhero movie that happens to take place around Christmas, or a gothic Christmas film that happens to have superheroes and villains in it? In any case, Tim Burton’s 1992 follow-up to his original Batman is an awesome film filled with cool visuals, exciting action sequences, attempted murder, and a nail-biting finale centered around kidnapped babies, a bat-shaped boat, and an army of rocket-strapped kamikaze penguins. It’s also a story about two strange people who find comfort in each other’s strangeness, an orphan who grows up to seek revenge against the parents and society that shunned him, and a nefarious industrialist looking to make a quick buck at any cost. Though it may test the limits of what you might consider a “Christmas movie,” Batman Returns is a fantastic seasonal watch and a fun, weird film for the whole family. —Toussaint Egan
Better Watch Out
Where to watch: Peacock; for free with a library card on Hoopla or Kanopy; for free with ads on Tubi, Pluto TV, Plex, and Crackle
Better Watch Out feels like a reaction piece 26 years removed from the original Home Alone. The latter is a family comedy film whose premise could’ve easily been played out like a home invasion horror movie, if not for the plucky Ferris Bueller-esque charisma of Macaulay Culkin and the dopey oafishness of Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. Better Watch Out inverts that dynamic, introducing inventive twists and turns that take the unspoken horror story at the heart of that aforementioned film and transforms it into something way darker and more disturbing. This is a not feel-good Christmas story; this is a psychological horror movie that plays with the idea of whether or not the behaviors of a kid like Kevin McCallister could be considered a sign of latent sociopathy. To say any more would risk spoiling the film, but rest assured: Better Watch Out is an engrossing holiday horror drama if you have the stomach for its occasionally gory thrills. —TE
Black Christmas
Where to watch: Prime Video, AMC Plus, Peacock, Shudder; for free with a library card on Kanopy; for free with ads on Freevee, Pluto TV, Tubi, and the Roku Channel
If you’re looking for a straightforward, tinsel-lined horror movie, you can’t do better than Bob Clark’s Canadian slasher flick. (Apologies to Jack Frost, the serial-killer snowman movie — Black Christmas is just better!) Originally released in the U.S. as Silent Night, Evil Night, the low-budget horror movie crackles like a warm fire blown by a chilly gust of wind. Clark uses shadows and lurking horrors to turn a sorority house into a something ripped from a Shirley Jackson paperback cover, and while the transgressions within don’t find too much inspiration in Christmas iconography, there is a “wrapping job” that will leave you gasping. —MP
Christmas in Connecticut
Where to watch: Prime Video or for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play
Few movie stars have ever had the impact on the industry as Barbara Stanwyck, and Christmas in Connecticut is a delightful Christmas rom-com showcasing her charm and movie star charisma.
Stanwyck plays Elizabeth Lane, a food writer who purports to write about her life as a Connecticut housewife living on a farm with her husband and baby. There’s just one problem: She’s made the whole thing up. Her publisher — completely unaware that Lane is actually single, lives in New York, and can’t cook — decides Lane should host a lavish Christmas dinner for a soldier returning from war (Dennis Morgan), who is also a big fan. What follows is a delightful screwball comedy that was a smash hit at the time, and continues to thrill decades later.
If you’re looking for more Stanwyck excellence, you can’t go wrong with the all-time classic Double Indemnity, but I also love her pre-code crime drama Night Nurse, co-starring an evil Clark Gable. Both are available for rental or purchase on Amazon, Apple, and Google Play. —Pete Volk
Dash & Lily
Where to watch: Netflix
Cheating here with a TV show, but it’s a limited series that’s only eight half-hour episodes and it’s absolutely become required holiday viewing for me every year. Dash & Lily is a romantic comedy that follows two lonely teenagers in New York, who leave each other little dares and challenges in a journal without ever meeting face-to-face. They are drawn to each other on paper and motivated by one another to step outside their comfort zones. But what happens when they cross paths in person?
It’s an adorable romance, but my favorite part of Dash & Lily is that it takes place in a blissful alternate universe where doing popular holiday activities in New York isn’t claustrophobically crowded. Oh, how I long for that to be true! —Petrana Radulovic
Hawkeye
Where to watch: Disney Plus
I’m cheating a bit here, since this is a show and not a movie, but what is a six-episode miniseries if not a very long movie? Hawkeye is one of the better MCU TV efforts, leaning on the movie star charisma of Hailee Steinfeld as aspiring super-archer Kate Bishop as she teams up with her idol, Clint Barton.
Adapted from the very fun comic run by Matt Fraction and David Aja, Hawkeye is great Christmas fare, too. The show is set during holiday times, and much of the show’s conflict is set around getting Barton’s family back in time for Christmas. It’s the kind of TV Marvel should feel like it can make more of — fewer massive universe stakes, more fun times hanging out with super pals. —PV
Home Alone
Where to watch: Disney Plus or for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play
Hopefully, I don’t have to tell you that Home Alone is a very good movie. I don’t have to talk about how well it captures a child’s-eye view of suburban life (being terrified of your house’s boiler for no reason), the number of immortal one-liners in it (“Keep the change, ya filthy animal”), the music (John Williams!), or the character acting (Joe Pesci! Catherine O’Hara! JOHN CANDY).
Somewhere inside this fusion of the writing talents of John Hughes and the directing prowess of Chris Columbus is a message about how sometimes parents act in boneheaded ways toward their children, but the best of them can find a way to reconnect and apologize — inside a beautiful box wrapped in crisp writing, comedic timing, and a reverse-heist plot line. —Susana Polo
It’s a Wonderful Life
Where to watch: Prime Video, Plex, for free with a library card on Hoopla, for free with ads on Freevee, or for rent on Apple TV
If you haven’t seen It’s a Wonderful Life or if it’s just been a while, then you might not know how the film, from intro to credits, is unapologetically weird and transgressive. All that Christmas Carol-esque stuff in which an “angel” shows George Bailey (James Stewart) what his town would have looked like had he never existed is just a fraction of the film. It’s preceded by 30 years of Bailey’s life, punctuated by the Great Depression and World War II. And that helpful angel? He and his “boss” are introduced as sentient cosmic dust. The film is a holiday cobbler stuffed with bits of Charles Dickens, Rod Serling, and Billy Wilder. Don’t let its reputation as sappy holiday detritus get in the way you enjoying of an exceptional film — Christmas or otherwise. —Chris Plante
Jingle All the Way
Where to watch: Disney Plus, Prime Video, Hulu, or for rent on Apple TV and Google Play
What’s more Christmas-y than a story of a loving parent going to whatever lengths necessary to preserve their child’s happiness? ’80s action icon Arnold Schwarzenegger, in a patently bizarre turn of reverse typecasting, stars in Jingle All the Way as Howard Langston, a mattress salesman whose workaholic attitude comes at the cost of his duties as a family man and father. Desperate to fulfill his son’s Christmas wish, Howard embarks on a search for a Turbo-Man action figure. Problem is: It’s Christmas Eve and they’re all but entirely sold out. Complicating his mission is Myron (Sinbad), a postal worker and fellow negligent father who shares the same goal. Jingle All the Way is a Christmas comedy that focuses on the exasperation and escalating stakes between Howard and Myron amid a gauntlet of ruthless holiday shoppers and a jetpack-enabled finale. If that doesn’t scream “Christmas” to you, I don’t know what does. —TE
Klaus
Where to watch: Netflix
Santa Claus movies too often rely on snarky self-awareness, with a million jokes about the more fantastical bits of Santa mythos. Klaus, however, is unflinchingly earnest in its approach to the Santa story. It’s also wonderfully gorgeous, animated in a very distinct hand-drawn style that feels like a cozy mug of hot cocoa.
Klaus follows a lazy postman named Jesper, who gets stationed in a remote town of Smeerenburg on the distant Nordic island of Svalbard with instructions to increase the postal output — or else be cut off from his family’s postal fortune. Since all of Smeerenburg is basically embroiled in a bitter feud, the already hard task is near impossible. That is until Jesper meets a lone woodcarver named Klaus with a workshop full of toys. There are enough laughs to keep the movie breezy, but it’s also a deeply emotional story that slowly builds till the final moments. —PR
Le Pupille
Where to watch: Disney Plus
Italian director Alice Rohrwacher won Best Screenplay at Cannes with Happy as Lazzaro, and her new movie, La Chimera, has received rave reviews on the festival circuit. But around Christmas time, her delightful short Le Pupille is a must-watch.
37 minutes of pure charm and joy, Le Pupille is set during World War II and follows a group of girls at a Catholic boarding school. One of the girls, Serafina, is an outcast who inadvertently draws the nuns’ attention through an act of unintended mischief. This incident snowballs into an avalanche of rebellious behavior, culminating in an uproarious and hilarious crescendo.
Beautifully shot on film, Rohrwacher’s short is both a funny, charming Christmas watch and a gorgeous, deeply felt movie about childhood. Add it to your holiday rotation — you won’t regret it. —PV
Mickey’s Christmas Carol
Where to watch: Disney Plus or for rent on Amazon and Apple TV
If you watch one adaptation of A Christmas Carol this season, watch The Muppet Christmas Carol (more on that in a second). If you watch two adaptations of A Christmas Carol… you should probably watch the Patrick Stewart one, actually.
But if you watch THREE CHRISTMAS CAROLS THIS SEASON, take some time to consider Mickey’s Christmas Carol, directed by longtime Disney animator/writer Burny Mattinson. The tight 26-minute special gets a jump start by mining Disney’s history of anthropomorphic animal animation for character designs, making it a Kingdom Hearts-worthy mashup of works as disparate as Robin Hood, The Wind in the Willows, Pinocchio, and The Aristocats. And though it may answer an obvious question — “What if Scrooge McDuck was literally his namesake?” — in an obvious way, the whole thing is surprisingly well done, thanks to rousing vocal performances, the vivacity of hand-drawn animation, and a willingness to actually get really scary in a way that the modern House of Mouse tends to eschew. —SP
The Muppet Christmas Carol
Where to watch: Disney Plus or for rent on Amazon and Apple TV
I didn’t grow up with Christmas movies, but my partner did. Every Christmas Eve, their family watches The Muppet Christmas Carol, and it’s a delightful tradition that I feel blessed to be a part of now.
You know the deal — it’s a classic story, but with Muppets. This time, it’s Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, with generational talents Michael Caine as Ebenezer Scrooge and Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit.
It’s a delightful time filled with memorable songs, one-liner jokes, and the usual Muppet nonsense. But what really pulls the whole thing together is Caine’s moving performance as Scrooge. He treats this Muppet project like he’s performing Shakespeare at The Globe, and it brings an emotional center to what would otherwise be a very enjoyable Muppet romp. —PV
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Where to watch: Max or for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play
I had never seen National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation until a few years ago when a friend of mine, aghast in utter disbelief at this fact, finally forced me to sit down and watch it with them. I understand now why my friend was so shocked: It’s a hilarious comedy, so hilarious in fact that I’m surprised I hadn’t seen it sooner. Chevy Chase is pitch-perfect in the role of Clark Griswold, a salaryman and put-upon father at his wit’s end trying to pull off the perfect family Christmas celebration. As each of his carefully laid plans either hits a snag or utterly falls apart, so too does Clark’s disposition, transforming from a mild-mannered family man into a living powder keg of seething rage barely holding it together under a facade of holiday cheer. At least he’s got a Christmas bonus coming up, right? —TE
The Night Before
Where to watch: Starz or for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play
I grew up Jewish, which means I’m generally on the outside looking in when it comes to Christmas and Christmas-themed celebrations. Naturally, that means the Christmas movies I’m drawn to tend to come at the holiday from a different vantage point. The Night Before certainly isn’t the most Christmas-y of Christmas movies, but it is one of the funniest.
The Night Before is a Christmas movie from a majority Jewish-raised lead creative team, including writer-director Jonathan Levine and stars Seth Rogen (who produced along with longtime creative partner Evan Goldberg) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It’s a ridiculous stoner comedy about a group of childhood friends (Gordon-Levitt, Rogen, and Anthony Mackie) who have a long-held Christmas tradition of finding the best party in the city. But some of the friends are more grown-up than others, and when they decide this is the last year they’ll hold this tradition, things get extremely out of hand very quickly. —PV
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Where to watch: Disney Plus or for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play
Christmas movie? Halloween movie? Split the difference: Tim Burton and stop-motion animator Henry Selick’s macabre holiday musical is the perfect Thanksgiving movie. The story of Jack Skellington figuring out how to stay in his holiday lane is still a quirky sight to see, with lots of strange details packed into the every frame. If you’ve seen this one too many times, fall down the YouTube rabbit hole of Danny Elfman performing the soundtrack live. —MP
The Santa Clause
Where to watch: Disney Plus or for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play
The Santa Clause is a classic Christmas comedy, one that offers a whimsical (albeit slightly macabre) answer for how ’ol Kris Kringle is such a perennial symbol of the holiday despite ostensibly being a bajillion years old. Tim Allen stars as Scott Calvin, a divorced father and toy salesman who, in a Highlander-esque twist of fate, accidentally kills Santa Claus and subsequently becomes the next man in line to hold his title and responsibilities. Through the struggle of coming to grips with his new identity while trying to convince others of his new role, Scott grows as both a person and as a father, learning the true meaning of Christmas through the firsthand embodiment of one of its most central figures. It’s heartwarming and hilarious in a way that’s stood the test of time and a feel-good Christmas movie for the whole family. And there’s a new show out, which we are dutifully watching to track the appearances of Bernard the Hot Elf. —MP
Scrooged
Where to watch: Prime Video, Paramount Plus, for free with ads on Pluto, or for rent on Apple TV and Google Play
For decades, “Christmas movie” meant a feel-good family experience, maybe with a little bit of a dark side (the original A Christmas Carol is grim, y’all) but still comforting and uplifting. Then cynicism started to be seen as cultural sophistication, and transgressive Christmas movies became the norm, from black comedies like Bad Santa to horror movies like Krampus to over-the-top action movies like Violent Night.
Richard Donner’s 1988 Bill Murray vehicle Scrooged landed right in the middle of that cultural shift, and it balances perfectly on the line between keeping traditional Christmas whimsy intact and going for something darker. Its humor is rough but not cruel, and its messages are positive, but not so sugary-sentimental that they give you instant cavities. It’s yet another retelling of A Christmas Carol, in which snide, above-it-all TV exec Frank Cross (Murray) gets a kick in the pants from the traditional three ghosts.
But the casting and framing has a subversive spin that’s meant to feel both modern and off-kilter — the two ghosts that actually speak are played by New York Dolls’ David Johansen and a cheerfully sadistic Carol Kane, with M*A*S*H’s Jamie Farr in the Jacob Marley role. And the script, by Mitch Glazer and longtime Saturday Night Live veteran Michael O’Donoghue, is playful but cutting, full of memorable lines that Murray makes iconic. It’s the perfect Christmas movie for cranky cynics with a secret (or just deeply buried) soft spot for holiday cheer. —TR
The Shop Around the Corner
Where to watch: MGM Plus or for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play
One of the all-time great directors and one of the all-time great movie stars team up for one of the all-time great Christmas movies. If you’re a fan of You’ve Got Mail, you owe it to yourself to watch the fantastic original.
From the masterful Ernst Lubitsch, this romantic comedy follows a salesman (James Stewart) and a new employee at his shop (Margaret Sullavan), who can’t stand each other. They get in frequent arguments at work, and the only thing that keeps them going through their misery is a secret love they anonymously write to — each other.
The Shop Around the Corner is endearingly sweet, uproariously funny, and a Christmas classic for good reason. —PV
Tokyo Godfathers
Where to watch: Prime Video or for free with ads on The Roku Channel
The great Satoshi Kon was inspired by the John Ford film 3 Godfathers — itself a retelling of the biblical Three Wise Men, but in the American West — for this beautiful Christmas story about found family and the people left behind by society. It is more grounded than Kon’s other work, but no less stirring.
On Christmas Eve, three unhoused people find an abandoned newborn baby. The three of them decide to try and find the child’s parents on a cold night in Tokyo. Through this simple premise, Kon is able to tell a gorgeous story about determining who you are in the face of what you are told, and about how important and difficult caring for people can be. Tokyo Godfathers is also a tale about the push and pull of wanting to be invisible — because sometimes that means being safe — and wanting to be seen. It’s a wonderful story for all seasons, but especially for Christmas. —PV
Twelve Hundred Ghosts
Where to watch: Free on YouTube
Why pick one version of A Christmas Carol when you can watch them all at once? Heath Waterman’s epic YouTube supercut Twelve Hundred Ghosts mashes more than 400 versions of A Christmas Carol together, accurately telling Charles Dickens’ classic story via snippets from straight-faced movie and TV adaptations, mixed in with much more bizarre versions. There’s a little bit of everything here — TV ads, audiobooks, animated versions, comic books, and radio plays. There are Muppets, Mickey Mouse, Avengers, Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo, Ghostbusters, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Sonic the Hedgehog. It’s simultaneously its own perfectly coherent (if a little giddy) version of the classic and a study of just how far A Christmas Carol has spread as a cultural idea and how flexible it is as a story, capable of being transposed into everything from Xena: Warrior Princess to Star Trek. —TR
White Christmas
Where to watch: Prime Video or for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play
White Christmas deserves the biggest and best screen in your home. Director Michael Curtiz shot the 1954 musical in VistaVision, the high-resolution format of its era, and the impact of the decision shows in the modern restoration, a presentation as rich with color and detail as any modern action flick. A huge TV flatters the classic sets and elaborate dance numbers and even though the audio is mono, a nice set of headphones or speakers elevates its classic songs, belted by Christmas music legends Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney. One humongous asterisk: The film does away with the explicitly racist blackface number of its predecessor, Holiday Inn, but it still includes an entire routine dedicated to the joys of a minstrel show. Be prepared to explain the horrific context to younger family members and fend off complaints of sensitivity from any ghoulish relatives. —CP
The post The best Christmas movies to watch on Netflix, Amazon, Max, and more right now appeared first on Polygon.
