When Netflix released “A Christmas Prince” in 2017, it became one of the true viral moments of the holiday season — eight years later, the streamer is still chasing that high.
This year, Netflix released four new Christmas films: “My Secret Santa,” “A Merry Little Ex-Mas,” “Champagne Problems,” and “Jingle Bell Heist.” They range from entertaining to bonkers.
Here are this year’s new Netflix holiday movies ranked from worst to best.
4. “My Secret Santa”
People have been describing “My Secret Santa” (a title that doesn’t even make sense, by the way) as the “reverse ‘Mrs. Doubtfire.'”
To that I say: just go watch “Mrs. Doubtfire.”
My list of notes, observations, and questions was by far the longest for this movie, which stars Alexandra Breckenridge as Taylor Jacobsen, a single mom (and former teen rock star, somehow), who decides her daughter must go to an exorbitantly expensive snowboarding school at a ski resort, and the only job she can find requires dressing up as an old man to become the resort’s resident Santa Claus.
Along the way, she meets a man, Matthew (Ryan Eggold), who is quite determined to get to know her — for truly no reason besides the fact that she’s pretty — but, gasp, he turns out to be the resort owner’s son.
This might all sound pretty normal, but believe me, this movie seems like it was written backward. As in, since they needed Taylor to have access to some of the best prosthetics since “Frankenstein,” her brother and his husband happen to be obsessed with Halloween.
Also, Taylor was just really bad at being Santa for too much of the runtime.
This brings me to the villain, Natasha, as played by Tia Mowry. She’s hyper-competent, dedicated to her job, and has been at the resort for years. But when it’s time for someone to get a promotion, Matthew the Nepo Baby gets it instead. Was I supposed to not root for her as she tried to sabotage his (quite poor) attempts at running things? Because I did not! She deserved the promotion!
Ultimately, this movie is deranged (but not in a fun way), the two leads have no chemistry, and it makes the cardinal sin of evoking a much better movie. It was a skip from me.
3. “A Merry Little Ex-Mas”
Now this is a movie that’s deranged in a fun way.
“A Merry Little Ex-Mas” stars Alicia Silverstone as Kate, an architect turned stay-at-home mom (and handyman, for some reason), who is recently separated from her husband, Everett (Oliver Hudson), their small town’s doctor.
So many choices in this were baffling. For instance, everyone in the town calls Kate’s house the “Mothership.” Why? It doesn’t matter — it never gets explained. Kate and Everett’s daughter, Sienna, brings home her British boyfriend, who inexplicably thinks he’s a character in “Harry Potter,” which is a bit dated in 2025. Fellow ’90s queen Melissa Joan Hart is in this movie for around 5 minutes, and it was, frankly, rude not to give her more to do.
This movie’s saving grace was Kate’s much younger boyfriend, Chet, played by Pierson Fodé, who was hilarious. Everett’s new girlfriend, Tess, played by Jameela Jamil, also brought a lot of laughs.
However, the romance between Kate and Everett just wasn’t explored enough. From the first scene they’re in together, it’s clear there was no reason to split up in the first place — they needed some couple’s therapy and to work on their communication skills.
I want better for two ’90s legends than this.
2. “Champagne Problems”
Sue me, I thought this was cute! Any movie that takes place in Paris during Christmas is going to earn extra points with me, it’s just a fact.
“Champagne Problems” stars Minka Kelly as Sydney, a dedicated employee at her mergers and acquisitions firm, but who has no life of her own. When she gets sent to Paris right around Christmas to pitch an acquisition of a local Champagne brand, she takes one night for herself and meets Henri (Tom Wozniczka). Can you see where this is going?
Yes, of course, Henri is the son of the man whose business Sydney wants to take over.
But Sydney’s not the only one competing for the chateau’s business. There are a few pleasantly kooky side characters who are along for the journey.
My main takeaway from this movie is that I should probably book a flight to Paris immediately (I also frantically Googled if the bookstore in the movie was real. It’s not, sadly). My secondary thoughts include that Kelly and Wozniczka have great chemistry, and I need to pop a bottle of bubbly this Christmas.
1. “Jingle Bell Heist”
This was an easy choice. “Jingle Bell Heist” is the only one of these movies that didn’t have an overly bright, but somehow still flat, aesthetic.
It also stars two promising young actors, Olivia Holt and Connor Swindells. Holt plays Sophie, an American living in London so her mom can access cheaper cancer treatment — Sophie is also a star pick-pocket who learned everything she knows from her magician grandfather, which … sure. Swindells plays Nick, a computer expert who has recently been released from jail after being accused of robbing a department store.
Nick and Sophie link up to rob that same department store on Christmas Eve for their own reasons, but, of course, things never go smoothly in a film like this.
I give screenwriters Abby McDonald and Amy Reed a lot of credit, because this movie had more than one twist that genuinely shocked me. I also vibed with Michael Fimognari’s direction, as it’s clear he was doing his best ’70s crime-thriller tribute. Lastly, the brassy score by Steve Hackman was great; it was giving “Ocean’s Eleven.”
My one knock on this movie is that the relationship between Sophie and Nick was pretty boring, all things considered. Perhaps they just had better platonic chemistry than romantic.
Even so, this was easily my favorite of Netflix’s holiday films this year, and one I would recommend to anyone.
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