Netflix Christmas Movie Guide: 25 Films to Stream This Holiday Season

Director: Todd Haynes

Cast: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy, Kyle Chandler

Plot: In the 1950s, a glamorous married woman and an aspiring photographer embark on a passionate, forbidden romance that will forever change their lives.

Variety’s Review: An exquisitely drawn, deeply felt love story that teases out every shadow and nuance of its characters’ inner lives with supreme intelligence, breathtaking poise and filmmaking craft of the most sophisticated yet accessible order.

Director: Sergio Pablos

Cast: Jason Schwartzman, J. K. Simmons, Rashida Jones, Will Sasso

Plot: A selfish postman and a reclusive toymaker form an unlikely friendship, delivering joy to a cold, dark town that desperately needs it.

Variety’s Review: “Klaus” has the distinction of being Netflix’s first original animated feature — and not just a low-budget computer-rendered quickie, but a stylish return to hand-drawn animation with a look all its own.

Director: Charles Shyer 

Cast: Justin Hartley, Barrett Doss, Essence Atkins, Bonnie Bedelia, James Remar

Plot: A bestselling author returns home at Christmas to settle the estate of his estranged mother, who kicked him out of the house when he was just 16. He then discovers a diary that may hold secrets to his own past and that of a beautiful young woman on a mysterious journey of her own. Together, they embark on an adventure to confront their pasts and discover a future that’s totally unexpected.

Director: Janeen Damian

Cast: Lindsay Lohan, Chord Overstreet, George Young, Jack Wagner

Plot: After losing her memory in a skiing accident, a spoiled heiress lands in the cozy care of a down-on-his-luck widower and his daughter at Christmastime.

Variety’s Review: Director Janeen Damian’s light-hearted feature, centered on a spoiled hotel heiress tumbling into a character-enriching circumstance, isn’t necessarily served up as the average cup of holiday cheer and rom-com charm. There’s a lot more to it than that. Its subversive spirit, female-forward smarts and sweet sentimentality remix the formulaic and festive, making all things merry and bright.

Director: John Whitesell

Cast: Emma Roberts, Luke Bracey, Jake Manley, Jessica Capshaw, Frances Fisher, Kristin Chenoweth

Plot: Fed up with being single on holidays, two strangers agree to be each other’s platonic plus-ones all year long, only to catch real feelings along the way.

Variety’s Review: Briskly directed by John Whitesell, written by Tiffany Paulsen, “Holidate” won’t change your mind about the tread-worn challenges of romantic comedies, but its leads leverage their charms nicely.

Director: Richard Curtis

Cast: Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Keira Knightley, Martine McCutcheon, Bill Nighy, Rowan Atkinson

Plot: Love is all around — and so is heartbreak — as multiple couples navigate romance, family, weddings and airports at Christmastime.

Variety’s Review: A roundly entertaining romantic comedy, “Love Actually” is still nearly as cloying as it is funny. Grandly conceived by contemporary British genre master Richard Curtis as a mosaic of love stories that collectively stress the primacy of amour even in difficult times, this doggedly cheery confection persists in going overboard with smiles, hugs, kisses and musical reassurances that all you need is love. But its cheeky wit, impossibly attractive cast and sure-handed professionalism are beguiling all the same.

Director: Martin Wood

Cast: Kat Graham and Alexander Ludwig

Plot: A by-the-book political aide falls for a big-hearted Air Force pilot while looking to shut down his tropical base and its airborne Christmas tradition.

Variety’s Review: There’s nothing wrong with “Operation Christmas Drop,” an anodyne, friction-free romantic comedy that faintly distinguishes itself from its snow-sprayed genre brethren with enticingly balmy South Pacific scenery. If nothing else, it gives viewers something to daydream about while they keep half an eye on its story.

Director: Gil Kenan

Cast: Henry Lawfull, Toby Jones, Sally Hawkins, Kristen Wiig, Michiel Huisman, Jim Broadbent, Maggie Smith

Plot: A spirited Santa Claus origin story with action, humor and heart.

Variety’s Review: If you’re immune to the charms of a small child admitting that he’s heartbroken over the loss of his mother but “still loves her with all the broken pieces,” then suffice to say that “A Boy Called Christmas” probably isn’t for you. For those who don’t mind a bit of saccharinity in their holiday viewing, however, Netflix’s tall tale about the origins of Christmas will make for better background viewing than a yule-log loop. Directed by Gil Kenan (“City of Ember”) and based on Matt Haig’s novel of the same name, “Christmas” is a cut above the usual holiday dross.

Director: Clay Kaytis

Cast: Kurt Russell, Judah Lewis, Darby Camp, Lamorne Morris

Plot: After accidentally crashing Santa’s sleigh, a brother and sister pull an all-nighter to save Christmas with a savvy, straight-talking St. Nick.

Variety’s Review: The family-friendly adventure, about two kids whose Christmas Eve mission to capture Santa Claus (Kurt Russell) leads to helping him save the holiday, plays like a love letter to producer Chris Columbus’ previous works without ever distinguishing itself. With its saccharine score, saturated cinematography, and trite platitudes, the film is formulaic and forgettable except for Russell’s performance as the lovable legend.

Director: Chris Columbus

Cast: Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn, Darby Camp

Plot: Unhappy over her mom’s new relationship, a now-teenage Kate runs away and lands at the North Pole, where a naughty elf is plotting to cancel Christmas.

Variety’s Review: Directed by Chris Columbus, with his leftover-’80s synthetic-is-the-new-real life’s-a-snow-globe touch, it’s a movie in which Santa Claus, played with winning macho bluster by Kurt Russell, has to save Christmas from the depredations of an angry fallen elf.

Director: David E. Talbert

Cast: Forest Whitaker, Madalen Mills, Keegan-Michael Key, Hugh Bonneville, Anika Noni Rose, Phylicia Rashad

Plot: Decades after his trusted apprentice betrayed him, a once-joyful toymaker finds new hope when his kind and curious granddaughter comes into his life.

Variety’s Review: Writer-director David E. Talbert made the inclusive 2016 comedy “Almost Christmas,” but his real breakthrough is “Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey,” an ambitious Yuletide tuner the prolific stage and screen creator has had up his sleeve for decades.

Director: Mary Lambert

Cast: Brooke Shields, Cary Elwes, Lee Ross, Andi Osho

Plot: To escape a scandal, a bestselling author journeys to Scotland, where she falls in love with a castle — and faces off with the grumpy duke who owns it.

Variety’s Review: Despite its smattering of shortcomings, “A Castle For Christmas” is gently disarming, heartening, holiday-themed escapism that’s as satisfying as a cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s night.

Director: Michael Mayer

Cast: Michael Urie, Philemon Chambers, Luke Macfarlane, Barry Bostwick, Jennifer Robertson, Jennifer Coolidge, Kathy Najimy

Plot: Peter asks his best friend to pose as his boyfriend on a Christmas visit home, but their plan — and feelings — change when his family plays matchmaker.

Director: Robert Tinnell

Cast: Skyler Gisondo, Madison Iseman, Andrew Schulz, Addison Timlin

Plot: Aspiring artist Tony’s blossoming crush on Ivy Leaguer Beth gets put to the test when she joins his boisterous Italian American family’s holiday meal.

Variety’s Review: Robert Tinnell‘s cheery seasonal comedy plants a tinsel-encrusted flag, warmly embracing corn and cliché as par for the festive course, and enlivening its familiar trappings with a specific Italian-American accent.

Director: Mike Rohl

Cast: Vanessa Hudgens, Sam Palladio, Nick Sagar

Plot: When a down-to-earth Chicago baker and a soon-to-be princess discover they look like twins, they hatch a Christmastime plan to trade places.

Variety’s Review: Bringing back the same director, writers and lead actors from Netflix’s original 2018 success, this pleasant sequel provides the updated “Prince and the Pauper” conceit a new wrinkle in giving star Vanessa Hudgens yet a third lookalike character to play. Though inevitably the formula wears a little thinner in spots this time, it’s a frothy fantasy that should satisfy viewers’ itch for confectionary-looking Christmas fluff.

Director: Sophia Takal

Cast: Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon, Lily Donoghue, Brittany O’Grady

Plot: When socially conscious sorority sisters stay on campus over winter break, they must elude a masked stalker determined to kill their holiday spirit.

Variety’s Review: The 1974 slasher film gets updated to the new age of woke feminism in the rare college horror movie that actually has something on its mind.

Director: Mary Lambert

Cast: Heather Graham, Brandy Norwood, Matt Cedeño, Jason Biggs

Plot: After a twist of fate brings their families together for Christmas, Charlotte sets out to prove her old friend Jackie’s life is too good to be true.

Variety’s Review: Director Mary Lambert delivers yuletide warmth and heartfelt cheer to Netflix subscribers with “Best. Christmas. Ever!” The streamer’s practically patented brand of holiday hijinks is amped up to a ridiculous degree as the hyperbolic title would suggest. Even so, its absurdist lunacy acts as a Trojan Horse containing genuinely meaningful sentiments on forgiveness, happiness and bittersweet sorrows — universalities people tend to reflect on as their year comes to a close.

Director: McG

Cast: Jennifer Garner, Ed Helms, Emma Myers, Brady Noon, Rita Moreno

Plot: A family descends into chaos days before Christmas when a rare cosmic event causes the parents to swap bodies with their teenage kids.

Variety’s Review: This double cliché has never been all that funny (or true). It’s more of a reductive sitcom-and-movie-farce stereotype. But in “Family Switch,” a double body-swap movie (mother and daughter switch places, and so do father and son), it both neuters and undercuts the movie’s comedy.

Director: Monika Mitchell

Cast: Vanessa Hudgens, Josh Whitehouse, Emmanuelle Chriqui

Plot: Medieval magic sends a 14th-century knight to modern-day Ohio, where he falls for a high school science teacher who’s disillusioned by love.

Director: Luke Snellin

Cast: Isabela Merced, Shameik Moore, Kiernan Shipka, Odeya Rush, Liv Hewson

Plot: A snowstorm hits a small town on a cold Christmas Eve, affecting the friendships, love lives and futures of several high school seniors.

Director: Alex Zamm, John Schultz

Cast: Rose McIver, Ben Lamb, Tom Knight, Sarah Douglas

Plot: Christmas comes early for an aspiring young journalist when she’s sent abroad to get the scoop on a dashing prince who’s poised to be king.

Variety’s Review: Not many TV movies would make the cut, but the Netflix original starring Ben Lamb and Rose McIver stands the test of time. The sequels that follow, not so much, but that’s beside the point. As an undercover journalist, McIver’s Amber pretends to be the princess’s tutor over the holidays in order to get a juicy royal story. Instead, she finds a real family, a man who’s completely misunderstood, and the meaning of love — all around the many Christmas trees in the castles of Aldovia.

Director: Stephen Donnelly

Cast: Luke Evans, Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Jonathan Pryce

Plot: On a cold Christmas Eve, selfish miser Ebenezer Scrooge has one night left to face his past — and change the future.

Director: Debbie Allen

Cast: Dolly Parton, Jenifer Lewis, Josh Segarra, Jeanine Mason

Plot: Seasonal cheer comes to a screeching halt when a cold-hearted woman tries to sell her hometown’s land. Can music, magic and memories change her mind?

Variety’s Review: “Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square” — which, yes, is the film’s full Christian name — brings together a consciously inclusive cast to sing with aggressive sincerity about the joys of Christmas, hope and faith. Directed and choreographed by Debbie Allen, dancing comes as naturally to these characters as breathing, and even when Parton’s songs start to blend together, they get a boost from the likes of Jeanine Mason and Jenifer Lewis belting them

Director: Bradley Walsh

Cast: Kat Graham, Quincy Brown, Ethan Peck, Ron Cephas Jones.

Plot: A talented photographer stuck in a dead-end job inherits an antique Advent calendar that may be predicting the future — and pointing her toward love.

Director: Hernán Jiménez

Cast: Nina Dobrev, Jimmy O. Yang, Darren Barnet

Plot: After meeting her perfect match on a dating app, an L.A. writer learns she’s been catfished when she flies 3,000 miles to surprise him for Christmas.

Variety’s Review: There’s a modicum of delight hidden within director Hernán Jiménez’s holiday-themed romantic comedy “Love Hard” — if audiences can get past the conceit that an attractive, self-respecting woman would be so desperate for a boyfriend that she’d stick around after a potential beau pulls a despicable deed by “catfishing” her.