The holidays are the most productive time to curl up on the couch and watch an old Christmas movie or 12. The proliferation of streaming has made almost everything available at will, from classic vintages like Miracle on 34th Street to future long-lasting vintages. . like Happiest Season, but locating your favorite movie can be a daunting task. That’s why I’ve compiled the 50 most productive Christmas movies and specials into an alphabetical list so you can locate and watch your favorite or notice a vintage you’ve never noticed before. .
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Walk through the molasses of the season with this classic Christmas-themed dark comedy starring Billy Bob Thornton as a very bad Santa Claus. It may have simply been an intentionally “offensive” comedy, but the holiday-centric redemption arc lifts it above the mud. .
Where to stream: Fubo, Paramount, PlutoTV
This smooth, beautiful, layered film proves that holiday videos don’t have to be dizzying stuffed animals. Based on Patricia Highsmith’s seminal lesbian novel, The Price of Salt, Carol tells a story of love and loneliness that is the best choice for viewing the holidays with consideration.
Where to Stream: Digital Rental
When a movie gets a Christmas-themed sequel, it’s a bad sign, but Best Man Holiday is better than the original. The charismatic cast and relaxed atmosphere of this ensemble comedy turn Christmas clichés into something new.
Where to stream: Peacock
A Charlie Brown-style Christmas is a lasting harvest because it doesn’t shy away from true pathos. It doesn’t try to protect its child audience from the sadder, darker side of life, so the end of Christmas redemption is, in fact, deserved.
Where to stream: AppleTV
There are too many “traditional” stories from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to list individually, and each has its favorite, but 1951’s Scrooge is the definitive version, just because.
Where to stream: Plex
Christmas Evil is the sordid story of one man’s murderous obsession with Christmas. It’s bigger than it has any right to be and presents the most productive ending in film history. Plus, it’s one of John Waters’ favorite Christmas movies, and that’s enough for me.
Where to stream: Fubo, AMC, Roku, Vudu, Tubi, Shudder, Night Flight
Hollywood’s vision of 1940s Christmas reaches its reassuring climax with Christmas in Connecticut, a romantic comedy starring Barbara Stanwyck that can be watched over and over again and never fails to be delicious.
Where to stream: Max
This movie hasn’t been around long enough to tell whether it will sink or swim in the world of Christmas movies, but it’s Lifetime’s first LGBTQ+ Christmas movie, and is sitting at 85% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, so I’m pulling for it.
Where to stream: Hoopla
Full of one-liners and unforgettable moments, A Christmas Story battles It’s a Wonderful Life for the name of the most iconic American Christmas movie of all time. I’m sure you’ve noticed it before, and I’m also sure you notice the whole thing every time it happens.
Where to stream: Max, TNT, TBS, TruTV
At Christmas at the Krank house, a circle of relatives organize a last-minute Christmas for their adult son. It’s very stupid and critics hated it, but it turns out to be getting bigger and bigger every year.
Where to stream: Prime Video, AMC, Hoopla, DirecTV, AMC
It’s not deep. It’s not important. But the Christmas holidays are fun enough to watch and soft enough to forget when wrapping presents. It’s like a comfy old movie slipper, ideal for the quieter time of the holidays.
Where to stream: Hulu
Die Hard is a Christmas movie, no doubt. It’s also the most action-packed movie in the entire genre. Bruce Willis is awesome, and the plot of the “average Joe who discovers himself in a huge situation” has a problem.
Where to stream: Starz, DirecTV
There are a lot of Hanukkah movies, so this Adam Sandler animated vehicle is a classic by default, but it’s still a fun little movie.
Where to stream: Prime, Hulu, AMC
Kid-friendly and hilarious for adults, it doesn’t get much better than Elf when you’re looking for a holiday comedy. Will Ferrell plays Buddy, the fish-out-of-water elf at the center of this story, whose wide-eyed optimism and unwavering conviction will melt even the coldest heart.
Where to stream: Max, Hulu, Paramount+
The fact that the Riverbottom Nightmare Band obviously won the gang war is enough to ruin this puppet-based Christmas festival.
Where to Stream: Prime Video
Time has been strangely characteristic of Ernest’s films: Slapstick ages more than any other form of comedy. If you haven’t noticed this one, check it out. It’s deliciously silly Christmas fun.
Where to stream: Disney+
Every year, dozens of filmmakers go crazy to capture the sophisticated combination of drama, laughter, and pathos that makes a Christmas movie a classic. The Family Stone is one of the few films that manages to generate anticipation.
Where to Stream: Fubo
Friday After Next is rarely considered a Christmas movie, but the holidays are an integral component of the plot. The third film in the Ice Cube Friday series begins with a guy in a Santa suit stealing a component of Craig and Day-Day, setting off a series of Christmas-centric Friday-style shenanigans.
Where to stream: Tubi
Frosty came out at a time when there were only 3 channels, so kids liked TV stuff because it was the only stuff that appeared on TV. But it far surpasses this bar thanks to the naturalistic performances of its child actors, a rarity at the time.
Where to Stream: Digital Rental on Plex
Joe Dante’s horror-comedy is rarely too afraid to satirize Christmas videos and Christmas itself, and he rarely wishes for it in the holiday season.
Where to stream: Maximum
Happiest Season breathes new life into the forced holiday rom-com genre by eliminating heterosexuality and keeping the magic of Christmas intact. This is my pick for a full-length classic.
Where to Stream: Hulu
Like the most productive Christmas movies, you’ll love this frothy romantic comedy and enjoy what you’ve got, even if you’re desperately looking to avoid being enchanted.
Where to stream: Fubo, Starz, AMC+, DirecTV
Robert Mitchum goes against the grain by scaring people in this cheerful romantic comedy from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Where to stream: Max
The story of eight-year-old Kevin McCallister being abandoned by his parents and stalked by hardened criminals could easily have been a horror movie, but instead, it’s a Christmas classic. Movies are wild like that.
Where to stream: Disney, Fubo, Starz, DirecTV
I love all Christmas videos that acknowledge misanthropes, and the Grinch is so obnoxious that his call has become synonymous with contempt for the holidays. It’s a shame that he still has to be redeemed, but hey, it’s Christmas.
Where to stream: Peacock
The original is way better than this re-imagining with Jim Carrey, but maybe I only think that because I saw the 1966 version as a kid.
Where to Stream: Fubo
There’s nothing that hasn’t already been said about Life is Beautiful, the definitive Christmas movie of all time. You already know you’re going to see it, so give up.
Where to stream: Prime Video
Christmas classics are either because they are wonderful videos or because you watched them at the right time in your life. Jack Frost is more like the latter to me, however, it’s a lot of people’s sentimental Christmas movie, so who am I to argue?With that one?
Arnold Schwarzenegger will step down as an action hero in this fast-paced comedy about consumerism and vacations. It probably wouldn’t replace anyone’s life, but it’s a perfectly constructed and perfectly paced artifact of the wonderful Hollywood of the nineties.
Where to stream: Disney, DirecTV
Christmas stories about “How Christmas Came to Be the Way It Is” seem very 1960s, however, this gorgeously animated Netflix feature brings back the genre in a big way by telling the story of Santa’s team with an ally.
Where to stream: Netflix
Powered by the strength of Queen stars Latifah, LL Cool J and Timothy Hutton, this Christmas film extols the virtues of life in the moment. Queen Latifah’s functionality as a woman who reacts to a terminal diagnosis by saying, “I guess I’m going to laugh until I die” is incredible.
Where to stream: Paramount, PlutoTV
This movie breaks the mold by combining the YA romance genre with the snow and tinsel tropes of the Christmas movie genre. It works strangely well, thanks in large part to its talented young cast.
Where to stream: Netflix
Despite appearances, clever vacation videos and romantic comedies want to be subtle, otherwise they sink into a reasonable feeling. Love Actually manages to walk a tightrope between cheesiness and genuine emotion, like any film ever made.
Where to stream: Netflix, AMC
Before she descended into an alcoholic abyss, Judy Garland was as big a star as you could be, and this is Garland at the height of her power. Meet Me in St. Louis is a singing, dancing holiday delight.
Where to stream: Maximum
This is a lesser-known Christmas movie, however it has been gaining popularity in recent years due to its combination of incredibly rich and incredibly young city dwellers who, no matter how wise they think they are, are.
Where to stream: Maximum
The story of A Miracle on 34th Street about the truth of Santa’s trial is sentimental and disgusting nonsense, but so is Christmas, so go back and take it. (But don’t look at the 1990s edition. There’s a limit. )
Where to stream: Disney, Prime Video
Like Bill Murray’s Scrooged, The Muppet Christmas Carol is different enough from other film adaptations of Dickens’ tale that it has no compatibility with the others, basically because most of the cast is made of felt. Other than that, the movie plays it. It’s pretty straightforward, but if you have kids, they’ll love this more than a dusty old black-and-white version.
Where to stream: Disney+
The genre of “classic Christmas movie” is broad enough to include both Jingle all the Way and Night of the Hunter, an unsettling tale of a murderous preacher with “love” tattooed on one hand and “hate” on the other. Hunter’s portrayal of Christmas as a brief moment of joy and imagination in the lives of joyless children makes it one of the most honest holiday films ever made.
Where to stream: Hoopla, Tubi, DirecTV, Pluto, FreeVee
You get two holidays for the price of one in this stop-motion animation classic where Jack Skellington, the King of Halloween Town tries to take over Christmas to bring some much-needed spookiness to the holiday. (Too bad he didn’t succeed.)
Where to stream: Disney
The Polar Express adds a new wrinkle to the hoary legend of Santa Claus by imagining a ghost train that takes children on an express trip to the North Pole to meet the man himself. The dead-eyed animation and too-much-ness of the movie creates a sense of mystery and otherworldliness that’s a little unsettling but so is Santa Claus.
Where to stream: Max, Hulu
Prancer, a film about a little woman who saves Christmas by caring for an injured reindeer, may be a forgotten trash can for kids, but it’s bigger than it has any right to be. It remains realistic and shows a deeper story about the nature of religion falling into sentimentality.
Where to stream: AMC+
Pitch-perfect performances from Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston take The Preacher’s Wife from a by-the-numbers holiday rom-com into a watch-every-year comfort movie of the highest order.
Where to stream: Fubo, Tubi, DirecTV
Maybe Rare Exports is just a perennial holiday crop in my house, but this Santa nature horror edition is a natural cinematic inventiveness and a delicious skewer of Christmas mythology, but don’t watch it with your kids.
Where to stream: Fubo, Peacock, Hoopla, Tubi, Kanopy, RedBox, PlutoTV, PopcornFlix, Fandor
Rudolph will never be beaten when it comes to the best holiday entertainment. The animation is amazing, the songs are unforgettable, and the story has that strength reserved for myths: it’s like Christmas itself condensed into 55 minutes.
Where to stream: Available for purchase on AppleTV, Amazon, GooglePlay, YouTube, Vudu
Christmas is for everyone, even the weird monsters who love the unexplainable videos that the rest of the world ignores. For them (for us, actually), an annual screening of Santa conquering the Martians is as much a Christmas culture as Life is Beautiful. for the people.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Fubo, MGM, Roku, Vudu, Tubi, PlutoTV, Night Flight, Shout Factory
Tim Allen stars in this story about a grumpy guy who kills Santa Claus and has to take care of himself. He learns everything about himself, strengthens his ties with his family, and indulges in the magic of the holidays—you know the drill.
Where to stream: Disney+, Fubo
Bill Murray sells this remake of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with his best interpretation of a cynical ’80s television executive’s capitulation to the Christmas spirit. It’s no bigger than Dickens, but it’s close.
Where to Stream: Prime Video
There’s something about Jimmy Stewart and Christmas movies. Like it’s a wonderful life, The Store Around the Corner is rarely strictly a Christmas movie, but the climactic events take place during the holidays, so it’s pretty close.
Where to stream: Maximum
Some Christmas movies take themselves very seriously. This is not one of those movies. It’s dumb fun from start to finish, and Neil Patrick Harris is a national treasure. Stoners need Christmas movies too, right?
Where to stream: Max, Paramount
Rounding out the list is White Christmas, an eternal holiday harvest starring Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney as they make their way through a lighthearted musical that makes for the ultimate holiday getaway.
Where to stream: Netflix
Stephen Johnson is a contributor to Lifehacker, where he covers pop culture and adds two weekly columns, “The Disconnected Adult’s Guide to Children’s Culture” and “What People Get Wrong This Week. “She graduated from Emerson College with a bachelor’s degree in Writing, Literature, and Publishing.
Previously, Stephen was editor-in-chief at NBC/Universal’s G4TV. At G4, he won a Telly Award for writing and was nominated for a Webby Award. Stephen has also written for Blumhouse, FearNET, Performing Songwriter magazine, NewEgg, AVN, GameFly, Art Connoisseur International Magazine, Fender Musical Instruments, Hustler Magazine, and other outlets. His paintings have aired on Comedy Central and screened at the Sundance International Film Festival, the Palm Springs International Film Festival, and the Chicago Horror Film Festival. He lives in Los Angeles, California.