Updated December 13, 2024—now includes 40 movies!

I don't know who allowed this to happen, but Christmas is just around the corner. So be of good cheer, and all that—you're running out of days to make it onto the nice list.

In order to ensure your season is merry and bright, I've compiled this list of the best and worst newish Christmas movies to watch. The selections are from movies released in the last 10 years, but usually even more recently than that. Fair warning: Most of these are not good movies. If not for the season, I wouldn't have watched 80% of them. But when it comes to Christmas, I've found it’s best to grade on a generous curve. 

I've thus grouped the movies into rough categories. If I applied the same grouping to Star Wars, it’d break down something like this:

• Don’t Waste Your Time: The Rise of Skywalker. Seriously. Don’t even bother.
• You Could Definitely Do Better: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones. Watchable if you have the time or love the genre.
• An Okay Way to Spend a Few Hours: Revenge of the Sith. Solidly okay.
• Good, Not Quite Great: The Return of the Jedi, Solo, The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi. Movies I will gladly watch.
• Great Movies: The Empire Strikes Back, A New Hope, Rogue One. Best of the best.

(Even this is a sliding scale because I'm predisposed to love all things Star Wars.)

Oh—I mention in a few places if a movie made me tear up, but that should in no way be taken as an endorsement in and of itself. I am a notoriously easy cry, a fact my teenage daughter takes great delight in. She started giving me sentimental cards just to watch my reaction. Let me tell you something, brother: Few things will emasculate you quicker and more completely than your daughter laughing at you while you cry. 

Movies in each section are in alphabetical order, not order of preference. I also mostly refer to the actor playing the role, not the character, because the character's name rarely matters in these movies.

Don’t Waste Your Time

I don't know how I can make this any clearer. Do not watch these movies. Go clean your neighbor’s toilet or try to convince a social media rando their opinion is wrong. You'll enjoy yourself more. 

Best. Christmas. Ever! (2023)

Damn. Filthy. Lies!

This is a deeply unfunny comedy about a family that accidentally ends up at a college friend's house for Christmas instead of Heather Graham's sister's. I imagine you have a lot of questions after reading that sentence. The answers are dumb and just get dumber.

Poor Heather Graham tries, but there's only so much she can do. I kept hoping Jason Biggs would throw her a lifeline and start humping a pie, but he's settled into the frumpy, vaguely-overweight stage of life known as middle age. He'd probably throw out his back if he went to town on a pastry.

I'd rather watch that.

Christmas Island (2023)

Christmas Island is about a commercial pilot who levels up to chartering one-percenters around the globe. Vaguely bad weather forces her to land on—wait for it—Christmas Island. They’re furloughed for 4 or 5 days because the storm is like, super bad, certainly the most bad. Blizzard of the century stuff.

Here’s how you know this movie was shot in California: Twice the pilot checks her weather app and is aghast to see the temperature’s in the high 30s. Like 37 and 39. My wife and I looked at each other and laughed. It was the only laugh this movie earned, and not for the right reasons. (For my non-U.S. friends—water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit.) Even better: The exterior scenes were shot during bright, sunny days. Not a cloud in the sky. Where is this accursed storm they speak of?

There’s reconciliation and love and an appearance by Charmaine from Virgin River, who my wife and I are convinced was pregnant during filming (IYKYK). Unintentional laughs aside, one of the worst Christmas movies I’ve seen.

Father Christmas is Back (2021)

I had high hopes for this one. 

The streaming-only Christmas sub-genre tend to be marked by bad writing and no-name actors. This one has one of the more recognizable casts—Elizabeth Hurley, Kelsey Grammar, John Cleese—but the fact that none of them have done any work of note in about 20 years should’ve been a clue. 

The story concerns four sisters who are reunited with their deadbeat dad around Christmas. The family's last name is also Christmas. Just to show you the caliber of writing we're dealing with here: trite, stupid, and emotionally stunted.

Holly Star (2018)

Streaming for free on Vudu, Plex, and The Roku Channel because nobody would pay to watch this.

A puppeteer finds love while looking for buried treasure around her hometown. 

Re-read that premise. 

If that’s not enough to steer you away from this train wreck, this movie also includes creepy puppet scenes. Just look at that screenshot!

You Could Definitely Do Better

You would probably never watch these movies under any circumstances except tis the season and you’re chasing that holiday buzz. They might be ugly, but they’ll get the job done. 

A California Christmas (2020)

Rich yuppie falls for farm girl after masquerading as a ranch hand in a nefarious plot to swindle the girl’s farm away from her. The stupid plot is only surpassed by the terrible acting—I assumed most of these people never acted again, but incredibly there’s a sequel. Equally surprising: I might actually watch it.

A Castle for Christmas (2021)

This movie somehow turns a Scottish castle, Cary Elwes, Brooke Shields, and a charming assortment of local oddballs into a forgettable movie. It's sorta heartwarming, and I appreciate a love story involving older people. But still. This is not As Good as It Gets. It's not even The Bucket List.

The Christmas Chronicles: Part 2 (2020)

The first Christmas Chronicles was legitimately good (more on that later), so Netflix decided to run it back. But they jettisoned everything that made the first movie enjoyable. Instead, we get an evilish, cackling Kiwi Belsnickel. As always, The Office did it better. 

Christmas Inheritance (2017)

Uptown girl visits the dinky little hometown where her father started his business and levels up her empathy game. And she falls in love with a local who looks a lot like Plop from The Office.

Poor Andie MacDowell slumming it in this forgettable film is a prime example of how Hollywood shuts out actresses of a certain age. I was hoping she was a producer on the film or something, but no. This was strictly for a paycheck. The good news—she kills it in Maid a few years later and was nominated for a Golden Globe, which is maybe the best thing that can be said for this movie. It kept MacDowell fed until she could complete her come up.

‘A Christmas Prince’ Trilogy (2017-2019)

Do women really get worked up over a guy just because he’s a rich and handsome prince? Just once, I’d love to see a movie about an American falling for the prince’s butler or maybe his janitor. This is really just an extension of my ongoing disbelief about America’s fascination with royalty. Didn’t we go to war with the British to free us of such tyranny?

A Christmas Prince is a full-on trilogy wrung from the most tired yet bountiful of premises: normal American girl falls for Prince (ofc) and they end up together despite the difficulties imposed by his station. My favorite thing about these films is the lengths they go to make it seem like they occur in a British-adjacent kingdom without actually existing on any map. Imagine The Princess Diaries: Christmas Edition without the great actors and clever writing. 

My daughter loved them. Watching them with her made me enjoy them, too.

Christmas Without You (2022)

Guys. Freddie Prinze Jr. has gotten old. 

I think maybe it was the shock of seeing him for the first time in like 15 years, but my man is pushing 50. Which basically means that those of us who were teenagers when he was in movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer and She’s All That are getting hella old, too. I did not expect to be blindsided by existential angst in a budget Netflix holiday movie, but there you go. Merry Christmas.

In this flick, Freddie is a dorky, middle-aged music man living with his daughter and his mother. A pop superstar ends up at his house for ridiculous reasons, and Freddie makes sweet, sweet music with her. It’s fine.

Falling for Christmas (2022)

Lindsay Lohan stars as a rich socialite who loses her memory after a skiing accident and develops feelings for the guy who rescued her. Is it romantic or is it Stockholm syndrome? It doesn't matter—you won't really care either way. Sorta heartwarming but feels very performative.

Finding Santa (2017)

Little Stephanie from Full House is all grown-up and I just can't even deal with it. I never got into Fuller House, so it's a legitimate shock seeing her as a grown woman.

She plays a character who basically plans Christmas for an entire little town. When the local Santa throws out his back, Stephanie has to find a replacement for the big parade, which is being broadcast across the country. The good news: despite being at least 60-years-old, Santa has a hunky 20-something son who would be perfect, actually. He even went to Santa School.

Finding Santa isn't exactly a rom or a com. It just sorta is.

Holiday in the Wild (2019)

I’m going to channel some Chris Traeger energy right now: Rob Lowe is literally the most unbelievable African bushman I’ve ever seen. He still manages to sweep Kristin Davis off her feet because he’s Rob Freaking Lowe. 

Oh: Baby elephants are literally the cutest animals. The setting is easily the best part of this movie.

Haul Out the Holly (2022)

Lacey Chabert goes home for the holidays. Her parents leave the moment she arrives. I can only assume they, too, are tired of seeing her at Christmas.

That joke's gonna be a lot funnier once you see how many of these movies she's in.

Lacey's parents live in a community where the HOA rules with a mitten-lined fist, and the president is a man with an addiction to Christmas that would be certifiable if this wasn't a Hallmark movie. Naturally, Lacey falls for him.

Look out for Ned Ryerson (Stephen Tobolowsky) from Groundhog Day, who's the sole highlight.

Lights, Camera, Christmas! (2022)

An Americanized version of the fairytale prince storyline.

An uber-talented seamstress just sort of existing has her life up-ended when a movie starts shooting in her tiny town. Things Happen, which requires her to work on the movie. She gradually develops a relationship with the film's lead, a handsome and douchey guy that lives the G.I. Joe motto (i.e. more than meets the eye).

I really liked this movie, but the ending completely crapped the bed. Like, poop all over the place. Remember that scene in Daddy Day Care where Eddie Murphy checks the bathroom after the toddler uses it? That's the level of poop we're talking about. Inexplicable amounts of poop.

If not for the horrifically bad ending, this would've been in the next category.

Looks Like Christmas (2016)

This one is also called Christmas Carol, apparently, because Anne Heche plays a woman with a Christmas fetish so legendary the town has started calling her names. It's ostensibly about a pair of single parents finding each other over the holidays. It's nothing you haven't seen before.

Watching it, I mostly felt sad about the tragic turn Anne Heche's life took. Which has nothing to do with this very formulaic movie, but also inescapable.

The Merry Gentlemen (2024)

A festive Magic Mike because what Christmas has been missing all along is male strippers. It’s PG so don’t expect to see any Yule logs. 

I don’t know what the high and low end of the hunky Christmas movie genre is—someone else please bear that cross—but I can say The Merry Gentlemen is no Hot Frosty, which itself is a poor man’s The Knight Before Christmas. 

The Merry Gentlemen falls under the wide umbrella of sorta-cute and kinda-fun. The whole time you’re watching, you’re cognizant that there are better uses of your time. So you keep watching for a payoff that never fully materializes. 

My favorite part is Alex P. Keaton’s dad cheering on the half naked men dancing to save his business. You could make an analogy about the rich exploiting the working man, but this isn’t that kind of movie. Though I’d love to see one where a Musk-analogue has to rely on pro bono strippers to save his livelihood, and in the process discovers something that looks like a soul. Anyway, just happy to see an old face from my childhood again. 

The male lead of The Merry Gentlemen looks vaguely familiar in a “2000s era CW hunk who’s now 20 years older” kinda way. He headlined a bunch of Walmart commercials over Thanksgiving weekend, a development my sister-in-law couldn’t quite accept or believe; having now seen The Merry Gentlemen, it makes perfect sense to me.

A Merry Scottish Christmas (2023)

If the Hallmark Christmas movie sub-genre has a unifying message, it’s this: White people problems are not really problems at all. They’re quaint, sometimes zany situations that can be solved by being very earnest. That’s obviously not true, but it’s interesting that this is Hallmark’s worldview.

A Merry Scottish Christmas is about a pair of siblings who discover they are descendants of a Scottish royal bloodline, with a castle and all that implies. And then they have to decide if they want to return to their boring lives in America or live in Scotland as a literal duke and duchess. 

See? Not really problems in the traditional sense. 

This is a Lacey Chabert Hallmark movie, which is to say, mid. She does so many of these Hallmark Christmas movies I have to assume she shoots them year-round. You gotta wonder what that does to one’s psyche. Does she break into hives at the sight of gingerbread? I have to imagine some of the old Christmas magic gets lost when you’re being paid to shoot movies about fake Christmas magic. 

Here’s what’s special about A Merry Scottish Christmas—it unites Chabert with Scott Wolf, who played her older brother on Party of Five. It’s great seeing them on-screen together again. What are Neve Campbell and Matthew Fox doing these days? Because that’s the obvious sequel to this film.

Operation Christmas Drop (2020)

You may be thinking to yourself—hey, I know that guy! He’s from The Hunger Games / Vikings / Air Bud: World Pup. Welcome to the world of low-budget Christmas films, my friend. Most of these movies have at least one person you vaguely recognize, and then you spend the next 10 minutes tuning out the movie as you try to figure it out. Google is usually necessary.

Operation Christmas Drop is about a career-minded U.S. Senator’s aide who takes her power suits to a military base in the Pacific. She falls for an Air Force pilot who is basically an amalgamation of Santa Claus and Iceman from Top Gun. He flies around on Christmas Eve in a sleigh C-130 aircraft dropping presents supplies for children locals. The premise is based on a true story—the tradition goes back to 1952 and is the longest-running mission in Department of Defense history.

I might’ve teared up at the end.

A Very Country Christmas (2017)

A huge country music star hides out in the podunk town where he discovered his love of music, and discovers something else to love (hint: it's a girl). Really bad acting, but damn if I wasn’t a bit moved by the cliched and predictable ending. 

There’s an actual country music star in this movie (Deana Carter) who I didn’t recognize and then thought maybe she was June Carter’s daughter, a notion my wife quickly disabused me of. The fact that I didn’t know who Deana Carter was and then tried to invent some way of making her famous sums up her stardom, and also this movie.

An Okay Way to Spend a Few Hours

These movies are all close to being solidly-good, but are held back by something glaring. You'll enjoy yourself, but you won't rush to revisit them.

A Biltmore Christmas (2023)

This movie was the hardest to place on this list. My wife thought it was straight-up cheesy, but I'm sticking to my guns. I really enjoyed it.

A Biltmore Christmas is about a screenwriter who travels to the location where an iconic 1940s film was shot. A mysterious (and apparently magical) hourglass gets tipped over, sending her back to the 40s. Naturally she falls in love with one of the actors, a man fated to die a year later.

Yes, time travel. But it works!

A Biltmore Christmas is a romantic Christmas movie. There's no other way to say it. With much of it occurring during the 1940s, the actors feel classy in a way that's timeless. I'm not saying this movie is on par with our own black-and-white classics, just that it evokes the era so well that it manages to harness some of its mojo. Which was frankly shocking considering it's a Hallmark production.

Jonathan Frakes co-stars. I honestly expected him to be the highlight and planned on mocking plot developments by mirroring his skepticism from Beyond Belief. But I got swept up in the tale, and the jokes never came.

Christmas As Usual (2023)

A Norwegian takes her Indian boyfriend / new fiancé home for Christmas. Stereotypes and misunderstandings cause all manner of drama, some of which are actually funny. Example: The boyfriend discovers his hosts have an Indian spice labeled "black boy." It's all fun and games until your casual racism is exposed.

The movie keeps things light as per genre requirements, so don't expect any deep or meaningful deliberations on biases or race. It's also based on a true story. I sincerely hope the spice bottles were an invention by the film.

Christmas in Notting Hill (2023)

This one features the grown-up versions of two quasi-famous faces, a Hallmark specialty.

William Moseley, better known as Peter from The Chronicles of Narnia, has grown up and become a famous soccer player—or footballer, if you're not American. Sarah Ramos, aka Haddie Braverman, aka Jessica from The Bear, is one such person, so she has no bloody clue who William is. This is actually a crucial plot point.

Poor William has been unable to find a girl who likes him for who he is—young and handsome, as opposed to young and handsome and also rich and famous—so he decides to pursue this ignorant American, who fate and the screenwriters have placed in his path because her sister is dating William's brother. I knew England was small compared to America, but I had no idea it was that small.

It's contrived but enjoyable.

Family Switch (2023)

This movie is the equivalent of the guy who drives a new Ferrari and lives in a dilapidated trailer. Money was spent in flashy ways, but you have to think it could’ve been used a bit smarter.

Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms are both great, and the movie is stuffed to the gills with licensed music—including such timeless Christmas classics as Bust A Move and Pony. Someone helpfully recreated the soundtrack on Spotify. It’s 32 songs. Money was spent on this movie. Alas, that money was not spent on the script.

Family Switch looks (and sounds!) like a great movie, but it is not a great movie. It’s a weird mash-up of basically every 'body swap' movie with a dash of A Christmas Carol. If that sounds good to you, by all means. 

Haul Out the Holly: Lit Up (2023)

The first Haul Out the Holly sets a low bar, so I was genuinely surprised that I liked the sequel. This time around, an annoying Instagram-famous family moves into the neighborhood and shakes things up. The HOA balances on the edge of a knife. Lacey Chabert and her Santa-obsessed boyfriend are the only thing standing between tradition and the sort of chaos seen in Mad Max.

It's all more than a little ridiculous. But I'm mostly here for Ned Ryerson's duplicitous heel turn this time around. Christmas movies could use more subterfuge and low-stakes backstabbing.

Hot Frosty (2024)

The premise is three shades of stupid—magic scarf brings hunky snowman to life; hijinks ensue and love happens—but the Christmas movie genre is the one time I completely turn off my internal critic and also my own good sense. That’s the spirit of the season at work. 

I could explain the premise further but what’s the point. You know what you’re getting any time you see Lacey Chabert headlining. Hot Frosty is a Hallmark movie with a Netflix budget, which is how they cast Craig Robinson as a small-town sheriff with a big-time boner for justice. I especially appreciated Robinson’s takes directly to camera.

This movie works best as a satire of the genre itself.

I Believe in Santa (2022)

A grown-ass man legit believes in Santa Claus and somehow lands a hot girlfriend. I Believe in Santa is easily the most ridiculous premise on this entire list, including Hot Frosty.

I actually enjoyed this one.

It addresses belief and faith in a way I’ve not often seen in a Christmas film, which is kinda sad when you think about the reason for the season. If you can overlook the fact that the leading man looks like a pedophile, this one is worth a chance.

Merry & Bright (2019)

I made the mistake of watching two Jodie Sweetin (e.g. Stephanie from Full House) Hallmark movies back-to-back. I would not recommend it. These movies are all so similar that it's hard to separate one from the other when you consume them in close proximity.

I've now watched over a dozen of Hallmark Christmas movies. People talk about the MCU formula, but Marvel has nothing on Hallmark. Every Hallmark Christmas movie is guaranteed to have the following:

• a meet-cute in which one or both of the leads actively dislike each other.
• a Christmas tree lighting scene that takes on an outsized importance.
  • There's a 50% chance the lightning will fail, which will require one of the leads to sweep in and save the day.
• people holding coffee cups that are clearly empty.
• slow dancing.
• a snowball fight or some other wintery activity (ice skating, sledding, etc.), during which feelings blossom.
• a happy ending completely telegraphed by the movie's first few minutes.

Merry & Bright is all of these things. It's about a woman running her grandmother's candy cane empire who finds a way to save the day and someone to warm her bed. I kinda liked it though.

Midnight at the Magnolia (2020)

This is a super cute movie about two best friends gradually realizing they have feelings for each other when they're forced to pretend to be a couple for reasons I won't go into. Midnight at the Magnolia succeeds on the strength of the two leads, who are both very likable. Even though I saw the finale coming a mile away, tears were still shed. These movies, man.

I briefly considered moving this into the Good, Not Great category because I liked it so much. It's not there, quality-wise, but I did enjoy it.

The Noel Diary (2022)

Ridiculously handsome Kevin Pearson from This is Us (his name is actually Justin Hartley, apparently, but he’ll always be Kev to me) stars as a writer whose tragic past prevents him from letting people in, until the right girl literally lands on his doorstep. The writing is the big letdown on this one; the film doesn’t really climax but instead just sorta ends. Gets by on Hartley's charisma and stubbled jawline.

Nutcrackers (2024)

Ben Stiller headlines this bizarre yet charming holiday film on Hulu. He plays a Chicago real estate developer, which falls below New York stock broker and Silicon Valley tech executive on the yuppie scale. Despicable, but make it Midwestern.

Here’s how far he has his head up his own butt: His sister and brother-in-law die, leaving behind 4 young sons, and his chief concern is finding someone to take them off his hands. To the point of approaching random rich dudes at supermarkets. 

Fortunately, Linda Cardellini is there to straighten him out. I enjoyed this movie, but it’s crazy that in the year of our Lord 2024, there are still films in which the most notable female character is there solely to point out what an idiot the main character is. 

Our Little Secret (2024)

Lindsay Lohan and her male co-star are childhood friends who level up into a romantic relationship, and then break-up for reasons not fully explored or explained but occur to give the movie an inciting incident. Lohan and her one-true-love unknowingly end up dating a brother and sister, which they discover at Christmas. They decide to keep their past a secret (per the movie’s title) for dumb plot reasons. Apart from all that, this movie is actually pretty good when graded on the Christmas movie curve.

Our Little Secret embraces a Christmas movie tradition that looks cool in movies but has never happened to anyone in the history of the world. I’m referring to the trope where everyone arrives at their Christmas destination many days before the holiday and then there’s a communal effort to get ready. The tree lot scene, which segues into the decorating montage. The making cookies scene. The shopping scene. It’s all so artificial—who shows up at Christmas without gifts? In what world can you buy a decent tree 2 days before Christmas?—but I love it so much. Even Christmas Vacation, one of my favorite holiday movies, hits all these high notes. It’s a cheap trick, plot-wise, but damn effective.

Our Little Secret is a fun movie that never manages to cross over into legit funny. I don’t think I laughed once, and I laugh at everything. But I enjoyed watching this one.

Take Me Back for Christmas (2023)

This is the first movie we streamed on the Hallmark Channel, and it was good enough to convince me to try others.

Despite the name, Take Me Back for Christmas is not exactly a movie about reconciliation. It's actually about wish fulfillment, and how we sometimes overlook what we have in favor of what we want.

The main character gets to see what life would've been like if she'd pursued her dreams, and then she spends her time trying to get her new life to resemble her old one. Which is to say, she spends it chasing a boy, because Hallmark.

Good, Not Quite Great

These films are not classics, but given how evergreen the Christmas genre is and how few of the new movies are actually decent, they will probably enter my seasonal rotation.

The Christmas Chronicles (2018)

Kurt Russell hams it up as the jolly old fat man himself. I’m not gonna say he was born to play Saint Nick, but he can certainly fill-out his suit. 

The best Christmas movies about about family and redemption, and this one has it in spades. The Christmas Chronicles is about a pair of kids rediscovering their love of Christmas and the importance of family after the death of their father.

I cried, naturally.

Holidate (2022)

A pair of attractive singles pretend to be in a relationship for a year’s worth of holidays and start catching feelings. Funny and heartwarming. The rare Christmas movie with a MA rating, which it uses to full effect. Even rarer: A Christmas rom-com that's actually funny.

The Knight Before Christmas (2019)

The Knight Before Christmas is about a time-traveling British medieval knight (budget Jason London, whose name is actually Josh Whitehouse) who ends up in present day America. Taken by his old world chivalry, Vanessa Hudgens offers up her sofa, something any single woman would obviously do if some guy in armor legitimately believed he was a knight.

Insanity aside, this is one of the better Netflix Christmas movies. It's actually pretty funny. I was surprised at how much I laughed. 

Here’s how much I like this movie: I was disappointed to discover there isn’t a sequel yet. Meanwhile, they somehow squeezed an entire trilogy out of A Christmas Prince. 

Love Hard (2021)

Jian Yang from Silicon Valley catfishes a girl so convincingly she flies 3000 miles to surprise him for Christmas. Shenanigans ensue, but amid the chaos, sparks fly. I initially had this in the ‘great’ category but came to my senses, but it's very good.

I just now realized Love Hard is probably a reference to Die Hard. 

Also: I know this is the third movie in a row I'm saying this, but Love Hard is hilarious. Of the three I just called funny, it's the funniest.

Single All The Way (2021)

Marc from Ugly Betty (e.g. Michael Urie) convinces his best friend to pretend to be his boyfriend for Christmas. He's super tired of facing all the questions about why he's such a mess, romantically—because he's Marc from Ugly Betty, duh—and just wants a season of good cheer. Unbeknownst to him, his mom has already set him up on a blind date with her spinning instructor.

You probably can already guess where this is headed. Despite that, there were a few surprises along the way. My favorite part is the blind date is a really good guy, actually. As depicted in movies, love often seems like a zero-sum game, but there are no losers here. Just people looking for companionship.

I wish I could explain what the hell Jennifer Coolidge is doing in this movie. Is she high? She's sort of just there, aimlessly oozing sexuality for the sake of it. I guess because she's Jennifer Coolidge? Feels like a wasted opportunity.

Three Wise Men and a Baby (2022)

Whether you see this as an homage to the 80s classic Three Men and a Baby or a blatant rip-off, the fact remains that this is a good Christmas movie. It's clearly a budget film, starring people you've never seen outside of a Hallmark Channel production—apart from the mom, who starred as Jeff Goldblum's ex-wife in Independence Day. There are no real surprises in this movie. But sometimes, a bit of well-done sentimentality is exactly what you want this time of year.

It's also pretty funny.

Great Movies

This is the shortest section.

I don’t know why it’s so difficult to create a great Christmas movie—I’m not asking for timeliness here, just filmmaking that aims to be more than competent—but the fact remains that making a great Christmas movie is akin to scaling Mount Everest, or perhaps Mount Doom.

Klaus (2019)

This Pixar-esque modern classic tells an alternate origin story for Santa Claus, one with a heavy Norwegian influence. It's sort of Grinch-like, as the main character discovers the joy of giving and helping, even though he is (at first) very selfish and self-motivated.

You can debate what a movie has to be about in order to be a Christmas movie. For some people, just having it take place around Christmas is enough to satisfy their criteria. For my money, Christmas movies are about something more. Something elemental.

Klaus is one of the purest distillations of the Christmas spirit. When I watch a movie in December, that is what I'm after. The contented, cozy, almost-full feeling that everything will be alright.

Yep, just the one great film. Klaus is also the only animated story on this list. I wonder if there's anything to that.