If you need a new list of Christmas movies to binge watch on Netflix, we’ve got you covered.
Watching beloved Christmas classics – like It’s a Wonderful Life, Home Alone, Elf, (the kinda problematic?) Love, Actually, and (the perfect and most underrated Christmas movie) Last Holiday, to name a few – well and truly mark the start of the festive season.
These movies are forever seared into our hearts as the GOATS of Christmas movies, so much so that any attempt by streaming giants to make new ones just feel cringe, unoriginal and forced.
Case in point: As much as I love Chad Michael Murray and Lindsay Lohan and their much-awaited RESURGENCE on our screens, their recent wave of Netflix Christmas movies did not do them justice.
The script? Terrible. The acting? Terrible because of the aforementioned terrible script. The chemistry between the two romantic leads? You guessed it, terrible.
(But of course I still watched them. Those movies are my guilty pleasures, scratching the itch my itty-bitty Zillenial heart needs.)
And while new Christmas films just can’t compare to our yuletide favourites, Netflix does come up with average, or dare I say, above-average Netflix Christmas movies worth binge watching.
Look, I’m not gonna lie – my recommended list isn’t groundbreaking cinema. It’s festive cookie-cutter, corny fluff, very much based on unrealistic plots. But honestly, what better time than Christmas to switch off our brains and drift into a little harmless fantasy?
Meet Me Next Christmas (2024)
Hopeless romantic Layla (Christina Milian) catches her garbage of a long-term boyfriend cheating on her a couple of days before Christmas. Determined to turn her love life around, she hires concierge Teddy (former NFL player and certified hottie Devale Ellis) to hunt down tickets to a sold-out Pentatonix Christmas concert, all so she can track down a man from her impossibly dreamy airport meet-cute. The movie is charming and funny in its own right. You’ll find yourself laughing in steady bursts and the easy chemistry between Christina and Devale keeps you giggling all the way through.
Single All The Way (2021)
How I only found this film this year is an absolute shame, because this made me swooooon for days. Netflix’s first gay Christmas rom-com, Single All The Way centres around the love-trodden Hollywood social media manager Peter (Michael Urie), whose family is obsessed with both Christmas and changing his relationship status from ‘single’ to ‘in a relationship’.
After yet another break up just before the holidays, Peter asks his best friend and flatmate Nick (Philemon Chambers) to go home for Christmas with him and pretend to be his boyfriend to get his family off his back. Instead, his mum sets him up with a conventionally handsome and jacked gym trainer James (Luke Macfarlane).
It was a pure delight and refreshing to watch: a gay rom-com where the story isn’t just about the drama of coming out and their unsupportive family. The only honest downside? Jennifer Coolidge’s talent was wasted on this film, obviously the script is to blame.
Love Hard (2021)
A modern love story where Nina Dobrev plays Natalie, a writer who’s perpetually unlucky in love ends up matching with the handsome Tag (Darren Barnet).
He seems to be the perfect man for Natalie, the only caveat is that he lives across the country. Believing this was her chance at true love (and also, a really good story for her column solely about her dating horror stories), she flies across the country to meet Tag, only to find out that she’s been catfished by some other guy named Josh.
It’s an unpredictable film that will make you both laugh and cry. What I absolutely adore about this story is that Josh, played by Jimmy O Yang, breaks the Asian nerdy boy trope and brings so much more depth of his portrayal of an Asian man on screen.
My Secret Santa (2025)
After single mum Taylor (Alexandra Breckenridge) loses her job, her daughter gets accepted to an expensive snowboarding school at a luxury ski resort. She finds out that the staff receive a 50% family discount, so she heads onto the resort looking for job openings only to be told that the only one available was a seasonal Santa gig. And the most obvious solution to this was to disguise herself as an elderly man, with the help of her brother and his partner.
She then starts having feelings for the the resort manager Matthew, played be New Amsterdam’s Ryan Eggold. The only problem? Matthew only knows her as an old man. What could wrong?! Currently topping the Netflix top 10 movies, this one is well worth the comfort watch. (Don’t bother with A Merry Little Ex-Mas, trust me.)
Let It Snow (2019)
Based on 2008 young adult novel, co-authored by one of my teenage heroes John Green (The Fault in our Stars), Let It Snow follows three holiday romances in the fictional small town of Gracetown, North Carolina. Julie bumps into pop star Stuart at a train, where they end up spending the day together after their train stalled. Tobin finally realised he’s been in love with his best friend Angie all this time, but only after her attention has been taken by some rando hot college guy. Addie, annoyingly, is a little too attached to her also annoyingly flaky boyfriend, and is confronted by her inherent need for attention from men who don’t deserve her. (Familiar?) And her best friend, Dorrie, navigates her crush on a cool cheerleader who acts like she doesn’t know her at all in front of her squad.
Very chaotic, very teen-angsty, but let’s be real here, we’ve been obsessed with young adult TV dramas lately, so just call it a day and add this to your slate of Christmas movies.
