Lounging in your living room, glued to your screen, you might find that the ultimate escape is closer than you think. Even if you’ve never been a fan of the peculiarly schmaltzy genre that is the Christmas film, this is 2025—meaning that, after months of global crises, uncertainty, existential dread, and political chaos, watching one of the best Christmas movies of all time while sipping a steaming mug of Kenyan coffee might just be the best way to get into the festive spirit.
Of course, you should start with the real classics, like the ’50s Hollywood adaptation of A Christmas Carol as well as It’s a Wonderful Life—but there are also a number of more contemporary releases to work your way through, from the Kristen Stewart-led charmer Happiest Season to Emilia Clarke’s rom-com with a twist, Last Christmas.
Below, 10 of the best Christmas movies to binge watch now:
1. While You Were Sleeping
A pitch-perfect ’90s rom-com, While You Were Sleeping begins when lonely Chicago Transit Authority worker Lucy (Sandra Bullock) saves handsome commuter Peter (Peter Gallagher) from being crushed by the L train on Christmas day. In the almost Shakespearean confusion that follows, the now-comatose Peter’s family assumes that Lucy is his fiancé – a mistake she fails to correct – until she ends up spending more and more time with Peter’s equally charming brother Jack (Bill Pullman), and things get even more complicated.
2. Tangerine
Famously shot by Sean Baker on his iPhone 5, Tangerine centres on friends Alexandra (Mya Taylor) and Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez), a pair of trans sex workers who spend Christmas Eve on a quest to find Sin-Dee’s pimp-slash-boyfriend Chester (James Ransone), who’s been sleeping with a cis girl while Sin-Dee has been in prison. This is not your average depiction of the “night before Christmas”, but God it’s an excellent film – and one that turns out to be surprisingly heartwarming.
3. Bad Santa
If you tend to find the schmaltziness of Christmas obnoxious, prepare to fall for Billy Bob Thornton as a booze-soaked mall worker who uses his gig as Santa Claus to cover up his petty thefts. When he meets a desperately awkward (and Christmas-obsessed) boy named Thurman Merman, though, he ends up taking him under his wing, teaching him to stick up for himself with a little help from his girlfriend (played by Gilmore Girls’s Lauren Graham) and sidekick (Tony Cox). It’s still a feel-good movie, but with enough dark humour to keep cynics happy.
4. The Family Stone
The Family Stone might be the most middle-class Christmas film ever made – but it’s still a joy to watch. The simple premise: anally retentive Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) heads to her boyfriend Everett’s (Dermot Mulroney) family home in Connecticut for the weekend, where his relatives take against her in a serious way – particularly his mother Sybil (Diane Keaton) and sister Amy (Rachel McAdams). Meredith’s questionable response? Calling in her own sibling Julie (Claire Danes) for back-up, only for Julie to catch Everett’s eye – and Meredith to drunkenly fall into the arms of Everett’s brother (Luke Wilson). Special mention to Meredith’s ill-fated Christmas dish, The Egg Strata.
5. Little Women
No, none of the dozens of screen adaptations of Louisa May Alcott’s 19th-century novel is technically a Christmas film – but a) there’s never a bad time to watch a Greta Gerwig movie and b) some of the most memorable scenes from the 2019 version take place in late December, from Jo’s staging of a Christmas pantomime to Marmee’s decision to give the girls’ festive breakfast to the Hummels.
6. Happiest Season
There are a number of brilliant queer Christmas films out there – hello, Home for the Holidays – but Happiest Season is a welcome addition, not least because Schitt’s Creek’s Dan Levy plays protagonist Abby’s (Stewart) gay best friend. Anyone who can get through his speech about coming out without weeping is… a robot. It also happens to be directed by Clea DuVall – who played the girlfriend of Selena’s daughter Catherine on Veep.
7. The Holiday
Love it or hate it, this saccharine movie has got all the bases covered when it comes to Christmas feels: unrequited love, new romance, handsome strangers in cosy pubs, and a snowy English village that looks like it would be an absolute nightmare for Ocado deliveries. As guilty pleasures go, The Holiday tops the list.
8. Scrooge
There seem to be umpteen adaptations of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol in the world, but we think the 1951 version starring Alastair Sim as the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is the best – with Michael Caine in the Muppets version coming a very close second, of course.
9. Elf
Elf, starring Will Ferrell as Buddy – a grown man who has accidentally been raised as one of Santa’s elves – has become something of a Christmas classic since its release in 2003. If Ferrell’s brand of comedy isn’t for you, then watch the film for Zooey Deschanel’s rendition of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”. If that doesn’t make you feel Christmassy, then nothing will.
10. It’s A Wonderful Life
If the measure of a good Christmas film is how much it can make you cry (which it is), then It’s A Wonderful Life is the greatest festive movie of all time. James Stewart as the worn down and depressed family man George Bailey, visited by his guardian angel on Christmas Eve, has us weeping into our cheese board before the opening credits have even stopped rolling.
11. Home Alone (One & Two)
When we were small, the thought of being left at home by our parents or stranded alone in a New York hotel room over Christmas seemed like the scariest, saddest thing imaginable. Now, it feels like it would be the dream Christmas experience (minus the bumbling burglars, naturally).
Leave a comment