Top 10 Must-Watch Christmas Movies on Netflix for a Festive Binge

However, not all Christmas movies are created equal. Many are produced on tight budgets and schedules, often with modest expectations. While some viewers crave complex storytelling, others seek simpler fare during the holidays — a fact that explains Hallmark and Lifetime’s seasonal success. The films we’ve chosen from Netflix’s offerings stand out for their straightforward yet touching holiday stories, guaranteed to infuse your season with cheer. So grab your mistletoe, because things are about to get wonderfully festive.

Doppelgänger stories have been around for ages, tracing back to tales like Mark Twain’s “The Prince and the Pauper.” “The Princess Switch” brings this classic concept into the realm of Christmas films. Starring Vanessa Hudgens in dual roles, the movie features Stacy, a down-to-earth Chicago baker, and Lady Margaret Delacourt, a noblewoman engaged to a European prince. As fate would have it, the two women cross paths and decide to swap lives temporarily.

Online dating is not for the faint-hearted, often fraught with potential pitfalls. In “Love Hard,” Josh (Jimmy O. Yang) uses his childhood friend’s photos to enhance his dating profile. Meanwhile, Natalie (Nina Dobrev) isn’t entirely truthful about her own intentions, placing them on equal footing. This film humorously explores the complexities and deceptions of online romance, set against a holiday backdrop.

But when sparks begin to fly between Margaret and Stacy’s best friend Kevin (Nick Sagar), and Stacy and Prince Edward (Sam Palladio), things get a little bit more complicated (and just in time for Christmas, too). “The Princess Switch” is as sugary sweet as a Christmas cookie, and although it’s not breaking any new ground from a narrative perspective, it appealed to audiences enough to earn two sequels, “The Princess Switch: Switched Again,” and “The Princess Switch: Romancing the Star.” (They even introduce a third doppelgänger who’s an absolute train wreck, stretching plausibility but allowing Vanessa Hudgens to have a bit of fun.)

• Cast: Vanessa Hudgens, Sam Palladio, Nick Sagar 
• Director: Mike Rohl
• Runtime: 101 minutes
• Rating: TV-PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 63%

Internet dating is not for the faint of heart. It certainly comes with its share of risks. Your potential partner could secretly be a men’s rights activist, or married, or, in the case of Josh (Jimmy O. Yang) in “Love Hard,” using pictures of his childhood friend to make himself seem more appealing. Of course, in “Love Hard,” Natalie (Nina Dobrev) is not exactly honest about her intentions either, so they’re pretty much even. 

Natalie is writing an article about terrible dating app encounters; Josh is sweet but desperately lonely with zero self-confidence. They might not make sense together on the face of it, but in a Christmas movie like this, it’s basically inevitable that they’ll fall in love. “Love Hard” is an endearing little rom-com, but what sets it apart from other holiday films of its ilk is its ever-so-slightly acerbic sense of humor — there’s a little bit of bite to cut the otherwise overwhelming sweetness. And honestly, kudos to “Love Hard” for giving Jimmy O. Yang, best known for his breakout role on “Silicon Valley,” a crack at a leading man role, because he’s a delight here.

• Cast: Nina Dobrev, Jimmy O. Yang, Darren Barnet
• Director: Hernan Jimenez
• Runtime: 104 minutes
• Rating: TV-MA
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 53%

There’s something to be said for the traditional interpretation of classic Christmas stories, but on the other hand: What if Frosty the Snowman was human, and hot? That’s the basic premise of “Hot Frosty” (it does, after all, say everything that needs to be said with its title). After the death of her husband, Kathy (Lacey Chabert) has found herself a little bit lost. She can’t even muster up the emotional energy to fix the heat in her house, let alone begin resuming her life. And she’s certainly not ready to throw herself back into the holiday season, or for that matter, the dating scene.

But things change when a new, extremely peculiar guy shows up in town — one who happens to be a snowman magically brought to life (played gamely by Dustin Milligan, who you may recognize from “Schitt’s Creek,” or, for our history nerds, “The X Company”). Look, is “Hot Frosty” a good movie? Of course not. Is it mediocre? We don’t even know if we would give it that. But somehow, it goes so far into cheesy Christmas territory that it circles all the way back into being inexplicably watchable. There must be some kind of holiday magic at play here.

• Cast: Lacey Chabert, Dustin Milligan, Craig Robinson
• Director: Jerry Ciccoritti
• Runtime: 92 minutes
• Rating: TV-PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 76%

With the Netflix film “Klaus,” audiences get a new take on the origin of Christmas, one that is brought to life via stunning animation that earned it an Academy Award nomination for best animated feature. Jason Schwartzman stars as the ultimate nepo baby Jesper, whose Postmaster General father sends him to run the post office in a notoriously remote Northern island filled with bickering village people. The only way for him to avoid being financially cut off is if he can manage to turn their flailing postal service around — a task easier said than done.

While there, he encounters Klaus (J.K. Simmons), who lives deep in the woods and, after the loss of his wife Lydia, has chosen the life of a hermit. All he has are the elegant, innovative toys that he makes — which he and Jesper work together to distribute to the local children, who begin writing letters to Klaus with their deepest wishes. Lovingly animated and filled with unexpected emotion, thanks especially to the brusque but moving performance from J.K. Simmons as the ersatz Kris Kringle, “Klaus” adds another layer to the mythology of Santa Claus, and Christmas itself.

• Cast: Jason Schwartzman, J.K. Simmons, Rashida Jones
• Director: Sergio Pablos
• Runtime: 96 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

These days, it seems like any Christmas rom-com on a streaming service has to feature a member of a royal family. Netflix, Hallmark, and Lifetime are responsible for creating more new fictional nations than all the imperial powers of the 1800s combined. In “A Christmas Prince,” burgeoning journalist Amber (Rose McIver) poses as a young princess’s tutor in order to get the skinny on her older brother, Prince Richard (Ben Lamb), and the rumored succession crisis. Richard is none too fond of his royal responsibilities, and has a reputation for being a bit of a man about town. 

But as Amber gets to know him — and gets in a little too deep with her assumed identity — she learns more about who he really is, and can’t help herself from falling for him. A Christmas-themed love story, “A Christmas Prince” won over audiences with its charm and earnestness, enough so that it quickly generated two sequels, “A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding,” and “A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby.” (Neither of those quite lived up to the spark of the original film — and some of its plot points don’t exactly pass family-friendly muster.)

We love the subgenre of kids messing with Santa Claus on Christmas. Well, there really aren’t that many films that fall into that category, but among them, “The Christmas Chronicles” is surely one of the best. It stars the always delightful (and prolific) Kurt Russell as Santa Claus himself, who has to team up with a pair of siblings after they accidentally cause his sleigh to crash, losing everyone’s presents in the process. 

What follows is a holiday-themed adventure as the trio work against time to make sure to deliver on the Christmas miracle, preventing a generation of kids from losing faith in Santa in the process — as well as helping Teddy (Judah Lewis) and Kate (Darby Camp) find something to celebrate about the holiday in the wake of their father’s death. “The Christmas Chronicles” performed well enough that it launched a sequel, “The Christmas Chronicles 2,” which was released two years later. The follow-up film reunited much of the main cast, including its two young stars. They are well into their teen years, and grumpy and cynical to boot.

Modern men are fine and all that, but when it comes to a quality Christmas romance, there’s nothing like a little time travel to bring a bona fide chivalric knight into the present. “The Knight Before Christmas” stars Vanessa Hudgens (who is quickly becoming a familiar face in this subgenre) as Brooke, a high school science teacher in a small town, who has little time or inclination for romance. (Unlike many of her Christmas rom-com cohorts, she’s not a high-powered city gal who learns about the charms of small town life from an artisanal candle maker.) But she’s thrown for a loop when Sir Cole (Josh Whitehouse) arrives from the Middle Ages, his earnestness a balm for her cynical heart. 

In real life, he would probably smell pretty ripe and have views on women in society that we would likely consider problematic, but this is a light-hearted Christmas film, after all, so he’s pretty much the perfect guy. And although they’ve undeniably got some bumps ahead of them (how, for instance, does he plan on finding a job anywhere other than Medieval Times?), it’s hard not to get swept up into their incredibly sweet romance.

• Cast: Vanessa Hudgens, Josh Whitehouse, Emmanuelle Chriqui
• Director: Monika Mitchell
• Runtime: 92 minutes
• Rating: TV-PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 71%

After a near-death experience that led to a traumatic heart transplant, Kate (Emilia Clarke) hasn’t exactly been in the holiday spirit (despite the fact that her extremely ironic day job is as an elf at a Christmas shop year-round). In fact, her entire life has been on hold since then; almost as though she did die. That is, until she meets Tom (Henry Golding), whose warmth and kindness makes her feel like she wants to try to actually start living.

The twist in “Last Christmas” isn’t particularly twisty — after all, the first line in the song is “last Christmas, I gave you my heart,” so the question of where (and from who) she got the heart is fairly well-signposted. But although the film isn’t exactly full of surprises, it’s still charming in its own way, thanks especially to the chemistry between Clarke and Golding in the two lead roles. And of course, it deserves credit for landing some of the best supporting talent any Christmas movie could hope for, with Emma Thompson playing Kate’s mother and Michelle Yeoh as her boss. Unfortunately, it has joined the company of the biggest holiday box office bombs — perhaps undeservedly so.

• Cast: Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Emma Thompson
• Director: Paul Feig
• Runtime: 103 minutes
• Rating: PG-13
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 46%

Trying to figure out who you’re going to bring to holiday parties throughout the year can be exhausting, especially when you don’t have a significant other yet have to be surrounded by happy couples. “Holidate” presents a life hack (and familiar rom-com trope) where Sloane (Emma Roberts) and Jackson (Luke Bracey) agree to be each other’s plus ones for all the major annual events, preventing them from needing to go out and find someone new or, horror of horrors, show up alone. Easy enough, right? After all, they don’t expect for either of them to end up catching feelings for the other. Surely that would never happen in a film like this.

Although they get on each other’s nerves when they first meet, they quickly develop a bond that grows into love over the course of the film — it’s not quite an enemies-to-lovers story, but it scratches a similar itch for fans of that familiar romantic trope. “Holidate” also stands out among some of its lighter, fluffier Christmas companions on Netflix for having a little bit of raunch to it, combining the bluer material of something like “Bridesmaids” with more traditional holiday fare. 

• Cast: Emma Roberts, Luke Bracey, Kristin Chenoweth
• Director: Paul Feig
• Runtime: 104 minutes
• Rating: TV-MA
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 45%

Unlike the majority of the films on this list, “Joyeux Noel” (or “Merry Christmas” in English) isn’t a light-hearted holiday rom-com. In fact, it takes place in the least festive place imaginable: The muddy trenches of France during World War I. But despite its dark surroundings, it captures the essence of the Christmas spirit just as well as its more fluffy counterparts. It tells the real-life story of the Christmas truce of 1914, in which German, French, and English soldiers made the joint decision to lay down their arms for the holiday. For at least a few days, the incessant fighting that turned the trenches into a meat grinder would cease. 

What’s more, the soldiers fraternized with one another, even playing a game of football. It’s a true moment of history that shows how these soldiers had more in common with one another than they did with the men who started the war in the first place. “Joyeux Noel” is an inspirational film that wears its heart on its sleeve, and is made all the more impactful by the fact that it actually happened (well, with a few cinematic embellishments, that is).

• Cast: Daniel Brühl, Diane Kruger, Benno Fürmann
• Director: Christian Carion
• Runtime: 116 minutes
• Rating: PG-13
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 74%