Christmas movies are big business on streaming, and between Netflix’s Christmas originals, their frequent cable-channel imports, and other licensed catalog movies, the streaming service has an absurd number to choose from. Obviously, anyone who loves a straight-up Christmas binge can pretty much just search “Christmas” and press play, or visit Netflix’s holiday section (which includes a bunch of TV episodes, too, as well as less directly Christmassy movies that families might want to watch together during time off).
But for more time-limited viewers, watching every piece of Christmas #content in the vast recesses of Netflix may not be an option. If you’re maybe not that keen on reheated cable leftovers (telltale sign: stars you know mainly from a 20-year-old sitcom, and/or those trim 85-minute runtimes that handily fill two hours on broadcast TV when ads are factored in), we’ve got you covered.
Here are some Christmas-themed movies to watch on Netflix that go a little further (and offer a little more variety) than the Hallmark go-tos.
One of Netflix’s more successful animated outings, Klaus takes a more stylized approach to computer animation than the standard poor-man’s-Pixar cartoon, featuring the vocal talents of Jason Schwartzman and J.K. Simmons in a droll reimagining of the Santa Claus mythos.
It’s sweet and family-friendly, but not nauseatingly treacly, and as well-designed as a classic ornament.
Look, it’s a divisive one, especially with the passage of time and the observance of certain smarmy tendencies from writer-director Richard Curtis. But the good thing about Love Actually is that its interconnected ensemble storyline means there’s a greater variety of tones than most Christmas movies.
You can get stories that are bawdy fun, achingly melancholy, quietly bittersweet, wryly comic, and plainly romantic (especially if you like romances based on weird power imbalances!). Moreover, almost any viewer is a fan of someone in this cast: Sure. Hugh Grant might not be to your precise taste. But what about Liam Neeson, Keira Knightley, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Martin Freeman, Laura Linney, Bill Nighy, or… Denise Richards?! Something for everyone!
There are some legitimate Christmas-set thrillers (a few of which we may even get to shortly), but Jingle Bell Heist is more of a larceny-themed romp, and a surprisingly decent one for a straight-to-Netflix title.
An extremely charming Olivia Holt stars as a cash-strapped young woman who agrees to team up with a security expert (Connor Swindells) to rob the high-end department store where she works — though this being a holiday movie, everyone has a reasonable, even virtuous motivation, and the movie finds a clear villain for them to target. Despite that very studio-note-y point, this is a nice-looking and zippy little caper with a bit more zing than your average seasonal rom-com.
No, not the made-up drug from Riverdale (also on Netflix). This is a surprisingly lavish musical with a terrific and eclectic cast that includes Oscar winner Forest Whitaker, Tony winner Anika Noni Rose, Keegan-Michael Key, and the singing voice of Ricky Martin. Whitaker plays an inventor who figures out how to bring toys to actual life, with Rose as his daughter and Key as his apprentice.
Hollywood produces far too few original musicals, so this one (originally designed for the stage but made into a film instead) feels like a real gift.
Die Hard is set on Christmas Eve and Die Hard 2 is set at an airport (during the holiday season, granted, but not on the holiday itself). Carry-On does the sequel one better and is set at an airport on Christmas Eve, when a disillusioned TSA worker (Taron Egerton) has been scheduled to work. He winds up targeted by a freelance terrorist (Jason Bateman!) who threatens to harm his girlfriend if he fails to help get a dangerous weapon through security.
This is exactly the confined-quarters specialty of director Jaume Collet-Serra, and Carry-On is nearly as good as his best Liam Neeson travel-themed movies like Non-Stop. (It’s basically a holiday-set companion piece to that one in particular.) Travel is a huge part (and stress) of the holidays for so many people; even if Carry-On focuses more on suspense than Christmas cheer, it feels perfect for the season.
There are a lot of prefab Christmas romances available for you to stream; Love Hard stands out for not feeling quite so self-consciously retro in its attitudes, directed by actual stand-up comic Hernán Jiménez and starring comic Jimmy O. Yang, opposite Nina Dobrev.
They play mismatched young people drawn together by a catfishing incident, a holiday scheme, and a fake relationship — you know, the usual stuff. Love Hard doesn’t exactly reinvent the Christmas rom-com, but even its sillier moments feel a little more rooted in contemporary life than a small-town guy wooing a big-city girl.
A decidedly silly variation on the John Wick formula where a guy gets goaded into unleashing his sick henchman-dispatching skills in gruesomely elaborate ways, Violent Night casts the oft-bombastic David Harbour as a somewhat bedraggled Santa Claus on the verge of retirement who must save a family from a home invasion.
So in addition to Wick, there’s a ton of Die Hard in there, and despite some forced humor, the actual action-horror bits of this movie do deliver, especially in the knock-down, drag-out fight scenes. It’s not appropriate for the Santa-loving kids… but if you know a 13-year-old who can handle a bit of gore, they might love Violent Night.
OK, this one goes a bit further than Violent Night. It’s a Terminator-inspired outright slasher where a robotic Santa stalks and kills the denizens of a small town. It’s got gore, sex, nudity, and tons of cursing. That might sound like a movie that’s overly delighted by its own transgressions, yet writer-director Joe Begos captures an actual Christmas vibe better than so many holiday-themed horrors with gorgeous 16mm cinematography of staples like snow and Christmas lights.
It goes a long way toward making this ’80s throwback better than some of the actual slashers of that era. The movie also benefits from Riley Dandy giving a charming, scrappy performance as the foul-mouthed record-store owner who must fight for her life. Christmas Bloody Christmas isn’t for everyone — but then, neither is Love Actually.
