‘Tis the season: the best Christmas movies to watch on TV

Forget the 12 days of Christmas, we’ve found the 12 best movies to get you in the festive mood.

It’s the last week of November, which means Christmas movies are hitting our streaming services like a surprise Christmas Eve snowstorm in the American mid-west. They’re filling up our algorithms with their warm fires and fairy lights, wooing us with their cheesy romances and happy endings, and it’s pointless trying to escape them. Christmas is here to stay, and so is the predictable-but-likeable movie about a lonely pop star who falls in love at Christmas with a small-town widower and his precocious young daughter.

To make a stressful time a little easier, we’ve handpicked 12 of the best Christmas movies to enjoy this holiday season. Some of them are funny, some of them are ridiculous. None of them feature sunshine or summer barbecues, but they’re all filled with the spirit of Christmas, and they’ll each give you a happy ending to warm even the most cynical of hearts.

Your Christmas Or Mine (Prime Video, December 2)

Asa Butterfield (Sex Education), Daniel Mays (Line of Duty) and newcomer Cora Kirk star in this warm and cheery British film about a loved-up couple who, after a wacky-mix up, each spend Christmas with their partner’s family. One family is unexpectedly rich and aloof, the other doesn’t know their daughter has a boyfriend. Awkward! Love to see it.

Falling for Christmas (Netflix) 

Lindsay Lohan is back with bells on in this Christmas cracker full of schmaltz and humour. Lohan shines as a spoiled socialite who gets engaged on a mountain and promptly falls off the side, losing her memory in the process. She’s discovered by a ruggedly handsome and conveniently single mountain man, who helps her discover who she really is. She also learns how to put a fitted sheet on a bed, a battle many of us can relate to all year round.

Christmas Mystery (Neon) 

Someone stole Santa’s bells from the town of Pleasant Bay, and now the shit’s about to hit the fan. The adults in this town are clueless, so it’s up to some young whippersnappers to crack the case and free the innocent Mr Bottoms from prison. Yes, that’s his name. One for the kids, and the kids alone.

Last Train to Christmas (Neon)

Michael Sheen is putting the mullet into Christmas, and not a moment too soon. Sheen plays a famous nightclub manager who, upon taking a train home for Christmas in 1985, discovers he can travel through time by entering different train carriages. It’s a quirky mix of A Christmas Carol and Sliding Doors, but with less Paltrow and more wigs, and one of the least-corny options out there.

The Bitch Who Stole Christmas (Neon)

A good Christmas movie brings people together, and a great one reunites RuPaul with 20 contestants from RuPaul’s Drag Race. A workaholic journalist travels to a Christmas-obsessed town and gets caught up in a sinister plot to cancel Christmas. One for RPDR fans.

Spirited (Apple TV+)

Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds deliver a fresh twist on A Christmas Carol, with Ferrell playing a ghost who haunts a bloke named Clint Briggs (Reynolds), only to end up reexamining his own past, present and future. Apple TV+ reckons this is a “sweet and spicy holiday treat”, which in a strange coincidence, is exactly how the Victorians used to describe Charles Dickens.

Holiday Harmony (Neon) 

Look, you had me at “Brooke Shields plays an alpaca farmer”. An aspiring musician drives across America to perform at a Christmas concert, but crashes into an alpaca in small town Oklahoma. The local hot mechanic takes ages to fix the van, so she starts teaching music at the school, and you know where this is going, right? She’s going to get shitfaced on mulled wine and end up pashing that alpaca under the mistletoe. We’ve all been there.

Santa Camp (Neon)

Santa is for everyone, and this HBO Max documentary follows the New England Santa Society’s annual intake of Santa hopefuls as they attend a summer training camp. This year the society is breaking with tradition by selecting a diverse and inclusive range of Santas, and there’s some fired-up Mrs Clauses campaigning for equal pay. More uplifting than Michael Sheen’s best mullet wig.

I Hate Christmas (Netflix, 7 December)

Yes, it’s a series rather than a movie, but this Italian version of a Norwegian comedy about an independent woman who needs to find a boyfriend by Christmas looks refreshingly unsentimental. It’s upbeat and funny, and the gorgeous Venetian scenery is the gift that keeps on giving.

Christmas With the Campbells (AMC+, 2 December )

Brittany Snow and Justin Long star in this romantic comedy about a woman who spends the festive season with her ex-boyfriend’s family. The Campbell parents are hornbags (this one isn’t for kids) and their son is a walking red flag, so thank goodness for Long, whose IMDB profile describes him as “a likable, boyish-looking actor with thick eyebrows and a friendly smile”.

Christmas With You (Netflix) 

Freddie Prinze Jr returns like the Ghost of Scooby Doo Past to star in this uber cheesy movie about a single dad with a cute kid who meets a famous singer way out of his league. It’s a family friendly watch, which is probably why it’s currently sitting in Netflix’s Top 10 movies in New Zealand.

Who Killed Santa? A Murderville Mystery (Netflix, 15 December) 

Have yourselves a merry improv Christmas with this Murderville Mystery special that sees Maya Rudolph and Jason Bateman join Will Arnett to solve a murder – without the help of a script. Chaos! Drama! Jason Bateman licking milk out of a bowl! What more do you need this Christmas?