Traveling by Planes, Trains, Cars — and Even Through Time
Traveling at the holidays is a time-honored tradition among Hallmark characters and viewers alike. Whether it’s a shared car ride that ends in romance, like 2015’s A Christmas Detour, or traveling by cruise ship over the holidays like 2025’s A Keller Christmas Vacation, Hallmark has you covered on all modes of transportation in their films.
Beyond train travel, flying — we’re looking at you 2025’s Christmas Above the Clouds — and climbing a literal mountain on Christmas Eve — cough, 2025’s An Alpine Holiday, cough — Hallmark has added time travel to his “travel” category for holiday movies and it has Us beaming with excitement.
Take 2025’s A Newport Christmas, for example, in the film, socialite Ella (Ginna Claire Mason) takes a boat — see, another form of transportation— out on the water in 1905 and magically transports to 2025 Rhode Island. There she falls in love with Nick (Wes Brown), who owns the same boat she came in on but in modern times. It’s pure magic and makes Us want to go sailing and yes, travel through time.
Most Festive Films With This Item:
A Christmas Detour, Journey Back to Christmas, Cross Country Christmas, A 90s Christmas, Jingle Bell Run, A Newport Christmas, A Keller Christmas Vacation, An Alpine Holiday, Christmas Above the Clouds, A Grand Ole Opry Christmas.
2025 marks the 60th anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas. But you will have to take a few extra steps to watch it.
The Charlie Brown holiday specials left network TV a few years ago. They moved to Apple TV+, which requires a paid subscription to view much of the programming. Apple has sole rights to the Peanuts series, including the holiday specials, through 2030.
This move to a paid subscription source took away a holiday tradition that is special to many people.
However, you can still watch the holiday specials for free, without a paid subscription to Apple TV+. During special windows, Apple is offering for free streaming of the holiday specials to those who don’t subscribe to Apple TV+, their proprietary streaming service.
Depending on the device you stream on, you may need to log in with or create an Apple ID (which is your email address.)
A Charlie Brown Christmas will stream on December 13 and 14, 2025. It will be on Apple TV+ but you do NOT need a paid subscription. (Apple TV+ subscribers can stream the holiday specials all year.)
On December 13 or 14, 2025, choose your preferred streaming device.
NOTE: Depending on the device you stream on, you may need to log in with or create an Apple ID (which is your email address).
From a Windows computer: Open your preferred browser. Go to tv.apple.com and search with the keywords Charlie Brown or by the title of the special you want to watch.
From an iPhone or Ipad: Open the Apple TV app, which comes pre-loaded on these devices. Either tap on the category “Free for Everyone,” or use the search bar to find the show you want.
You may need to download the compatible Apple TV app first. Then, just open the app. It may ask you to sign in with an Apple ID, but you should be able to bypass that and see a list of the shows that are available for free.
Three Wisest Men marks the final Hallmark movie in the holiday trilogy — but star Andrew Walker teased it’s not the last time fans will see him and his film brothers Tyler Hynes and Paul Campbell.
“I want to keep working with this group forever,” Walker, 46, exclusively told Us Weekly on Thursday, November 13, adding that writers Campbell, 46, and Kimberley Sustad are already working on getting the gang back together ahead of Hallmark’s Three Wisest Men premiere.
“That’s the reason why we were saying we should shut down the Wise Men franchise sooner than later,” Walker added.
The actor, who plays eldest brother Luke Brenner in all three holiday films, noted that the Wise Men trilogy was “such a good thing” that you “don’t want to play out a good thing and have people have too much of it.”
Hallmark gave fans the ultimate gift announcing the third installment of the Three Wise Men franchise this month — but all good things must come to an end. “This is a wrap-up movie,” star Andrew Walker told EntertainmentNow on Wednesday, July 16, confirming that the upcoming “Countdown to Christmas” film will be the last for […]
Moving forward, Walker teased, “The goal is to create something else with completely different characters in a [new] story line and have a completely different adventure that we go on together.”
When asked about his “vision” for his next movie with Hynes, 39, and Campbell, who played his brothers Taylor and Stephan, respectively, Walker said “playing enemies” is one idea.
Walker said another idea they’ve thrown around is “just us playing ourselves, essentially, but also you find out that we don’t like each other in real life. That it’s just been a hoax. We just put on our game faces and went to work and did our work together.”
“There’s a few other ideas, but I don’t want to spoil it, because Paul and Kim are working on those things,” he confirmed.
Walker has been part of the Hallmark family since 2012, when he made his debut in A Bride for Christmas alongside Arielle Kebbel. He has since starred in more than 30 movies, including holiday hits and mystery favorites like the Curious Caterer Mysteries franchise with Nikki DeLoach.
However, it was his role in 2022’s Three Wise Men and a Baby that cemented Walker as one of the Kings of Christmas for the network. In the original holiday comedy, Luke (Walker) is surprised to find a baby at his fire house with a note asking him to take care of the little one ahead of Christmas.
Luke enlists his brothers, worry wort Stephan (Campbell) and gamer Taylor (Hynes), who both live with their mom (Margaret Colin) — or at least on the premises — to help him care for the baby after their mom goes out of town.
2024’s Three Wiser Men and a Boy saw the return of the Brenner brothers as they work together to help Luke’s son, Thomas, create the best holiday musical his school has ever seen.
Three Wisest Men, premiering on Saturday, November 15, finds the three siblings facing various personal challenges. Luke and his wife are preparing to become parents again to twins while Stephan is failing to plan his wedding to Susie (Fiona Vroom).
Tyler Hynes and Andrew Walker have been friends for two decades — and Hallmark Channel fans have taken notice. “We talk weekly,” Walker exclusively told Us Weekly in February 2023 of Hynes, who is his wife Cassandra Troy’s cousin. “I’ve known the guy for 19 years since he started coming to her house for Christmases […]
Taylor, meanwhile, must decide what’s next in his career, while the family attempts to have the best Christmas ever before their mom sells their childhood home.
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“It felt epic, it felt daunting, it felt exciting and it felt joyous to look across the room and see two of the most handsome men on television staring into my eyes questioning whether they made the right decision to make a movie with me,” Campbell joked about creating the final movie, exclusively telling Us earlier this month that the Wise Men movies are the “biggest joy” of his life.
He added: “If you’re in this life, and you can make good things with good people, you’ve done it. And in this case, I think we’ve done it.”
Three Wisest Men premieres on Hallmark Channel Saturday, November 15, at 8 p.m. ET.
Hallmark Channel is jam-packed with new Christmas movies every season, but what about New Year’s films? Yes, the network has a few magical tales for that holiday as well!
The first New Year’s-themed movie premiered in 2008 and it wasn’t until nearly 10 years later that viewers got another film focused on the December 31 or January 1 event. 2017’s Royal New Year’s Eve centers around a prince and his unlikely princess falling in love on the special night.
“I love fairy tales, I found them beautiful [growing up]. I love the suspense and I love smiling and crying at all the right moments,” Royal New Year’s Eve star Jessy Schram said during a behind-the-scenes interview in December 2017. “It’s fun to get to play the twinkle in someone else’s eyes.”
There are a few elements that Hallmark Channel viewers can count on when they snuggle in to watch a holiday film — and the actors and actresses have come to expect the classic moments too. While celebrating 2022’s Countdown to Christmas launch at Radio City Music Hall in New York City last month, Us Weekly […]
The following year, Adelaide Kane made her Hallmark debut in A Midnight Kiss, which focuses on the planning of an epic New Year’s Eve party.
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Scroll down for the complete list of Hallmark New Year’s-themed movies, ranked from festive to full-on magic:
It was a banner year for Hallmark romances and mysteries, with the network dropping some of our all-time favorite made-for-TV movies before and during the Christmas season.
Network staple Andrew Walker re-teamed with Nikki DeLoach twice in 2023 for new installments in their Curious Caterer series on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries. (After costarring in Dying for Chocolate last year, they made Grilling Season and Fatal Vows in 2023.)
“If it’s dropped into me, it’s almost like something gets channeled and I will have, like, a flash of an image of something — or I will dream of, like, a scene or something will come to me,” DeLoach exclusively told Us Weeklyin February of manifesting the film. “And this was something that came to me and I was like, ‘I think you and I have to do a mystery wheel together. I don’t exactly know what it is yet, but I saw it. I saw us doing this.’”
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Keep scrolling for Us’ unofficial ranking of the best Hallmark movies of 2023 (and the standout moments that stole our hearts):
In 2021, a horror-comedy called Black Friday was released to little fanfare. For, while its premise was solid, its execution was decidedly wobbly. When Eli Roth created the fake trailer for a slasher movie called Thanksgiving to be included in Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse double feature, released in 2007, perhaps he couldn’t have known that Black Friday would set the stage for the entire premise of the real movie. One that he realized, after seeing how well-received the fake trailer was, needed to be fleshed out and developed. For those few who might have had high hopes for the Devon Sawa-starring Black Friday, Thanksgiving does exactly what it couldn’t manage: makes a commentary on humanity’s capitalistic grotesqueries cresting at the outset of the lump of end-of-year holidays that begins with Thanksgiving (and, to confirm, the American tradition of post-Thanksgiving hyper-consumerism has spread throughout the world ever since the Cold War ended and the statement, “We all live in America now” took hold once capitalism “won” and communism “lost”).
Although Christmas is usually the holiday to get the most attention/play (ergo, an entire film genre centered around it that simply doesn’t exist for Thanksgiving), it is with the phenomenon of Black Friday—its own kind of American holiday—that the “season of giving” truly commences. Even as it ultimately means taking from everyone by plundering Mother Earth of its valuable and increasingly precious resources. And yes, it just so happens that Black Friday has become synonymous with Thanksgiving as the corporate overlords have seen fit to keep their stores open on Thursday night for those feeling ambitious enough after stuffing their faces and entering a tryptophan coma to buy some useless shit to give to their loved ones at Christmas.
Roth saw the empty space where Thanksgiving movies ought to be, lamenting that, after Halloween, it’s all family-oriented Christmas movies that get shoved down your throat. As a year-round horror fan, Roth couldn’t abide seeing this obvious lack in the holiday movie genre, especially with Thanksgiving being the emotionally tense, rife-with-carving-knives day that it is. To Roth, the real question was: how could someone not have seen how perfect it was for a horror movie premise until he came along?
In fact, long before the fake trailer he directed for Grindhouse, the blueprint for the movie was already there. Having grown up in Newton, Massachusetts, just forty-five minutes away from Plymouth, so-called birthplace of Thanksgiving and the location where Roth, naturally, chooses to set his stage (or table, if you prefer), the director was subjected to his fair share of Thanksgiving enthusiasm. So influenced by the holiday was Roth that, at thirteen, he and his friend, Jeff Rendell (the screenwriter of Thanksgiving), would try to come up with the best Thanksgiving-themed kills (some of which would show up in the eventual movie). In interviews about Thanksgiving, Roth stated things like, “[Thanksgiving] was the only major holiday without a killer” and “Growing up, I dreamed of writing a slasher movie like Scream or Halloween” (to be sure, Plymouth has the distinct feel of “small-town America” in the vein of the fictional Woodsboro or Haddonfield). Filling the void for that type of masked killer to suit Thanksgiving specifically was the role Roth was born for. And part of the reason it took him so long to finish Thanksgiving is because he wanted it to live up to the trailer that was so beloved. After all, it’s a lot of pressure to write a movie that was largely intended as a two-minute lark (on that note, Tarantino and Rodriguez do get a special thank you in the credits for allowing Grindhouse to serve as the launching pad for Thanksgiving). But, in his heart, Roth always carried the story of Thanksgiving. With key pieces and phrases from the trailer also materializing in the film (though sadly, “This holiday season, prepare to have the stuffing scared out of you” doesn’t enter the equation). This includes the punny catchphrase, “This year, there will be no leftovers.” And also, “The table is set.” A part of the voiceover in the trailer that reanimates as an Instagram caption warning the killer’s victims that they’ll be sitting at that table, dead or alive, soon enough.
As the voiceover of the fake trailer explains, “In the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts, the fourth Thursday of November is the most celebrated day of the year.” So celebrated, it seems, that the town even has special masks modeled after famed pilgrim and former governor of Plymouth Colony, John Carver. Needless to say, Roth was delighted to learn that Rendell had unearthed such a serial killer-y name in his research of Plymouth. How could they not take such a gift from the historical gods and use it to their advantage? Especially since no one gets more ardent about Thanksgiving as an “American institution” than Plymouth, where the “first” Thanksgiving took place among English colonists and the Wampanoag tribe. Or rather, that’s the “first” Thanksgiving that Sarah Josepha Hale chose to center the holiday around when advocating for it to become a national one. Unfortunately, there are no Hale masks to complement a John Carver one—that would perhaps be too “busy.” Because if classic slashers like the aforementioned Halloween and Scream have taught us anything, it’s that only one mask can serve as the iconography for a truly memorable horror movie. To that end, there are few things more horrific in America than insatiable consumerism.
However, as much as Thanksgiving is a story about the havoc gross consumerism causes, it’s also a story about the rage invoked among the hoi polloi when they see the flagrant privilege of others. For it’s not only bad enough to have privilege, but it’s even worse to flaunt it in front of the rabble. Which is exactly what Jessica Wright’s (Nell Verlaque) friends, Evan (Tomaso Sanelli), Gabby (Addison Rae), Scuba (Gabriel Davenport) and Yulia (Jenna Warren), do when they decide to go on a (not so) “stealth mission” to get Evan a new phone from RightMart, the store Jessica father, Thomas (Rick Hoffman), owns. Because it’s the type of uniquely American “one-stop shop” where you can buy, apparently, lipstick, a phone and a waffle iron. Indeed, the security guard tries to placate the evermore ravenous crowd by shouting, “The store opens in ten minutes, you’ll get your waffle iron!” And it’s true, the first one hundred customers to enter the store are promised a free waffle iron. The kind of promotion that corporate management never seems to understand will backfire spectacularly.
Thomas, the “big man in charge,” certainly doesn’t seem to, explaining to his family, “You know, we always do the, uh, midnight Black Friday, but people were showing up at six p.m. anyway, so…” When he’s complimented for his business acumen, Thomas insists, “Yeah well credit my beautiful finacée over there, it was her idea.” The “beautiful fiancée” in question is Kathleen (Karen Cliche…quite a name, by the way), the Meredith Blake-esque figure in Jessica’s life. And, from the moment we see their first exchange together, it’s clear they have a contentious rapport, with Kathleen criticizing Jessica’s sartorial choice and Jessica reminding her that she’s in her own house. “Don’t you mean ‘our house’ now?” Kathleen ripostes. But no, Jessica does not mean that, and it makes Kathleen’s fate all the more apropos (particularly as she was also the credited “brainchild” for opening the store on Thanksgiving instead of waiting until actual Black Friday. But, as RightMart employee Mitch Collins [Ty Olsson] puts it, “Let’s face it, Black Friday starts on a Thursday now. Even in Plymouth.”). Kathleen’s fate, as a matter of fact, was one foretold in the fake trailer from Grindhouse. Along with the shudder-inducing memory of the trampoline scene that also reappears in Thanksgiving. So, too, does a bloody parade scene—this one, of course, being much more polished.
It is during the Thanksgiving Parade that one might be the most convinced they know who the killer is. And throughout the tale, Roth and Rendell do manage to keep viewers guessing about who “John Carver” might be, just as it is the case in Scream with Ghostface. Though, the specific motive behind it isn’t as exciting as the general reason for why “John Carver” would go to all this trouble to, let’s say, set such an elaborate table. For when he finally gathers them all together, he explains why he only left this sect of his targets alive, shaming, “It wasn’t enough to get in the store early. You had to taunt everyone outside to show them how special you were.” Now, he plans to show the rest of the world just how special they truly are by livestreaming their murders (something about that smacking of Spree starring Joe Keery). Thus, insisting, “Every year, people will watch this video and think of your greed, and the people who died from it.” Of course, that’s a fitting “double meaning” kind of statement for a holiday that still largely ignores the greed of the colonizers who pillaged Native Americans’ land and killed them for it. All neatly repositioned and marketed as a day of coming together and forgetting about “differences” (caused by the bloodlusting avarice of “mild-mannered” pilgrims).
What the killer seems to underestimate is the collective short-term memory of the masses, which will soon allow them to go back to their regularly-scheduled, violent Black Friday competing next year (for online shopping hasn’t eradicated the physical contact sport that this “holiday” continues to invoke). Thus, his revenge, served too hot, as it were, proves to be rather unsatisfying for him on multiple levels by Thanksgiving’s conclusion. Because, once Gordon Gekko verbalized what Americans had been thinking all along—“Greed is good”—there was never going to be any unteaching of that message.
Christmas is all around, but for some, the holiday spirit is elusive. Here are are some films to help reignite the spirit, bring a smile and maybe even a tear or two.
From constant holiday music to the rush to find the perfect gift, some people struggle to have the heartwarming holiday spirit. The commercialism of the season can be a bit off-putting, but taking a breath, a puff, a sip and enjoy the simple things – a beautiful tree, a good Christmas cookie and hanging with those you care about. Here are 5 heartwarming holiday movies to restore your holiday spirit.
This childhood classic touches hearts for all the meanings of Christmas including kindness to others. Good ol’ Charlie Brown is still bullied, Snoopy is still cool but the holiday looms over the show. The jazz portions were created by the Vince Guaraldi Trio and have become a holiday staple. It has won awards despite some animation “snafus” (notice Snoopy suddenly appearing on Schroder’s piano) and has captured hearts and respect. And the dance scene is iconic and you can have fresh moves for New Year’s Eve.
The Bishop’s Wife
It seems every generation laments the lost meaning of Christmas. This stellar cast lead by Cary Grant give a thoughtful, fun, and old fashioned take on the spirit. The snowball fight is great and you will find yourself smiling.
Miracle on 34th Street
The honesty, insight, and love from a kid tugs at your heart and also ignites your faith in Santa Claus. The 1947 original is the one to watch. A young Natalie Wood plays it perfect with the desire to believe. And who would think a government agency could be the good guy?
The music alone makes it worth watching the movie. This popular film captures multiple plot-lines involved relationships and the holiday spirit. From Hugh Grant dancing to the the infamous drum scene…you will laugh and cry and find yourself enjoying a guilty pleasure. The additional unexpected lesson to this is to think hard when you date someone with whom you work.
Who needs Hallmark holiday movies when you have Cameron Diaz? In her review for USA Today, Claudia Puig found The Holiday “is a rare chick flick/romantic comedy which, despite its overt sentimentality and fairy-tale premise, doesn’t feel cloyingly sweet.” Fits in perfectly with eggnog, Christmas cookies and your favorite ornaments.
Hopefully these 5 heartwarming holiday movies to restore your holiday spirit work!
While Christmas dominates conversations in December, there are a lot of non-Christmas movies that are perfect to watch and rewatch during the holiday season—classics, films set in the winter, and more!
You know what’s not going to be included? Those movies that people love to debate over whether or not they’re considered Christmas movies. So, no Die Heard, The Shining, or Gremlins. Also, those series sometimes dubbed Christmas movies but that are also rewatched at the first sign of autumn won’t make the list either. These films include the Harry Potter series and some of the more popular Tim Burton movies.
Little Women (2019)
(Columbia Pictures)
Any faithful retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is the best version of Little Women. For something written in 1868, many of the themes are still relevant today. I grew up watching the version from the 1990s starring Winona Ryder and Christian Bale. However, I’ve become exceedingly partial to the 2019 version by director Greta Gerwig starring Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, and Timothée Chalamet. It feels the most honest and real to me. Little Women is the perfect holiday movie (or any other time of year movie) and it just makes you feel good. It’s rated PG (or G, in the case of the black and white versions), so the entire family can watch.
Little Women focuses on the four March sisters growing up in Massachusetts during the 1860s. Throughout the story, they go from children to women. The sisters may be close and share deep connections, but each one is very much her own person. Forget zodiac signs—you can tell a lot about a person by knowing which March sister they identify with. I don’t think anyone can watch the movie without falling for Laurie, the boy across the road, just a little bit. There are a few Christmas scenes, yet the movie is more about the relationships we have with those around us and how to appreciate the good things in our lives while never settling. (D.R. Medlen)
The Lord of the Rings: Extended Edition (2001-2003)
(New Line Cinema)
From Diwali to New Year’s Eve and every major celebration between, the winter is marked by extended time off for many. (Except those in retail and essential services.) That makes November and December perfect for rewatching your favorite movie series. My family’s version of this is watching the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. This year is the perfect year to watch it yourself as it’s the 20th anniversary of Return of the King!
Not including credits, the extended cuts of all three films have a combined runtime of roughly 11 hours. That’s definitely doable at other points in the year. However, that’s a weekend commitment with a need for planning bathroom breaks and sleep time. The few weeks off afforded to many in the winter allows for this relaxation at a stress-free pace. Also, there’s something special about snuggling up with hot cocoa and watching this epic journey with fellow nerdy loved ones. (Alyssa Shotwell)
When Harry Met Sally (1989)
(Columbia Pictures)
There are few romantic comedies as warm, cozy, and genuinely funny as this classic. When Harry Met Sally was written by rom-com royalty Nora Ephron, who went on to pen Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, and other enduring favorites. Ironically, Ephron was inspired to write this love story by the divorce of her two friends, Penny Marshall and Rob Reiner, the latter of whom also directed the film.
When Harry Met Sally is the story of Harry (Billy Crystal) and Sally (Meg Ryan), two jaded New Yorkers who meet by chance right after college. They keep running into each other over the years and become friends, setting up their mutual pals (Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby), and comforting each other through breakups. It takes them 12 years to admit that they’re more than friends, and there are tons of relatable laughs along the way. Who could forget that iconic diner scene (you know the one), or the cringeworthy yet hilarious moment when Harry’s ex catches them singing an embarrassing showtune in public?
Manhattan provides a beautiful seasonal backdrop for the action, and the whole thing culminates with a New Year’s Eve bash to remember. (Beverly Jenkins)
Rent (2005)
(Columbia Pictures)
For a movie that begins and ends on Christmas Eve, Rent isn’t much of a Christmas story. It is all about how we care for one another. Rent started as a Broadway musical that took the world by storm with its honesty about classism, LGBTQ issues, and HIV/AIDS. In 2005, it was made into a movie starring several of the actors from the musical and some new faces. Long before Idina Menzel voiced Elsa in Frozen, she played my favorite bisexual chaotic queen, Maureen Johnson, in Rent.
Rent may cover some seemingly heavy topics, but it balances it out with amazing songs and characters with heart. You’ll have at least one song stuck in your head after watching it. The lyrics are so perfect. It’s a story about a group of friends dealing with a lack of money while struggling to make their dreams come true as they try to pay rent. It’s all about how you measure a year, measure it in love. (D.M.)
Encanto (2022)
(Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
Like many films on this list, Encanto remains an incredible work of art enjoyable year round. Still, it just hits different during those times of the year where you’re around a lot of family. The generation tea that’s spilled, the tensions between people whose only commonality is blood and marriage. The best example of this dynamic comes in the hit song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno.” Everyone has a very different interpretation about why that one family member or friend doesn’t come around. Some see Encanto‘s queer allegories while others feel those dualities of familial ties. Also, tell me there’s not at least one person in each generation of your family that doesn’t identify with “Surface Pressure.” (A.S.)
Eight Below (2006)
(Buena Vista Pictures)
Eight Below is a blood-pumping adventure through the arctic with something the whole family can love: dogs! Paul Walker stars as Jerry Shepard, an outdoor guide hired to help a UCLA professor find bits of meteor in Antarctica. They take a team of eight sled dogs onto the tundra, but are quickly called back due to an approaching storm. The men are forced to leave the dogs behind, and the rest of the movie follows two stories: the dogs’ and Shepard’s, who spends six months working tirelessly to get back to them.
Frank Marshall directed this survival film, somehow managing to highlight the individual personalities of each dog without a lick (pun intended) of dialog. This is a story about loyalty versus greed, love versus loss, and ultimately, how the will to live can pull us through just about anything. (B.J.)
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005)
(Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
Based on the children’s classics written by C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe takes place during World War II when the four Pevensie children are sent from London to the English countryside to be safe from bombings. While staying at the sprawling house, the youngest sibling finds an entrance to a fantasy world called Narnia through a wardrobe.
When Peter, Edmund, and Susan also go through, they find a land cursed into perpetual winter by an evil witch and do all they can to help the mystical creatures that live there. It’s a sprawling fantasy epic for families to enjoy. (For some reason, Santa Claus shows up and gives the children weapons. It’s a choice.) It’s a fun story to watch during the winter and remember that warmer weather shall return—one day. (D.M.)
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
(Annapurna)
Based on the James Baldwin book of the same name, this Barry Jenkins movie is stunning. You could probably watch If Beale Street Could Talk on mute with just the memorable soundtrack and have a good time. Set in the 1970s, Tish (Kiki Layne) and Fonny (Stephan James) are in the early stages of spending the rest of their lives together. After Fonny is falsely accused of rape and incarcerated awaiting trial, their dream gets derailed and deferred. Much of their relationship is shown through flashbacks and glass, as Tish offers updates on Fonny’s case.
Meanwhile, Tish and their families work together to get Fonny out and prepare for a surprise baby. These actors (relatively new at the time) manage to shine in a film with a stacked cast. While very little of If Beale Street Could Talk is set during the winter, there are a lot of seasonal themes—messy in-laws, retail hell, longing for those we can’t be with (incarcerated, in this case), and gathering for the birth of a child. This movie isn’t just an adaptation, but a love letter to Black people and love itself. (A.S.)
For Your Consideration (2006)
(Warner Independent Pictures)
Christopher Guest is a master of understated ensemble mockumentary movies, including Best in Show and A Mighty Wind. He directed For Your Consideration and co-wrote the script with Eugene Levy, who joins Guest and their usual troupe of quirky character actors. The story is sort of a play-within-a-play; the action centers on a group of C-list actors (Catherine O’Hara, Harry Shearer, Parker Posey, and Christopher Moynihan) making a ludicrous low budget film about the Jewish holiday Purim. Someone starts an unfounded rumor that the film is generating Oscar buzz, which sets off a frenzy of demands, paranoia, and egoism from the cast and crew.
Like Waiting for Guffman, Guest uses this film to explore (and mock) selfish actors, delusional directors, and clueless producers. The cast is a who’s who of celebs like John Krasinski, Sandra Oh, Jane Lynch, Fred Willard, Ricky Gervais, and Jennifer Coolidge as the heiress to a diaper fortune. (B.J.)
ThePhantom of the Opera (2004)
(Universal Pictures)
The Phantom of the Opera is based on a book that turned into the longest-running Broadway show ever. The movie, made in 2005, may not be as powerful as the live show was, but it is still good. The Phantom trains the singer Christine in music until she gets her break in the opera house. At the same time, Christine’s childhood friend Raoul returns to her life. She’s drawn to both men for very different reasons, but which one is the love of her life? (I think it’s the Phantom, hands down, but I also read dark romances.) Minnie Driver hilariously steals every scene she’s in as opera diva Carlotta.
Most of the story takes place during the winter. One shot of Christine in a snow-covered graveyard epitomizes the bleak beauty of that time of year. During the holidays, I love watching epically long musicals. What else should you be doing in the cold weather? Make sure you can turn the volume up really loud to properly enjoy the music from this movie. (D.M.)
Eight Crazy Nights (2002)
I might have said no Christmas movies, but I didn’t say anything about other holidays this month! Named after the eight nights of Hanukkah, the movie follows alcoholic and ne’er-do-well Davey Stone (Adam Sandler) as he’s given his last chance to reform before a lengthy prison sentence. After his old basketball referee Whitey Duvall (also Sandler) intervenes, Davey is sentenced to perform community service as Whitey’s assistant. A lot of people complain about the product placement, but I don’t really care. The animation is so well done for a holiday movie aimed at adults that I don’t see how it could’ve been made without it. Did I mention this is a musical?
It is a Happy Madison production made over 20 years ago, so there’s quite a few ableist and fat jokes—even if you discount everything said by Davey because he’s supposed to be an asshole. Per usual, Rob Schneider plays a minor racist character and there’s at least one cringy transgender joke. As a very crude movie even beyond what I’ve warned, Eight Crazy Nights definitely isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Still, it holds a special place in my heart. This might be because of the number of times I watched it and shouted the phrase “TECHNICAL FOUL!” (A.S.)
Beauty and the Beast (2017)
(Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
We don’t have to tell you the plot of this “tale as old as time,” because you likely spent your childhood watching the Disney animated version from 1991. In this live action/CGI remake, Emma Watson steps into the role of Belle opposite Dan Stevens as the Beast. Thanks to modern technology, the film has a dreamy, ethereal quality, adding to the magic of an already whimsical setting. Snow gently flutters to the ground outside, but inside Beast’s palace there are full plates, roaring fires, and a library that’s to die for.
All of the songs you know and love are here, along with a fun scene with Gaston (Luke Evans) and Le Fou (Josh Gad) that brings new laughs to a modern yet classic fairy tale. (B.J.)
(featured image: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures / Columbia Pictures / Illustration by The Mary Sue)
Finally, queer horse girls have the holiday movie representation they deserve! Tello Films’ newest Christmas movie, A Holiday “I Do”, follows a divorced queer woman, Jane (Lindsay Hicks), whose holiday season is quickly falling apart.
Her ex-husband and best friend, Mark (Joe Piazza), is getting married right before Christmas, and the bride, Heather (India Chappell), is super insecure about Jane and Mark’s friendship. The ex-couple’s daughter, Lexi (Colette Hahn), ends up caught in the middle—particularly when Heather, Mark, and Lexi go to pick up Heather’s parents at the airport and get snowed in, which forces them to spend the night out of town.
Don’t worry, though: That’s the perfect setup for the movie’s main couple, Jane and Sue (Rivkah Reyes), to spend all kinds of time together making moon eyes and generally feeling big, gay feelings. You see, Sue is Heather’s wedding planner and Jane is Mark’s best woman, making her the next-best candidate to help Sue run errands like finalizing the floral arrangements and testing the catering menu (which definitely would have already happened at this point, but I digress). They go on a sleigh ride together and toboggan down a hill with Jane’s neighbors, whose involvement in the movie completely hinges upon making a little Christmas magic—I love them.
Anyway. During their night of wedding errands, Jane and Sue nearly kiss at a beautiful wedding venue—before everything falls apart. They do basically everything you’d expect from a romantic couple in a holiday movie, which is really all I want whenever I turn one on.
Meanwhile, Jane’s family horse farm, which she now runs in the absence of her late father, is at risk of being repossessed by the bank unless she and her mom (Jill Larson) find both a solution to their debt and a way to keep things running sustainably. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but if you assume Mark and Heather’s wedding has something to do with the farm … you might get to mark a square on your bingo card.
A Holiday “I Do” successfully combines some of the best tropes of “Hallmark Christmas movies,” which has become a genre unto itself as more companies have gotten in on the trend of producing holiday-specific romantic comedies every winter. In the last several years, this primarily heterosexual genre has slowly begun to feature more LGBTQ+ romances, which is wonderful. A Holiday “I Do” is a fun, seasonal watch with a sweet plot and great character resolution.
If you’re only interested in knowing what works about this movie, stop reading here. Holiday movies don’t have to be great or even good, and I totally get that—so if heavier critique isn’t for you, that’s cool! Watch this sapphic romcom and rejoice, especially if you, too, are a horse girl.
It’s worth noting here that Tello Films has a much smaller budget than Hallmark or Netflix, and yet the company is producing LGBTQ+ holiday content rather than leaning into more heterosexual romcoms, which we love! Also, 10 percent of the producers’ profits went to The Trevor Project, which is great to see.
However, I feel like it would be remiss not to mention that much of this movie just feels awkward, and not in a fun, quirky way. Long establishing shots of exteriors and interior walls (just walls) take up a fair amount of the runtime, and there’s very little music throughout the movie, which makes pauses feel especially excruciating. Reyes steals nearly all of her scenes unless she’s opposite Kayden Bryce, who plays Jane’s teenage neighbor and the key to saving the horse farm and the wedding, Noelle. Hicks has an unfortunate tendency to grimace even when she’s supposed to be happy, which starts in the opening scene—speed-dating at a lesbian bar—and does not stop until the final moments of the movie.
Furthermore, the banker handling the farm’s loan is a Black woman (Marsha Warfield) who’s weirdly vilified even though she’s clearly rooting for Jane’s family to keep their ancestral home. She’s the only Black person with dialogue in the movie, which makes this characterization feel especially pointed. Reyes, a queer, Filipinx-Jewish woman; one of Mark’s groomsmen; and stablehand Joseph (Rish Mitra) are the only other people of color in the movie. In this way, Tello is unfortunately following suit with casting choices for its new Christmas flick.
Last but not least, the big kiss between Jane and Sue is the last thing we see before the credits roll, and it’s way too short! These women have gone through a lot since their meet-cute and they deserve to make out about it to a sweet song while lights twinkle all around them. Just saying.
There are so many Christmas movies to watch each year, but what about Thanksgiving? Of course, everyone always thinks about “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.” The 1973 animated film has been many people’s go-to film for the past 50 years, seeing as it’s always on TV around the holiday season. However, there are a lot of other films that center on Turkey Day. There are also movies that don’t necessarily focus on Thanksgiving but include an iconic Thanksgiving scene, like “Addams Family Values.” Some films don’t even mention the holiday at all but are still perfect to watch with the whole family because they’re about bringing people together.
So, if you’re looking for something to watch after dinner, here are 12 Thanksgiving movies that are sure to get you in the holiday spirit.
Everett Collection / Courtesy Everett Collection
“A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving”
“A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” is a movie for the whole family. The 1973 film centers on Charlie Brown attempting to throw two Thanksgiving dinners: one for his family and one for his friends. However, it proves to be more than he can handle.
“Addams Family Values” is a classic Thanksgiving film. The 1993 movie centers around the Addamses welcoming a new member of their family, named Pubert. While Gomez (Raul Julia) and Morticia (Anjelica Huston) are ecstatic over their newborn, the couple’s oldest children – Wednesday (Christina Ricci) and Pugsley (Jimmy Workman) – feel the total opposite. After trying to kill their new sibling, the pair are sent away to summer camp, where they’re forced to participate in a big Thanksgiving play.
Everett Collection / United Artists/Courtesy Everett Collection
“Rocky”
“Rocky” is a classic underdog story about a local boxer who gets the chance to fight in the ring with world champion Apollo Creed. Although the movie doesn’t center around Thanksgiving, one of the film’s most memorable scenes involves a Thanksgiving date between Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) and his love interest, Adrian (Talia Shire).
After getting dumped by her girlfriend, Abby (Kat Dennings) plans to spend Thanksgiving eating her feelings away with her best friend, Molly (Malin Åkerman), who is going through a divorce. However, Abby’s plans fall through when Molly turns their dinner into a big Friendsgiving celebration.
Everett Collection / Hopper Stone/SMPSP
“Instant Family”
During Thanksgiving dinner, foster parents Pete (Mark Wahlberg) and Ellie Wagner (Rose Byrne) announce they plan to adopt three siblings: Lizzie (Isabela Merced), Juan (Gustavo Escobar), and Lita (Julianna Gamiz). As the couple bond with the kids, the children’s birth mother comes back into the picture, which makes Pete and Ellie question what’s best for the siblings. The film is based on director Sean Anders’s own experience fostering and then adopting his three children.
Two turkeys named Reggie (Owen Wilson) and Jake (Woody Harrelson) travel back in time to the first Thanksgiving in 1621 in order to prevent their kind from ever being on the Thanksgiving menu. However, when they begin getting hunted by settlers in the past, the pair team up with other turkeys to make sure their mission succeeds.
Everett Collection / Courtesy Everett Collection
“Black Friday”
A group of employees prepare for their Black Friday shift just as an alien parasite crashes on Earth. After the parasite begins attacking people and transforming them into monsters, the employees are forced to fight for their survival against transformed shoppers.
Everett Collection / Sony Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
“Paul Blart: Mall Cop”
On the night of Black Friday, thieves begin a heist at a mall and take its employees hostage. Security guard Paul Blart (Kevin James) is the only one who doesn’t get captured, so he takes it upon himself to defeat the gang and rescue the hostages.
“A Family Thanksgiving” centers on a lawyer named Claudia (Daphne Zuniga) who always has her job on her mind. After she forces her employees to work on Thanksgiving, a mysterious woman named Gina (Faye Dunaway) takes Claudia to an alternate world where she has a family of her own and is close with her sister. After adjusting to her new life, Claudia realizes she’s been missing out on a lot.
Everett Collection / Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
“You’ve Got Mail”
“You’ve Got Mail” is a romantic comedy set during the fall. It follows two booksellers, Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) and Joe Fox (Tom Hanks), who develop feelings for each other while communicating online. After falling in love, they discover they’ve been each other’s business rival all along.
“Almost Christmas” follows a retired engineer named Walter (Danny Glover) who recently lost his wife. During his family’s first Christmas without their beloved matriarch, Walter tries to make everyone get along during the holiday season, but it proves to be easier said than done.
When the man who was supposed to play Santa in the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade becomes intoxicated, Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) agrees to fill in last-minute. He ends up receiving such a positive reaction that he’s hired to play Santa at the Macy’s store on 34th Street in New York City. When Kris begins claiming that he’s the real Santa, he gets thrust into a legal battle where he must prove he’s telling the truth.
There are so many Christmas movies to watch each year, but what about Thanksgiving? Of course, everyone always thinks about “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.” The 1973 animated film has been many people’s go-to film for the past 50 years, seeing as it’s always on TV around the holiday season. However, there are a lot of other films that center on Turkey Day. There are also movies that don’t necessarily focus on Thanksgiving but include an iconic Thanksgiving scene, like “Addams Family Values.” Some films don’t even mention the holiday at all but are still perfect to watch with the whole family because they’re about bringing people together.
So, if you’re looking for something to watch after dinner, here are 12 Thanksgiving movies that are sure to get you in the holiday spirit.
Lyndsy Fonseca has been making a splash on Hallmark Channel since her 2005 debut — and her 2023 holiday movie is once again turning the network on its head.
Fonseca, 36, stars in Where Are You, Christmas?, which is part of Hallmark’s first three movies in its 2023 “Countdown to Christmas” programming. In the film, Fonseca plays Abby, who after wishing “there was no Christmas” gets into an accident and wakes up in a colorless world where the holiday doesn’t exist.
“No one remembers Christmas,” she yells in the teaser while running around a black-and-white world in search of someone who can recall the magical time of year. “You don’t understand what we’re going to lose if Christmas doesn’t happen!”
Hallmark Media hit the ground running in 2023, releasing six new films — and that was only the beginning. The network’s January releases included three new installments of the Wedding Veil trilogy, starring Lacey Chabert, Autumn Reeser and Alison Sweeney on Hallmark Channel and an all-new Hallmark Movies & Mysteries franchise, Family History Mysteries: Buried Past. […]
Where Are You, Christmas? is not Fonseca’s first jump to an alternate reality in a holiday film for the network. She previously time-traveled on a train in 2021’s Next Stop, Christmas.
Scroll down to learn more about Fonseca — and watch Where Are You, Christmas? on Hallmark Channel Saturday, October 21, at 8 p.m. ET.
1. What Are Lyndsy Fonseca’s Biggest TV Roles?
Lyndsy Fonseca and David Clayton Henrie in ‘How I Met Your Mother’CBS/YouTube
Fonseca started off in Hollywood playing Colleen Carlton on The Young and the Restless from 2001 to 2005. She has since portrayed Dylan Mayfair on Desperate Housewives, Alex on Nikita, the “daughter” on How I Met Your Mother, Angie Martinelli on Agent Carter and Laura Turner on Turner & Hooch. She began playing Iris Blake on 9-1-1: Lone Star in 2020.
2. What Was Lyndsy Fonseca’s 1st Hallmark Movie?
Lyndsy Fonseca in ‘Ordinary Miracles’Hallmark/YouTube
The California native appeared in her first Hallmark drama, Ordinary Miracles, in 2005. It wasn’t until decades later that she starred in her first holiday film, Next Stop, Christmas, in 2021. The feel-good film paid homage to Back to the Future as it featured a time-travel story line and also starred Christopher Lloyd and Lea Thompson, who were part of the original franchise. In 2022, Fonseca starred in North to Home.
Outside of Hallmark, Fonseca’s biggest movie roles include the Kick-Ass franchise, Hot Tub Time Machine, Curvature and Spinning Gold.
3. Is Lyndsy Fonseca Married?
Courtesy of Lyndsy Fonseca/Instagram
Fonseca wed fellow actor Noah Bean in October 2016. The couple costarred on Nikita from 2010 to 2013 before tying the knot. They have since shared the screen in 2017’s Curvature and 2018’s My ‘Friend’ Mick.
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4. How Many Kids Does Lyndsy Fonseca Have?
Courtesy of Lyndsy Fonseca/Instagram
Bean and Fonseca share two daughters, Greta and Evelyn “Evey,” born in February 2018 and June 2022, respectively.
5. How Is Lyndsy Fonseca Connected to Actress Hannah Leigh?
Courtesy of Lyndsy Fonseca/Instagram
Fonseca and No No Girl actress and musician Hannah Leigh are sisters. The siblings have both worked in the entertainment industry since the early 2000s.
It’s an honored tradition as old as time (or, at least, as old as cable networks): Hallmark holiday movies. Unlike many other themed producers, though, the network doesn’t limit its “holiday” programming to just winter holidays — you can find movies about Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, and each of the four seasons, plus a handful that are just classic cute rom-coms. No one can match Hallmark in terms of sheer output when it comes to holiday movies, and even after all these years, they’re still coming up with brand new storylines to entertain and delight fans all the way through the Christmas season and beyond. This year’s holiday movie lineup, for example, includes tales about everything from Santa Summits to messy love triangles, all designed to get you into the holiday spirit well before Thanksgiving.
One thing you probably have noticed, though, is that Hallmark often reuses the same actors in several movies. Plenty of actors get their start on the Hallmark channel, but others seem to have found a comfortable niche there, such as “Mean Girls” star Lacey Chabert, who’s the undisputed queen of Hallmark. If you’ve ever wondered who has the honor of starring in the most original movies, wonder no more! We’ve rounded up the 10 most prolific Hallmark actors and actresses — have you seen all their films?
While Netflix has come in strong on the Christmas movie game, Lifetime remains the OG when it comes to festive content. Every year, the network rolls out a whole host of soon-to-be holiday classics, reuniting the cast members of all of your favorite TV shows, and making viewers everywhere believe in magic.
Following a tried and true formula, the classic Lifetime holiday fare so often follows a bright young woman on her journey to find the “true meaning of Christmas.” Of course, there’s always an obstacle to overcome along the way, such as trying to save the beloved town inn from closing or realizing a lifelong dream of opening a bakery. Each year sees more busy executives give up their careers after hooking up with their high-school crushes under the mistletoe than ever before. From Lifetime favorites like Melissa Joan Hart, Vanessa Lachey, Tia Mowry, and Tatyana Ali, to endearing performances by members of the One Tree Hill cast, Lifetime has upped its game once again to create a truly unbelievable slate of Christmas fun.
So spike your eggnog, grab your coziest blanket, and settle in for hundreds of hours of festive frolicking with our ranking of 101 of Lifetime’s best Christmas movies of all time.
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Reindeer Games Homecoming (2022)
Grey’s Anatomy alum Sarah Drew writes and stars in this Christmas rom-com. MacKenzie is fundraising for The Reindeer Games, a tradition carried over from her late father. But when her high school crush Chase decides to take part, the pair finds that there might be something between them all these years later.
Lifetime’s first ever Christmas movie sequel sees Kelly Rowland planning a trip down the aisle. Jacquie and Tyler (Thomas Cadrot) are trying to plan their perfect destination Christmas wedding, but their families have other ideas. Will the pair manage to organize the ideal nuptials against the odds?
TV icon Melissa Joan Hart directs Mario Lopez and 90210‘s AnnaLynne McCord in this festive rom-com. Lopez plays a single dad who matches with a musician on a dating app. As she’s only in town for the holidays, the pair decides to go on a “practice date.” Luckily, thanks to the magic of Christmas, love is most definitely in the air.
Reilly (Genelle Williams) takes a trip to a new place every Christmas. But when she picks the quaint Mistletoe Lake, she arrives to find that all accommodation is sold out on account of the Christmas Harbor Festival. Luckily, Reilly is invited to stay on a boat on Mistletoe Lake by a 12-year-old named Emma. Soon, she’s roped into convincing Emma’s dad, Raymond (Corey Sevier), to enter the town’s festival for one final, perfect holiday season.
A Christmas toy drive brings Chloe (Jana Kramer) and Michael (Brandon Quinn) together. Michael is a vet who has recently returned home, and the pair works together to encourage veterans and military personnel to take part in the holiday activity. As the town prepares for the Officer’s Christmas Ball, Michael and Chloe realize that they’re a pretty great team, actually.
Jenna (One Tree Hill icon Bethany Joy Lenz) volunteers for a special writing assignment alongside fellow journalist Kevin (Andrew Walker). However, a snowstorm grounds their plane in Santa Claus, Indiana, and they suddenly find themselves trying to help save a historic town inn in this Christmas wonderland.
Grace and Anthony are both architects, but that’s where the similarities stop. However, they’re thrown together when they’re hired by New Orleans praline icon Loretta Brown (Patti LaBelle). And when Anthony finds out that Grace is set to spend the holidays alone, he invites her to spend time with his family. Will their disagreements turn into romance over the holiday season?
2021’s A Picture Perfect Holiday stars Tatyana Ali as a fashion photographer, who’s encouraged to take part in a Christmas Photography Retreat in Pine Falls. However, when she arrives, she finds her cabin has been double-booked with a very handsome, and sometimes shirtless, fellow photographer, played by Henderson Wade.
Melissa Joan Hart directs Lifetime’s latest caper, Santa Bootcamp. The Walking Dead‘s Emily Kinney stars as an event planner in need of the perfect Santa Claus. Enter West Side Story icon Rita Moreno as Belle, whose Santa Bootcamp promises to produce the best Saint Nicks in town.
Mario Lopez plays a successful TV personality thrust back into small town life when his career hits a snag. Back home, he connects with One Tree Hill‘s Jana Kramer, a local dance teacher with a penchant for community and cabaret.
Busy architect Alex (Jodie Sweetin) used to be a fan of Christmas, until her best friend hooked up with her ex, that is. Now, her mom is opening an inn in Switzerland, so the holiday season promises to filled with adventure, and hot single dads, apparently.
Tony-winner Ali Stroker stars as romance novelist Izzi, who likes to spend every Christmas at a particular bed and breakfast. Her writer’s block is immediately cured when she meets the B&B’s new owner Matt (Daniel di Tomasso), who’s extremely dashing, and looks a lot like the protagonist in her novels.
The next time you’re sitting in your company’s human relations department, try not to fall in love with the head of HR—even if it’s Christmas. The Christmas Temp follows an out of work artist who is matched with some fun festive jobs by a temp agency. She’s totally unprepared for how handsome the HR manager will be, of course.
Way before Sex and the City, Kim Cattrall starred in Mannequin, in which she played the titular clotheshorse who came to life and fell in love with Andrew McCarthy. (Same.) Holly’s Holiday (aka A Perfect Christmas) is a gender-swapped version of that movie with Holly (who, of course, has a Christmasy name) falling for a hunky mannequin named Bo, despite the fact that he has a crazy ex-girlfriend who is also a mannequin. This one’s wildly derivative—and how could you ever hope to compete with Mannequin
Few Lifetime movies can boast that they have a bona fide Oscar winner in their cast, but Finding Mrs. Claus has Mira Sorvino playing Mrs. Claus. Turns out her marriage to Santa (played by MadTV‘s Will Sasso) has hit a bumpy patch, so when she gets a Christmas letter from a lonely little girl, she heads to Las Vegas for a few reindeer games. You may never look at Santa the same way after seeing this movie—and not in the good way.
If you’re wondering what a Christmas movie made entirely out of clichés would look like, try 12 Wishes of Christmas (alternative title: 12 Christmas Wishes for My Dog). Elisa Donovan plays Maura, a self-centered woman who whose life hits a rough patch. She hires a mysterious life coach (Christmasy name: Noel), who grants her 12 wishes, which she uses for herself until she remembers the true meaning of Christmas. Yes, there’s a love interest, too. Casting highlights include many, many dogs, Family Ties star Michael Gross, and Beverly Hills 90210 alum Gabrielle Carteris. A great choice if you also know a drinking game involving vapid characters and bad life choices.
The fact that it stars David Hasselhoff should immediately rocket The Christmas Consultant to the top of this list, but for one small fact—it’s as depressing as Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. The film stars Caroline Rhea and Barclay Hope as busy parents who have to hire a party planner (that’s Hasselhoff) to organize their Christmas fête. Soon any semblance of a happy family crumbles (therapy! Bullies! Job loss!) and Hasselhoff does his best to impart some Christmas cheer, even though his own back story is enough to make Tiny Tim cry into his Christmas pudding.
Nothing warms the heart more than a child angel sent to rekindle the romance between a couple on the verge of divorce. When an “eight-year-old runaway from Heaven” is delivered via UPS, the couple is thrilled to have this little girl in their midst, even though no one can see her except for Ernie Hudson’s character—though he’s a Ghostbuster, so it almost makes sense. Still, this one’s not exactly going to halt your Christmas channel-changing.
An overworked single mother (Hilarie Burton) leaves NYC to spend Christmas in her small Louisiana hometown. She has to do some work over the holiday, so her family spends the entire week trying to distract her from the evils of technology and prevent her from doing her job. She strangely doesn’t see that as annoying, but rather as a valuable way to learn the true meaning of Christmas and just maybe fall in love. Gracing this film with their presence are country crooner Randy Travis, Ed Asner, and Night Court‘s Markie Post.
Not to be confused with Hallmark’s Christmas film of the same name, Lifetime’s version features a busy executive who gets a Christmas gift she doesn’t really want—the ability to hear everyone’s thoughts thanks to a special Christmas pin. (Accessories really can change your life!) She decides to use her newfound power for good, trying to be a better person, finding love, and, naturally, learning the true meaning of Christmas. This film earns extra points for featuring Tom Arnold.
Amelia is an efficient corporate shark who is tasked with whipping a failing Christmas ornament factory into shape. She’s happy to return to her hometown and see her dad (played by the late Alan Thicke), but her job gets complicated when she discovers her high school sweetheart runs the company. Can you guess whether she will lay off all the workers at the ornament factory or find the true meaning of Christmas and love instead?
Sometimes you go to interview for a job as an ad executive and wind up getting hired as a nanny. Emmanuelle Vaugier plays the ersatz nanny who, instead of being annoyed at the mistake, simply decides to go along with the job switcheroo. A girl’s gotta work, after all. She soon discovers that the children have very strict parents and a lot of rules to follow and, well, if you’ve seen The Sound of Music, this is pretty much the same thing, but with more Dean Cain.
Okay, who let Lifetime near the classic literature? This film updates Louisa May Alcott’s beloved Little Women by transporting the four March sisters into modern times. Jo is a ghost tweeter for a teen pop star, Meg is hung up on her ex, Amy had a run-in with the law in Thailand, and they all swap boyfriends like Pokémon cards. The quarreling sisters come together to try to save their family home, but Louisa May’s ghost undoubtedly did a spit take when Jo called her sisters “slutsicles.”
Terrible parents are not normally where a Christmas movie starts, but here we are. Grace (Desiree Ross) is a talented singer-songwriter stuck between her bitter, divorced parents. The tension reaches its apex when her mother (Megyn Price) kicks her out of the house for playing guitar, because it’s a reminder that her father (Brian McKnight) left them to pursue his musical dreams. Luckily, Dolly Parton saves the day (!!) with her talent competition, and music reunites the family. This film is typical Lifetime fare: equal doses of heartwarming and heartbreaking, with some musical interludes thrown in, but it barely qualifies as a Christmas movie—the only mention of the holiday comes in some background props and a brief rendition of “Jingle Bells.”
Lifetime managed to fit both its single-mom trope and Christmasy-named characters into this patently silly riff on Miracle on 34th Street. Holly (Gabrielle Carteris) returns to her hometown with eight-year-old son Ben to work for her father’s toy business. When Ben meets their new next-door neighbor, Nick (Steve Bacic), he becomes convinced Nick is actually Santa Claus. He does his best to set up his mom with Santa so they can live happily ever after in the North Pole.
Not to be confused with Hallmark’s Angel of Christmas, Lifetime’s A Christmas Angel is your basic “girl needs a job, ends up working for Santa” story. In the film, Ashley is desperate for work and her affable neighbor, aptly named Nick, offers her work as his assistant. The one rule is that she can’t tell anyone that he is a sort of Secret Santa, who spends his days anonymously helping others. Then Ashley meets Will, a nefarious yet handsome journalist desperate for a story. Ashley must do her best to protect Nick’s secret—and her own heart.
Haylie Duff stars as Eve, a busy party planner in New York City who has really lousy work-life balance. Her boyfriend wants to take her on a romantic vacation over Christmas, but because she’s a party planner, that’s her busiest time of year. When a client asks her to throw a huge event in L.A., she has to choose between love and her career—and both play out in Sliding Doors–style parallel action.
This film has pretty much the same plot as A Snow Globe Christmas (which ranked higher). Jane, a workaholic advertising executive played by Nancy McKeon, wakes up to find herself a happily married stay-at-home mom to two kids. While it’s nice that Lifetime is tackling the working woman vs. stay-at-home mother question that many women face, they don’t seem to realize that you can actually work and have children at the same time.
Former Bond girl and Wild Thing Denise Richards stars as Amy, a Madison Avenue executive who returns to her hometown at Christmas in the wake of her aunt’s death. In traditional morbid backstory, Amy was raised by her aunt after her parents died in an accident, and is affected strongly by the loss. But when her tyrannical boss comes calling, Amy considers skipping out on her aunt’s last wish—that Amy and her ex run her bakery and co-host the town’s annual holiday bake-off. Of course, as everyone knows, holiday cookies are a gateway drug to love.
The only thing worse than showing up to your best friend’s wedding without a date is being forced to relive that wedding over and over again trying to get it right. A Christmas Wedding Date stars TV movie regular Marla Sokoloff as Rebecca, a Wall Street executive who returns to her small hometown for a friend’s wedding. A magical Christmas ornament helps her find the true meaning of Christmas and, naturally, true love. Casting highlights include Nashville‘s Will Lexington (Chris Carmack) and Cheers alum George Wendt.
In case you were concerned that Melissa Joan Hart wasn’t getting enough Christmas-related TV roles, here she plays hard-working bakery owner Kate Holiday (drink for a Christmas name!). While Kate is knee-deep in Christmas cookie orders, she gets unceremoniously dumped by her jerk boyfriend days before Christmas. Thanks to a magic ornament and/or stress-induced psychosis, she awakes to find a handsome soldier in her living room. Turns out that Chip (Lifetime regular Barry Watson) may or may not be the Nutcracker Prince from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, which is reassuring enough that Kate considers falling in love or at least not calling the cops on him.
Mario Lopez and Melissa Joan Hart (playing a single mother, naturally) are rival toy store owners with complicated family backstories, who have no choice but to join forces to fight the unscrupulous owner of the big box store that arrives in their small Connecticut town. Will these rivals save their stores and Christmas and fight The Man and find love? Have you ever seen a Lifetime movie that doesn’t end like that? While the film loses points for cloying obviousness, it earns points for basically being the A-Team of Lifetime movies, starring Hart and Lopez as well as Sex and the City’s Mario Cantone and Hart’s Sabrina the Teenage Witch co-star Beth Broderick (a.k.a. Aunt Zelda), playing her mom.
Lifetime remixed one of its own for this film, which is a genders-reversed version of the 2013 movie Merry In-Laws. The film features a soon-to-be married couple, one of whom happens to be the lone offspring of Mr. and Mrs. Claus. This time, it’s the daughter—and whoever marries her must be prepared to step into her father’s shoes. As with its predecessor, the best part of the movie is that it features a mini-reunion of a beloved sitcom cast. This time, Family Ties stars Meredith Baxter and Michael Gross play the Clauses.
This time Claire (American Horror Story’s Alexandra Breckenridge) is the savvy venture capitalist from New York City who heads to an idyllic town in Vermont for the holidays. She quickly falls in love with the quaint Fortenbury Bookstore, but hates the owner, Andrew (Jamie Spilchuk), who mansplains over her ideas to save the store. Of course, in the Lifetime universe, it’s a slippery slope from burning hatred to making heart-eye emojis at each other. Soon enough Claire and Andrew start to fall for each other, until Claire finds out Andrew wants to sell the bookstore. How dare he sell his own business? Luckily, the spirit of Christmas just might change his mind, especially if Claire gives up her Wall Street career and moves to Vermont!
You can’t deny this one has a great title. Rebecca and Henry are engaged—but can Rebecca’s Jewish parents and Henry’s Christmas-loving family, the Kringles, find a way to get along, despite differing religious beliefs and holiday traditions? Probably! This corny premise is redeemed by stars Wendie Malick and Cynthia Stevenson, who should star in every Lifetime movie, honestly.
Why have just one single parent who discovers the true meaning of Christmas when you can have two single parents find the true meaning of Christmas together? Busy working mom Abby (Vanessa Lachey) and single dad lawyer Ryan (Brendon Zub) hate each other pretty much on sight, which is the surest recipe for love in the Lifetime Christmas kitchen. When a fateful mix-up at a toy store is poised to ruin Christmas for both families, they can’t help but team up to save Christmas—not realizing they’re falling for each other in the process.
New York City event planner Whitney Kennison (The Good Place’s Tiya Sircar) goes on a literal guilt trip to Chicago to spend Christmas with her Grandma Frances (Diane Ladd). To reward her, Frances decides to give her granddaughter the family ornaments (not a euphemism), but Whitney accidentally throws the box away. Instead of never talking to her again, Grandma Frances devises a Christmas scavenger hunt to remind Whitney about the true meaning of Christmas—and if she happens to find love along the way and move to Chicago and give up her job, even better.
The holidays are stressful for Mr. and Mrs. Claus, but having to oversee the manufacturing of toys for all the good boys and girls and making deliveries on a very tight deadline is nothing compared to having to hang out with their son’s future wife (a scientist) and her joyless parents. Cheers fans will rejoice at the reunion of Shelley Long and George Wendt, who star as the jolly in-laws.
Dear Santa stars Amy Acker (of Angel and Alias fame) as a rich girl whose parents threaten to cancel her credit cards if she doesn’t change her life. Her foolproof plan: Make a little girl’s Christmas dream come true by marrying her father. What could possibly go wrong? The icing on this cinematic confection is that it was directed by Beverly Hills 90210 star Jason Priestley. Do you really need to know more than that?
Sam and Kat met at the children’s table one Christmas, kick-starting a lifelong friendship that just might turn into romance. The film earns points for sheer quantity of festivities, with the action unfolding over the course of more than a dozen Christmas Eve parties. As for casting highlights, this film includes Gilmore Girls‘ Luke (Scott Patterson) and not one, but two Dancing With the Stars contestants—Back to the Future‘s Lea Thompson and Danica McKellar.
We found it—the only Lifetime Christmas movie that takes place on a cruise ship. Two families, led by Colin Ferguson (Eureka) and Charlotte Ross (NYPD Blue), want to escape the ghosts of their Christmases past, so they hop on a giant boat to Puerto Rico to spend their holidays in the sun. The two families bond, but it’s complicated, especially when his ex-wife shows up.
If you’ve ever dreamed of a Family Matters–Big Bang Theory mash-up, this is for you. Mayim Bialik gets dumped by her boyfriend a few days before Christmas and decides she may as well spend the holiday with her family. Unfortunately, bad weather diverts her plane and she ends up in Montana, where she’s forced to share the town’s last hotel room with an incredibly attractive stranger (Ryan McPartlin), who just happens to walk around with a towel casually slung around his waist. Helping to extend this meet-cute into a full-length movie are Family Matters stars Reginald VelJohnson and Jo Marie Payton.
When an advice columnist finds an unsigned love letter, she’s determined to find the sender—who, naturally lives in her hometown. Instead of just posting the note on her town’s Facebook page or alerting a local news outlet looking for a heartwarming holiday story, she goes full Nancy Drew. While she’s looking for love, she also finds a better, different kind of love.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gossip Girl‘s Michelle Trachtenberg plays a reporter seeking the boy who sent her a memorable Secret Santa gift when they were kids. With the blessing of her editor, she uses all her journalistic skills (e.g., wearing a cocktail dress) to track him down so she can thank him in person for the gift. Then, in a very unprofessional—yet not particularly surprising—move, she falls in love with him. If you want to feel extra good about this movie, it was based on a real-life heartwarming story.
This film, set in a psychiatric hospital, clearly owes a debt to Miracle on 34th Street. Kate, a psychiatrist, is rescued by a mysterious man named Nick Claus. She brings him to her hospital, where he sets about filling the patients with Christmas spirit, infuriating the Scrooge-like hospital administrator, and, of course, winning Kate’s heart.
A homeless jazz singer helps a a young musician (Ashanti) rediscover the magic of Christmas after tragedy. This is as close to a musical as these Christmas movies get, so Les Miserables fans should definitely tune in.
Alicia Witt plays a jaded TV executive who gets sucked into an antique snow globe. She’s okay with that, though, because inside the globe it’s always Christmas, she’s married to Scrubs star Donald Faison, and she has two cute kids—plus a guardian angel in the form of Christina Milian.
It’s easy to imagine this as a Christmas-themed retelling of Kinky Boots, since it involves a family business on the brink of demise, but instead of turning to the world of erotic footwear, the business looks to Santa Claus for a miracle. Megan Hilty plays Holly (drink for a Christmas name!), who is filling in as a Santa’s Helper at her parents’ struggling department store when she commits the ultimate no-no—she falls for her Santa. Then, jolly old Nick turns into the ghost of boyfriends past and disappears, leaving only a boot behind as a clue. Apparently unaware of ghosting as a modern dating phenomenon, Holly goes on the hunt for him, random boot in hand, turning this into a gender-swapped Cinderella.
Singer Layla and songwriter Spence just want to make beautiful music together, but the music industry is so cutthroat it’s tearing them apart. Those pesky record executives may ruin their chance at fame—and love. Or not!
The title of this one doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but it’ll slot right into your comfort viewing schedule. Starring JoAnna Garcia as Roxanne, a wedding planner who sees red flags when her mom gets engaged to a man she hasn’t known for very long, it’s really two love stories for the price of one. The beloved late Luke Perry pops up here as Roxanne’s confusingly hot potential new brother-in-law, but honestly, there’s not enough of him in the movie (and that’s why it didn’t rank higher).
An internet meme becomes a made-for-TV movie thanks to the wonders of basic cable programming. Strangely more fun than you would expect, particularly because Grumpy Cat spends the entire film making fun of Christmas movie clichés while starring in one.
A Ghostbuster (Ernie Hudson), an American Idol (Jordin Sparks), and a Fresh Prince actor star in this Christmas tale inspired by the Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves time-traveling romance The Lake House. Tatyana Ali plays the adorably clumsy Jennifer, who moves back home to care for her aging father and starts getting anonymous letters from a secret admirer, Jack (New Girl‘s Lamorne Morris). This film has something for everyone: romance, Christmas, and interdimensional wormholes.
Not to be confused with Christmas in the Bayou or The Christmas Contract, in this movie, Beverley Mitchell plays Noelle (drink for a Christmas name!) who returns to Louisiana for Christmas with big plans to resurrect her late mom’s favorite Christmas tradition—the town’s live nativity. She would also like to avoid her ex, Nick (One Tree Hill’s Stephen Colletti), while she’s in town, but what kind of Lifetime movie would it be if she didn’t run into him? The former high school sweethearts are forced to hang out because their parents are hanging out, too, and this just might turn into an episode of Dr. Phil, where a mom and her guy get married while the step-kids are dating each other. Oh, and keep an eye out for Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert!
This is basically Jane Austen’s Emma but given the Lifetime Christmas Movie treatment. In short, it’s perfect, even if the main love interest is someone named “Jaxson.”
Next time you’re at the airport and your flight gets cancelled, remember that some of the greatest love stories of our time started in an airport. In this one, a pilot convinces her charming but arrogant co-pilot to pretend to be her boyfriend at a family gathering so she can make her ex jealous. That’s right—for some reason, her family invited her ex to Christmas. Sounds like a good reason to get a new family instead of a fake boyfriend.
Wendy (Ashley Williams) is a single mom who’s going to lose her candy shop if she doesn’t raise some fast cash. Instead of turning to Kickstarter, she takes a job in the toy section of a big-city department store at Christmas. When the owner’s son takes a shine to her, she must face off against Teanna, a tough-as-nails marketer played by Ashanti. Will Wendy find love and the riches she needs? Well, it is Christmas on Lifetime.
Hilarie Burton got into Christmas movies on a dare from Paul Rudd, and she has turned that one-off into a career with roles in Christmas on the Bayou, Naughty or Nice, and many more. In this go-round she plays a spunky Alaskan reindeer trainer charged with finding a substitute for Prancer when he injures his hoof. Her character, Annie, is a single mother (of course) who isn’t sure she wants her daughter’s pet reindeer to go to the North Pole. It’s up to Santa’s hunky stablehand to convince her otherwise.
While nearly every Lifetime movie involves rediscovering the magic of Christmas in some form or other, this one makes it the entire plot. The film follows a holiday window dresser who wanted to spend Christmas relaxing on the beach after her busy season, but instead learns the magic of Christmas while attending her quaint Vermont hometown’s Snowflake festival. Lifetime proves that if your town has a holiday festival, you will fall in love.
Gwen (Meredith Hagner) is a personal shopper with a new client—Charlie (Travis Milne), a workaholic single dad. If you think they might fall in love by the end of the movie, then you have finally watched enough Lifetime movies to know what you’re in for. Gwen has no understanding of boundaries, and when she meets Charlie’s adorable son, she decides to make it her Christmas mission to bring a little cheer to the family. She not only gets them in the festive spirit, but she also realizes that all she wants for Christmas is them.
Just like 2012’s A Christmas Wedding Date, the title of this film gives away the entire plot. Basically, a brand strategist works to make sure she has a date for the big day, because everyone needs a date to Christmas in the Lifetime world.
Isn’t it awkward when your ex-boyfriend is leading the community protest against your company’s takeover of your hometown’s charming inn? Of course, if you watch enough Lifetime movies, you know that awkward encounters eventually lead to love at Christmas. Tatyana Ali stars as the hospitality hustler forced to choose between love and career during the holidays.
Yet another lonely, single event planner is determined to save her business with a Christmas Eve bash to remember. Though her business is on the line, she’s hustling to make sure her niece has an amazing Christmas—and thanks to the hot new nanny, they both might get what they want this year.
Vanessa Lachey dusts off her acting chops to play a dog owner whose beloved pooch makes a break for it. She has no choice (none!) but to convince her ex-boyfriend to help her track down the dog. As they race through town on their search, they remember the good times from their past. Someone is going to get a very big treat if these two get back together.
A wealthy widow wants to cheer up his daughter, so he hires a home stager played by Soleil Moon Frye (a.k.a. Punky Brewster) to decorate the place. This might not seem like the place to argue about the difference between “home stager” and “interior decorator,” but since the plot is completely predictable, maybe it is?
When two rival musicians find themselves without a gig on Christmas Eve, they decide to go on a Christmas road trip, which is a totally normal thing for two people who ostensibly hate each other to do. It quickly turns into an ersatz Planes, Trains and Automobiles as the two try to get to their respective hometowns. All that stands in their way is a Santa convention and a guest appearance from country royalty Marie Osmond.
If you’ve ever wanted to see Christine Baranski reveal her up-to-the-minute tech skills by revealing that she “just bought a book on Amazon dot com,” then you’re in luck. Baranski plays Lee, who arrives on her restaurant-critic daughter JJ’s doorstep after losing her job. Perennial hottie Bobby Cannavale stars as a chef JJ asks to help manage her OTT mom and, voilà! Christmas magic happens.
Tia Mowry plays yet another workaholic who thinks she’s satisfied with her wildly successful advertising career, but soon realizes there’s more to life thanks to a deceased aunt who leaves her a cozy inn in Alaska. Instead of selling the inn for a profit and returning to her life in San Francisco, she decides to stay after she experiences the town’s Stars Hollow-meets-Northern Exposure Christmas vibe. Of course, the handsome town attorney, Steve (Rob Mayes), doesn’t hurt either.
When a busy executive (is there any other type?) learns she needs to learn about Hannukah ASAP, she doesn’t just look it up on the internet. She turns to the friend of a friend, who is apparently the only Jew in town. Turns out he needs help, too, so they set up a unimpeachable quid pro quo that may lead to something more if his girlfriend doesn’t derail the plan.
Belle (played by Lifetime Christmas troupe member Tatyana Ali) followed her musical dreams to Juilliard in New York City, which is amazing. However, everyone in her hometown is treating her like it was a bad choice, because she broke the heart of her high school sweetheart (Scandal’s Cornelius Smith Jr.) when she left him behind. She got into Julliard, people, respect! Belle is lured back to town to write music for the town’s 50th anniversary Christmas pageant, which just so happens to be directed by her ex. While Belle claims she doesn’t “want any messy emotions getting in the way” of their working relationship, is there any doubt she’ll be giving up her New York City dreams for a rekindled flame by the end of the film? While the premise is annoying, the movie also features two Cosby Show alums (Keshia Knight Pulliam and Tempestt Bledsoe).
Any Christmas movie that ends with an En Vogue concert has to automatically be a top contender. Seriously, they could close It Follows with an En Vogue show, and the resulting film could upstage It’s a Wonderful Life as a holiday favorite. This feel-good musical odyssey focuses on a fan (Genelle Williams) who asks the divas to play a benefit concert to save her family’s club. And well, who cares: En Vogue concert!
Taraji P. Henson produced and made a brief appearance in this heartwarming, music-driven movie. Coming along for the ride are Gladys Knight and Method Man, who plays the resident Grinch—an untrustworthy record executive. The drama follows Kyla (LeToya Luckett) and Amir (Cleo Anthony) on their journey to the true meaning of Christmas and, duh, love.
90210‘s Jessica Lowndes plays Mia, who travels back to her hometown to help decorate the annual Snowflake Festival Christmas Eve dance. However, the project isn’t smooth sailing, as Mia clashes with Adam, a dashing but stubborn man whose parents founded the festival six decades earlier. Will bickering turn to love?
A sister wants to play matchmaker, but instead of just taking over her sibling’s Hinge account, she conspires to send her to the picturesque Vermont inn where her ex-boyfriend just happens to be staying. Sisters, amiright?
Lifetime regular Tia Mowry owns a vintage store and sees unusual old items every single day, but that doesn’t stop her from finding magic in mementos. When she stumbles upon a mysterious box of trinkets, she sets out on an Amelie–style mission to reunite them with their rightful owners. And if her cute new tenant wants to help her on the adventure, well, that’s just the magic of the season.
I was hoping this was a Christmas reboot of the Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton working girl classic 9 to 5,but instead it’s a Lifetime Christmas crime caper. Tough reporter Jennifer goes undercover at a department store and realizes that journalism is lame and she really wants to work in retail. She also meets the man of her dreams, but that’s almost beside the point since she found her true calling.
Sarah Drew may not be on Grey’s Anatomy anymore, but she already has a new line on her resumé—playing Hannah, a tech genius/dating-app creator who is, funnily enough, bad at love. After getting dumped, she heads home for the holidays, where she runs into her high school boyfriend, as you do in Lifetime movies. Meanwhile, her dad (played by Michael Gross) convinces her to sign up for the anonymous holiday pen pal service (is that a thing?) where the writers’ identities will be revealed on Christmas Eve. If you’ve ever seen You’ve Got Mail you can probably guess where this is going.
Hans Christian Andersen once wrote a horrifying story about a girl given a pair of magical shoes that are so cursed, she ends up begging an executioner to chop them off her legs. This is like that, but instead of making Kayla dance, the magical shoes imbue her with the Christmas spirit and instead of an executioner, she finds love.
This movie stars a Spice Girl, so it’s mandatory viewing. Cheri (Lindy Booth) plays a librarian desperate to save her local branch from an evil yet handsome real-estate developer, Tony (Robin Dunne). To raise funds to save the library, she throws a tree-decorating contest and Tony enters with the help of his decorator—Mel B, aka Scary Spice. Will Mel B “Let Love Lead the Way” for Cheri and Tony, or does she “Wannabe” his “Love Thing”?
Melissa Joan Hart both directs and stars in this story of yet another single mom whose adorable son asks Santa to reunite his parents for Christmas. The twist comes in the form of a con man (played by 7th Heaven‘s Barry Watson) with a heart of gold who discovers the true meaning of Christmas after getting a job as a department store Santa. Familiar faces include Family Matters‘ Jaleel White, Wendy Williams as a straight-talking pastor, and another Cheers alum, John Ratzenberger.
Imagine Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion with a Christmas backdrop and you’ll have a good feel for Holiday High School Reunion. The film stars Rachel Boston as Georgia, a former cheerleader and aspiring fashion designer who’s desperate to win back her football player ex-boyfriend, Craig. The movie’s most redeeming characteristic is that it’s full of Mean Girls references, including the casting of Jonathan Bennett (aka Aaron “October 3rd” Samuels) as Georgia’s best friend, Ben. If you want to watch this one immediately, we should tell you that the movie was renamed Christmas Crush, and it’s very much worth your time.
Not to be confused with A Christmas in Tennessee, Christmas on the Bayou or last year’s Hometown Christmas, this film follows a former Miss Christmas as she returns home to Louisiana for the annual Sugarcane Christmas Festival. A pageant queen needs her pageant king, of course, and she soon finds a Mister Christmas to call her own.
The tough world of investigative journalism becomes the unlikely ground for a love story when two rival reporters trying to get their big scoop meet. Will they crack the case, or will the potentially viral story be sidetracked for love? If the unlikely story of love in the ever-tightening media landscape doesn’t lure you in, your mom will be impressed that both Patrick Duffy and OG Charlie’s Angel Jaclyn Smith guest star.
This story follows Emma (played by Kim Fields a.k.a. Tootie from The Facts of Life) who returns to her hometown (naturally) and lights up the entire place with the heat of a rekindled old flame and (naturally) the Christmas spirit.
When a local baker retires, she decides that instead of selling her successful business and using the money to retire in Boca, she wants to give the bakery to the person who can follow her recipes the best. Holly (drink for a Christmas name!) and Brad both want to win, but like The Highlander,there can be only one bakery winner. Since Holly can’t cook and Brad doesn’t have a name that sounds like Christmas, they team up—and, well, the title gives away what the real prize is.
Not to be confused with The Christmas Contract, this film asks the eternal question: Can best friends fall in love? As anyone who binge-watches Lifetime movies can tell you, the resounding answer is yes! Still, next door neighbors Sadie (Kyla Pratt) and Ben (Jarod Joseph) have to stumble on that realization for themselves. They must decide whether to keep the pact they made over a Christmas tree when they were eight years old or make like Fleetwood Mac and go their own ways. Life may have interfered with their friendship, but it’s nothing that a little Christmas magic can’t cure. Brace yourself for tree metaphors! And A Different World’s Jasmine Guy as a mom!
Opening with a car accident that leaves a young boy motherless, Holiday Spin is designed to be a real tearjerker. The boy, Blake, is forced to go live with his dad, Ruben, played by Ralph Macchio, aka the Karate Kid himself, who is barely keeping his dance studio afloat. The only hope for the studio’s survival is the star dancer (and Ruben’s soon-to-be stepdaughter), Pia, winning big at the annual dance called—you guessed it—the Holiday Spin. When Pia’s partner bails on the competition, guess who has to step in? This movie has everything you could want in a Lifetime flick, including holiday magic, Baywatch‘s Erika Eleniak, and some slightly creepy stepbrother/stepsister crush action.
UnREAL‘s Shiri Appleby stars as a woman who gets a do-over when she falls asleep alone on Christmas Eve and wakes up on Christmas morning 17 years in the past. It’s a Christmas miracle that lets her fix the mistakes of her past, correct her fashion faux pas, and, you know, find love and the true meaning of Christmas. Keep an eye out for Lost‘s Elizabeth Mitchell and ’80s icon Judd Nelson.
This film seems like it should be a sequel to Christmas on the Bayou, with Hilarie Burton once again playing an attractive workaholic fleeing her big city life to her Southern hometown, but instead it’s a One Tree Hill reunion. Look! There’s Clay! And Antwon! And Rachel! And Chris! As well as revisiting your favorite mid-’00s show, there’s a Christmas-themed love story to tell. Burton’s Jolie can’t stand the idea of going back to Louisiana without a boyfriend to rub in the face of her ex, so she takes a page out of To All The Boys I’ve Loved Beforeand whips up a contract with her bestie’s brother, Jack (played by Robert Buckley) to pretend to be her boyfriend. Of course, the contract is just the beginning. (Bonus: Since they had the cast around, Lifetime threw a reunion into the holiday mix, with ‘Tis the Season: A One Tree Hill Cast Reunion.)
In what can only be considered an argument for improved farm subsidies, a young dairy farmer struggles to keep her family farm afloat. She’s about to sell off the cows when she comes up with a clever scheme—a holiday ice cream contest. Will one good idea be enough to save a family farm in this economy? Will the hunky business owner buy the cow when he can get the milk for free to make ice cream? Probably! Hoping that FarmersOnly.com realizes the marketing opportunity here and runs some ads during the film.
Sarah Drew left her career as a doctor on Grey’s Anatomy to start a new life as a wedding planner at the Snowview Lodge, which is a downgrade from last year, when she played a tech genius in Christmas Pen Pals. Work brings her in contact with fellow single parent Henry who runs a Christmas decoration company (I mean, someone has to, right?). As they conspire to make the best Christmas Eve wedding party ever, a well-timed snow storm helps them find true Christmas magic.
Now for a 10-year-old boy’s Christmastime in ’60s Connecticut. His adventure begins when a substitute teacher comes up with an outrageous plan to shake up a school’s Christmas pageant, ensuring no one in the town will forget it. Based on the Wally Lamb novel, Wishin’ and Hopin’ has a surprisingly A-list cast, including Molly Ringwald, Chevy Chase, Annabella Sciorra, and SNL‘s Cheri Oteri.
Lexi Lawson plays a marketing exec (of course) who inherits her grandfather’s year-round Christmas store in Vermont. Since she doesn’t live in Vermont, she makes the wise decision to sell it for a bunch of cash to an athleisure company. Mrs. Claus, played by Beth Broderick (a.k.a. Aunt Zelda) has her own business ideas, though, and thanks to a little help from Christmas magic and a handsome diner owner who doesn’t mind a cranky customer, it just might be Christmas forever, but not in a Nightmare Before Christmas way.
Did you ever think you’d see Toni Braxton in a Lifetime movie inspired by the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol? It’s a Christmas miracle inside another Christmas miracle! Braxton plays a workaholic money manager who says “Bah humbug” to love. That all changes over the course of one crazy night when the spirit of Christmas takes her on a trip through her romantic past, present, and future, and reminds her that love is the greatest gift of all.
Did you like the movie Little? Then you will love Kelly Rowland playing a tech entrepreneur who loves her family, but not enough to let them mess up her gleaming, perfect, brand-new home before a big photoshoot. While a Christmas wish doesn’t turn her “liddle,” she does recapture the magic of Christmas with the help of a new neighbor. The film is inspired by Rowland’s own life and features new music from the Destiny’s Child singer.
Lifetime basically made a Christmas-themed version of a Carrie Underwood biopic. Country star Laney Blu rocketed to fame on a reality show, which took her away from her beloved Smoky Mountain home. When she stops by to make Christmas cookies with her mom, what was supposed to be a whirlwind trip becomes a long stay thanks to a freak snowstorm and a hunky snowplow driver/mayor/architect/ex-boyfriend.
In what feels like a sequel to Christmas on the Bayou, but isn’t (??), Hilarie Burton once again plays a young woman determinedly not looking for love in a small Louisiana town. That all changes when her bossy sister makes her put a wish in the town’s Christmas wish box, which is apparently a thing in small Southern towns. The next day, Santa delivers Andrew, who just might be her Christmas wish come true or, you know, not. The important thing here is that Pam Grier (!!) guest stars and in what is becoming a holiday tradition, Lifetime is hosting another mini-One Tree Hill reunion, so definitely worth watching.
Melissa Joan Hart is single at Christmas—again. In this season’s version, she plays an event coordinator at her family’s ski lodge (this may be a job that only exists in Lifetime movies) who is too busy to find love. She’s ready for another lonesome Christmas when her recently—but not too recently—widowed ex-boyfriend checks in with his two motherless children. You’ll never guess what happens next. Oh wait, you totally will. Extra points for managing to cram four love stories (five if you include the dog) into one movie.
Emmy- and Tony-winning actress Kristen Chenoweth plays driven New York City publicist E.J. Baxter, who loses both her job and her fiancé at the office Christmas party. Her only choice is to move to Montana and convince a bunch of hunky search-and-rescue volunteers to pose nude for a fundraising calendar. Luckily, she is very good at her job. Keep your eyes peeled for a pre-Veep Anna Chlumsky playing E.J.’s eager assistant. It’s not just the great casting that makes this one shine—its Christmas feels are real.
Lifetime Christmas movie regular Keshia Knight Pulliam plays a radio DJ who is forced to broadcast her show from the little town of Bethlehem, PA. (Drink for a Christmas name!) To work up some buzz for her show and hopefully earn a promotion, she decides to make the town’s secret Santa not so secret. But her mission to unmask the anonymous benefactor leads her to the true meaning of Christmas thanks to handsome divorcé and his matchmaking daughter. She soon learns that some things are more important than radio—and, no, it’s not podcasts.
Everyone has to start somewhere. Mark Ruffalo, Oscar-nominated actor and everyone’s favorite hunky Hulk, took an early shot with this made-for-TV Christmas romance. The film revolves around Patsy, a pint-size con artist, and her criminally minded aunt (played by Mary Stuart Masterson). A baby-faced Ruffalo plays Bert, the world-weary security guard who busts them on Christmas Eve. Bert’s boss orders him to watch over the thieves until the jails reopen (…okay?)—and that’s when the Christmas magic takes hold. We just can’t resist this ghost of Ruffalo past.
If you’re looking for the holiday edition of improbable ghost rom-com Just Like Heaven, this is it. Here, Kate (Jen Lilley) falls in love with a ghost, because the dating scene in her town is just that bad. The dead guy’s spirit is trapped haunting an inn, and despite the fact that she’s a lawyer, not a medium, she helps him solve the mystery of his death. There’s betrayal, rum-running, and Christmas magic, and together they crush the space-time continuum to live happily ever after (or something). After a re-watch, it’s clear this is the finest Lifetime movie ever made.
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