Holiday Movies For However You Holiday
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Posted on Nov 11, 2024 | 02:00pm
Some feast on Christmas cookies. Some fill up with fruit cake. And others simply stack three grapes into a little snowman shape before popping them into their mouths. Hey, we don’t judge. We know there’s a holiday treat to satisfy every appetite. Similarly, we think there’s a holiday film to suit every movie night. That’s where we come in. We've gone through the many, many entertainment options in the ‘Tis the Season for Streaming holiday collection on Paramount+, checked 'em twice, and come up with more than a dozen film recommendations for every type of holiday season movie-watcher.
Whether you’re looking to get in the holiday spirit, or just get out of a family dinner, we’ve got the perfect flick to match your vibe (and ugly Christmas sweater). Read on to get our list of curated picks. No matter what holiday genre you’re into, we’ve got an option that’s guaranteed to sleigh … er … slay!
Get Started
Prefer your holiday heroes just a little more naughty than nice? Have we got the movie for you …
Coming to you from Peter and Bobby Farrelly – aka The Farrelly Brothers, the hilarious minds behind movies like Kingpin – Dear Santa is an upcoming new comedy film about a young boy (Robert Timothy Smith) who mails his Christmas wish list to Santa with one crucial spelling error, resulting in a devilish Jack Black’s arrival to wreak havoc on the holidays. Expect instead a veritable toy-sack of outrageousness, mayhem, and laughs.
In addition to Black and Smith, the movie stars Keegan-Michael Key, Brianne Howey, Hayes MacArthur, global music superstar Post Malone, P.J. Byrne, Jaden Carson Baker, and Kai Cech.
Dear Santa premieres Monday, Nov. 25, on Paramount+.
3. Bad Santa 2 (2016)
Have anxiety-inducing, childhood Christmas memories of mall Santas? Or maybe you’re just over all the gingerbread-flavored everything, and radio stations that play the same three Christmas songs for two months straight. Bad Santa and Bad Santa 2 are the dark comedies for you. In the former film, Billy Bob Thornton (Landman) stars as Willie T. Soke, a hard-drinking, profanity-spewing thief who works as a department store St. Nick so he can rob the shopping plazas every Christmas Eve. But savvy as he is, he doesn’t count on one needy kid putting a crimp in his plans. Bad Santa 2 adds Kathy Bates (Matlock) to the mix, and centers on Willie’s arrangements for another big heist – this time from a Chicago charity organization run by the prickly Diane (Christina Hendricks). But with a disposition like his, can he possibly come out of the escapade in one piece?
If you love Christmas, but need the sweetness of the season balanced out with something a little bit tart, the Bad Santa movies provide a dose of bad-mouthed, blood-splattered fun. You will gasp. You will wince. But you will definitely ho-ho-ho.
WATCH NOW: Bad Santa
WATCH NOW: Bad Santa 2
Want to get in the Yuletide mood, but outside forces, particularly of the traffic kind, seem to be conspiring against you? Have we got a road-trip comedy for you … In the John Hughes classic Planes, Trains and Automobiles, marketing exec Neal Page (Steve Martin) wants to travel from New York City to Chicago to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family. But inclement weather, money mishaps, and transportation disasters thwart him at every turn, keeping his destination – and that warm turkey dinner – just out of reach. What’s more, fate throws him together with Del Griffith (John Candy), a chatty shower-curtain-ring salesman with whom Neal couldn’t possibly have less in common. Or so he thinks …
It’s impossible to remain un-merry in the face of Martin's and Candy’s uproarious chemistry, just as it's impossible to resist rooting for their characters' unlikely friendship. If you’re feeling slow to experience the holiday magic this year, Planes, Trains and Automobiles is your fast track to joy.
WATCH NOW: Planes, Trains and Automobiles
You know what rekindles that holiday spirit? Gratitude. Also, a luxe vacation and slammin’ new wardrobe! Last Holiday stars Queen Latifah as Georgia Byrd, a department store sales clerk who amid the hustle and bustle of Christmastime learns she has only a few weeks to live. Determined to experience all life has to offer while she still has the time, she checks into an upscale European hotel, gets a head-to-toe makeover, eats gourmet spreads prepared by her culinary hero, and proceeds to tick item after item off her bucket list.
‘Tis the season for giving thanks for what we have, and Last Holiday serves up an important, entertaining reminder to count blessings and chase dreams. Plus, Georgia – a major foodie with money to burn – orders several mouthwatering (and lovingly filmed) meals throughout the course of the film. We can bet you’ll be inspired to create similar concoctions for your own holiday tables.
WATCH NOW: Last Holiday
If you're a child of the '80s and '90s, then Ernest P. Worrell is probably a favorite. And in Ernest Saves Christmas, Jim Varney's iconic character becomes Santa Claus' favorite.
The comedy finds our dear Ernest working as a cabbie in Florida. One day he gives a ride to the aforementioned Claus (Douglas Seale). It seems the jolly old elf is off to meet the man he’s chosen to be his replacement. But when Santa gets tossed in the slammer, his plans go up in chimney smoke, and it’s up to Ernest to make sure Christmas goes off without a hitch.
We dare you not to crack a smile at Ernest’s antics, or to feel the cockles of your heart warming at his unflagging efforts to save the day. Varney’s Ernest may not be a bright man. He may not be an articulate man. But, doggone it, he’s got the holiday spirit down pat.
WATCH NOW: Ernest Saves Christmas
The Hanukkah-themed animated feature film Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights is chock-full of ditties that ably serve the story of Davey (voiced by Adam Sandler), a criminal who gravitates toward alcoholic spirits (and eschews the holiday kind). When he’s forced to perform community service to avoid jail time, Davey comes to understand the significance of the season, as well as what makes for a truly meaningful life. With a singable soundtrack, not to mention its star's irreverent brand of comedy, Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights is a toe-tapping original.
WATCH NOW: Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights
9. Mean Girls (2024)
The North Shore winter talent show! The candy-cane grams! Glen Coco! No argument here: We say no Christmastime streaming experience is complete without Cady, Regina George, and the Plastics. The original Mean Girls movie stars Lindsay Lohan as Cady Heron, a teen new to the public-school experience – and all the social complexities that come with it. When Cady falls in with the Plastics, the most popular of the student cliques, she finds herself loving her newfound status, but losing all the qualities that made her her. Will Cady regain her humanity before she becomes too plastic for her own good?
While the 2004 version of Mean Girls has plenty of must-see musical moments, 2024's Mean Girls is literally a musical. Based on the Tony®-nominated show of the same name, the new Mean Girls stars Angourie Rice, Reneé Rapp, and Tony® nominee Jaquel Spivey. It’s your favorite flick – plus 12 Tony®-nominated bangers to add to your holiday playlist. Could anything be more fetch?
WATCH NOW: Mean Girls (2004)
WATCH NOW: Mean Girls (2024)
10. The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)
Are you as big a fan of the holiday season as you are of watching galoots get pummeled? Good news! The Long Kiss Goodnight, starring Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson, is your brand of festive! Davis plays Samantha Caine, a schoolteacher with no memory of who she was before the day she was found unconscious and pregnant on a New Jersey riverbed. This was eight years earlier, and Samantha is no closer to discovering her true identity - that is, until she suffers a concussion that awakens fighting and weaponry skills she never knew she possessed. Who is she, who wants her dead, and who can she really trust?
Set during Christmastime with a soundtrack full of Christmas classics, The Long Kiss Goodnight is an action movie that doubles as, yes, a Christmas movie. We mean, hey: Santa red, bloodred – it’s all basically the same jolly color, isn’t it?
WATCH NOW: The Long Kiss Goodnight
Get Started
Love Christmas, but miss spooky season? Try Scrooged, the iconic, darkly comedic adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol, starring Bill Murray. Murray plays TV exec Frank Cross, a cheapskate and loudmouth who’s perfectly comfortable firing those who disagree with him and forcing his underlings to work during the holidays. But when he’s visited by apparitions who force him to look at his lonely past and potentially bleak future, Frank sees an opportunity to rebuild his life and relationships.
Though Scrooged has all the hallmarks of a holiday movie, and while it’s certainly got the laughs you’d expect from a film starring Murray and featuring Carol Kane and Bobcat Goldthwait, Halloween aficionados will appreciate the genuine creepiness of the ghost sequences. This cantankerous character needs a kick in the pants from the spirit world, and my goodness, do these ghouls give it to him!
WATCH NOW: Scrooged
Ah, family. The reason for the season! The reason to gather, celebrate, and give thanks! But, yeah, also, arguably, the thing that causes the most stomach-roiling stress. Home for the Holidays understands all the complicated feelings associated with kin, especially when the entire brood - including spouses, kids, and everybody’s respective dietary requirements - is gathered around a single table. Directed by Jodie Foster, and featuring an all-star cast that includes Holly Hunter, Robert Downey, Jr. and Anne Bancroft, as well as Charles Durning, this family comedy is about the holiday experience of single mom Claudia Larson (Hunter). Ditched by her teen daughter (Claire Danes) for the occasion, and smarting from a recent firing, she travels solo to the home of her parents (Bancroft and Durning), where she suffers a long weekend of indignities and dysfunction known as Thanksgiving.
Love your relatives, but don’t always love your relatives? Home for the Holidays is the perfect movie for the time of year where everyone you cherish – plus all their opinions and habits – is packed together in one small space. Pass the eggnog.
WATCH NOW: Home For The Holidays
13. Happy Christmas (2014)
Sometimes, holiday family issues are not a case of being overwhelmed by too much family (see Home for the Holidays), so much as feeling swamped by one family member outstaying their welcome. Meet Jenny (Anna Kendrick), a scattered twentysomething who moves in with her filmmaker brother Jeff (Joe Swanberg) in order to get back on her feet after a recent breakup. This new roommate doesn’t thrill Jeff’s novelist wife Kelly (Melanie Lynskey), who’s got books to write and a 2-year-old to raise. Can two very different women actually improve each other’s lives?
Also starring Lena Dunham, the largely improvised Happy Christmas feels as though it’s populated by a version of your friend group, having slightly more clever versions of conversations you’ve engaged in yourself. For a slice-of-life piece that feels as though the filmmakers have eavesdropped on your own holidays, try this indie gem.
WATCH NOW: Happy Christmas
Want even more holiday options? Deck the halls with our ’Tis the Season for Streaming collection, featuring loads of well-seasoned movies and shows.
Get Started
Whether you’re looking to get in the holiday spirit, or just get out of a family dinner, we’ve got the perfect flick to match your vibe (and ugly Christmas sweater). Read on to get our list of curated picks. No matter what holiday genre you’re into, we’ve got an option that’s guaranteed to sleigh … er … slay!
Best Christmas movie for when you're feeling a little, well, devilish
1. Dear Santa (2024)Prefer your holiday heroes just a little more naughty than nice? Have we got the movie for you …
Coming to you from Peter and Bobby Farrelly – aka The Farrelly Brothers, the hilarious minds behind movies like Kingpin – Dear Santa is an upcoming new comedy film about a young boy (Robert Timothy Smith) who mails his Christmas wish list to Santa with one crucial spelling error, resulting in a devilish Jack Black’s arrival to wreak havoc on the holidays. Expect instead a veritable toy-sack of outrageousness, mayhem, and laughs.
In addition to Black and Smith, the movie stars Keegan-Michael Key, Brianne Howey, Hayes MacArthur, global music superstar Post Malone, P.J. Byrne, Jaden Carson Baker, and Kai Cech.
Dear Santa premieres Monday, Nov. 25, on Paramount+.
Best holiday movies for when you're in the mood for anti-holiday movies
2. Bad Santa (2003)3. Bad Santa 2 (2016)
Have anxiety-inducing, childhood Christmas memories of mall Santas? Or maybe you’re just over all the gingerbread-flavored everything, and radio stations that play the same three Christmas songs for two months straight. Bad Santa and Bad Santa 2 are the dark comedies for you. In the former film, Billy Bob Thornton (Landman) stars as Willie T. Soke, a hard-drinking, profanity-spewing thief who works as a department store St. Nick so he can rob the shopping plazas every Christmas Eve. But savvy as he is, he doesn’t count on one needy kid putting a crimp in his plans. Bad Santa 2 adds Kathy Bates (Matlock) to the mix, and centers on Willie’s arrangements for another big heist – this time from a Chicago charity organization run by the prickly Diane (Christina Hendricks). But with a disposition like his, can he possibly come out of the escapade in one piece?
If you love Christmas, but need the sweetness of the season balanced out with something a little bit tart, the Bad Santa movies provide a dose of bad-mouthed, blood-splattered fun. You will gasp. You will wince. But you will definitely ho-ho-ho.
WATCH NOW: Bad Santa
WATCH NOW: Bad Santa 2
Best holiday movie for when you're stuck at the airport
4. Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)Want to get in the Yuletide mood, but outside forces, particularly of the traffic kind, seem to be conspiring against you? Have we got a road-trip comedy for you … In the John Hughes classic Planes, Trains and Automobiles, marketing exec Neal Page (Steve Martin) wants to travel from New York City to Chicago to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family. But inclement weather, money mishaps, and transportation disasters thwart him at every turn, keeping his destination – and that warm turkey dinner – just out of reach. What’s more, fate throws him together with Del Griffith (John Candy), a chatty shower-curtain-ring salesman with whom Neal couldn’t possibly have less in common. Or so he thinks …
It’s impossible to remain un-merry in the face of Martin's and Candy’s uproarious chemistry, just as it's impossible to resist rooting for their characters' unlikely friendship. If you’re feeling slow to experience the holiday magic this year, Planes, Trains and Automobiles is your fast track to joy.
WATCH NOW: Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Best holiday movie for when your season needs a little seasoning
5. Last Holiday (2006)You know what rekindles that holiday spirit? Gratitude. Also, a luxe vacation and slammin’ new wardrobe! Last Holiday stars Queen Latifah as Georgia Byrd, a department store sales clerk who amid the hustle and bustle of Christmastime learns she has only a few weeks to live. Determined to experience all life has to offer while she still has the time, she checks into an upscale European hotel, gets a head-to-toe makeover, eats gourmet spreads prepared by her culinary hero, and proceeds to tick item after item off her bucket list.
‘Tis the season for giving thanks for what we have, and Last Holiday serves up an important, entertaining reminder to count blessings and chase dreams. Plus, Georgia – a major foodie with money to burn – orders several mouthwatering (and lovingly filmed) meals throughout the course of the film. We can bet you’ll be inspired to create similar concoctions for your own holiday tables.
WATCH NOW: Last Holiday
Best Christmas movie for those who earnestly love Ernest
6. Ernest Saves Christmas (1988)If you're a child of the '80s and '90s, then Ernest P. Worrell is probably a favorite. And in Ernest Saves Christmas, Jim Varney's iconic character becomes Santa Claus' favorite.
The comedy finds our dear Ernest working as a cabbie in Florida. One day he gives a ride to the aforementioned Claus (Douglas Seale). It seems the jolly old elf is off to meet the man he’s chosen to be his replacement. But when Santa gets tossed in the slammer, his plans go up in chimney smoke, and it’s up to Ernest to make sure Christmas goes off without a hitch.
We dare you not to crack a smile at Ernest’s antics, or to feel the cockles of your heart warming at his unflagging efforts to save the day. Varney’s Ernest may not be a bright man. He may not be an articulate man. But, doggone it, he’s got the holiday spirit down pat.
WATCH NOW: Ernest Saves Christmas
Best holiday movie for those who want the season to really sing
7. Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights (2002)The Hanukkah-themed animated feature film Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights is chock-full of ditties that ably serve the story of Davey (voiced by Adam Sandler), a criminal who gravitates toward alcoholic spirits (and eschews the holiday kind). When he’s forced to perform community service to avoid jail time, Davey comes to understand the significance of the season, as well as what makes for a truly meaningful life. With a singable soundtrack, not to mention its star's irreverent brand of comedy, Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights is a toe-tapping original.
WATCH NOW: Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights
Best Christmas movies for those who love to debate what is (and isn't!) a Christmas movie
8. Mean Girls (2004)9. Mean Girls (2024)
The North Shore winter talent show! The candy-cane grams! Glen Coco! No argument here: We say no Christmastime streaming experience is complete without Cady, Regina George, and the Plastics. The original Mean Girls movie stars Lindsay Lohan as Cady Heron, a teen new to the public-school experience – and all the social complexities that come with it. When Cady falls in with the Plastics, the most popular of the student cliques, she finds herself loving her newfound status, but losing all the qualities that made her her. Will Cady regain her humanity before she becomes too plastic for her own good?
While the 2004 version of Mean Girls has plenty of must-see musical moments, 2024's Mean Girls is literally a musical. Based on the Tony®-nominated show of the same name, the new Mean Girls stars Angourie Rice, Reneé Rapp, and Tony® nominee Jaquel Spivey. It’s your favorite flick – plus 12 Tony®-nominated bangers to add to your holiday playlist. Could anything be more fetch?
WATCH NOW: Mean Girls (2004)
WATCH NOW: Mean Girls (2024)
10. The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)
Are you as big a fan of the holiday season as you are of watching galoots get pummeled? Good news! The Long Kiss Goodnight, starring Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson, is your brand of festive! Davis plays Samantha Caine, a schoolteacher with no memory of who she was before the day she was found unconscious and pregnant on a New Jersey riverbed. This was eight years earlier, and Samantha is no closer to discovering her true identity - that is, until she suffers a concussion that awakens fighting and weaponry skills she never knew she possessed. Who is she, who wants her dead, and who can she really trust?
Set during Christmastime with a soundtrack full of Christmas classics, The Long Kiss Goodnight is an action movie that doubles as, yes, a Christmas movie. We mean, hey: Santa red, bloodred – it’s all basically the same jolly color, isn’t it?
WATCH NOW: The Long Kiss Goodnight
Best Christmas movie for when you're still mourning the end of Halloween
11. Scrooged (1988)Love Christmas, but miss spooky season? Try Scrooged, the iconic, darkly comedic adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol, starring Bill Murray. Murray plays TV exec Frank Cross, a cheapskate and loudmouth who’s perfectly comfortable firing those who disagree with him and forcing his underlings to work during the holidays. But when he’s visited by apparitions who force him to look at his lonely past and potentially bleak future, Frank sees an opportunity to rebuild his life and relationships.
Though Scrooged has all the hallmarks of a holiday movie, and while it’s certainly got the laughs you’d expect from a film starring Murray and featuring Carol Kane and Bobcat Goldthwait, Halloween aficionados will appreciate the genuine creepiness of the ghost sequences. This cantankerous character needs a kick in the pants from the spirit world, and my goodness, do these ghouls give it to him!
WATCH NOW: Scrooged
Best holiday movies for when you wish there was a return policy for family members
12. Home for the Holidays (1995)Ah, family. The reason for the season! The reason to gather, celebrate, and give thanks! But, yeah, also, arguably, the thing that causes the most stomach-roiling stress. Home for the Holidays understands all the complicated feelings associated with kin, especially when the entire brood - including spouses, kids, and everybody’s respective dietary requirements - is gathered around a single table. Directed by Jodie Foster, and featuring an all-star cast that includes Holly Hunter, Robert Downey, Jr. and Anne Bancroft, as well as Charles Durning, this family comedy is about the holiday experience of single mom Claudia Larson (Hunter). Ditched by her teen daughter (Claire Danes) for the occasion, and smarting from a recent firing, she travels solo to the home of her parents (Bancroft and Durning), where she suffers a long weekend of indignities and dysfunction known as Thanksgiving.
Love your relatives, but don’t always love your relatives? Home for the Holidays is the perfect movie for the time of year where everyone you cherish – plus all their opinions and habits – is packed together in one small space. Pass the eggnog.
WATCH NOW: Home For The Holidays
13. Happy Christmas (2014)
Sometimes, holiday family issues are not a case of being overwhelmed by too much family (see Home for the Holidays), so much as feeling swamped by one family member outstaying their welcome. Meet Jenny (Anna Kendrick), a scattered twentysomething who moves in with her filmmaker brother Jeff (Joe Swanberg) in order to get back on her feet after a recent breakup. This new roommate doesn’t thrill Jeff’s novelist wife Kelly (Melanie Lynskey), who’s got books to write and a 2-year-old to raise. Can two very different women actually improve each other’s lives?
Also starring Lena Dunham, the largely improvised Happy Christmas feels as though it’s populated by a version of your friend group, having slightly more clever versions of conversations you’ve engaged in yourself. For a slice-of-life piece that feels as though the filmmakers have eavesdropped on your own holidays, try this indie gem.
WATCH NOW: Happy Christmas
Want even more holiday options? Deck the halls with our ’Tis the Season for Streaming collection, featuring loads of well-seasoned movies and shows.