36 Family Christmas Movies You Can Watch Right Now
Tis’ the season to gather in the living room with a cup of hot cocoa and put on a classic family Christmas movie! From Christmas cartoons like A Charlie Brown Christmas and How The Grinch Stole Christmas to heartwarming holiday films like A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life, Christmas movies make us all nostalgic.
There’s nothing like a great holiday film to kick off your holiday season. Whether you’re longing for old favorites or want to see what’s new, there’s something for everyone. So grab some cocoa and let’s go!
Related: The 5 Worst Christmas Movies of All Time
Find your favorite Christmas movies on streaming, on TV, or available to rent!
New Family Christmas Movies to Stream
New Christmas movies come out every year and soon watching them together becomes a new holiday tradition for the whole family. Want to try a contemporary Christmas classic or Christmas comedy this year?
Check out our new family Christmas movie picks. There’s always room for new favorites.
1. Three Wise Men and a Baby
Where to Watch: Hallmark
In this Christmas comedy, three brothers are forced to work together to care for a baby over the holidays.
2. Black Nativity
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
In this Christmas musical movie, a teen travels to New York City to spend Christmas with his estranged grandparents, and learns the value of faith and family.
2. Shaun the Sheep: The Flight Before Christmas
Where to Watch: Netflix
In this all-ages Christmas animated comedy from the creators of Wallace & Gromit, Shaun leads his barnyard friends on a mischief-filled hunt for a bigger Christmas stocking.
4. Klaus
Where to Watch: Netflix
This new animated Christmas film tells the story of a selfish postman and a reclusive toymaker who team up to bring Christmas joy to an unhappy town.
5. Full Court Miracle
In this Hanukkah movie, which is based on the real-life story of basketball player Lamont Carr, a college basketball star with a knee injury becomes the head coach for a Yeshiva team in Philadelphia.
6. Rise of the Guardians
Where to Watch: Netflix
Santa Claus teams up with the Tooth Fairy, Jack Frost, and others, to save the innocent holiday beliefs of the world’s children.
7. The Preacher's Wife
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
In this religious Christmas movie, Denzel Washington stars as an angel on a mission to help a preacher get his focus back. But the angel gets distracted by the preacher’s beautiful wife. Hilarity ensues.
8. Christmas at the Golden Dragon
Where to Watch: Hallmark
Romy and Rick’s parents are closing the Chinese restaurant they’ve run for years. Filled with the holiday spirit, the siblings find themselves rethinking their own careers.
9. A Royal Corgi Christmas
Where to Watch: Hallmark
Christmas and corgis? What’s not to love? In this new Hallmark holiday movie, Crown Prince Edmond gives his mother a Corgi dog for Christmas. Unfortunately, the dog is a handful, and Edmond must hire an American dog trainer, Cecily, to help. Sparks fly.
10. Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey
Where to Watch: Netflix
In this screen adaptation of a stage production, a toymaker betrayed by his apprentice finds new hope when his kind and curious granddaughter comes into his life. This is a Christmas story that will make kids and parents understand the true meaning of family.
Classic Holiday Films for the Whole Family
Looking for the best Christmas movie for kids? It’s hard to go wrong with animated films. For younger kids, make sure to check the film rating. Films rated “G” are for everyone. “PG”-rated films may have some aspects that are inappropriate for very young children.
There’s a reason holiday classics endure year after year. Here are some of the best Christmas movies that will be with us for a long time to come.
11. A Christmas Carol
This story by Charles Dickens has spawned countless adaptations, many of which have become Christmas classics. Miserly business owner Scrooge is visited by three ghosts who teach him the true meaning of Christmas. Here are some of our favorite versions.
- Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (animated, Netflix originals)
- Disney’s A Christmas Carol with Jim Carrey (animated, Prime Video)
- A Christmas Carol (1938, live action, Prime Video)
- The Muppet Christmas Carol (puppets, Prime Video)
Adults and teens may also enjoy the irreverent Scrooged, starring Bill Murray (Prime Video).
12. Home Alone
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
A star-studded film about how young Kevin McCallister, left alone at Christmastime defeats nasty burglars with homemade tricks and traps. This 1980s John Hughes classic stars Macaulay Culkin and Michael Caine.
13. A Christmas Story
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
A Christmas Story may be getting a sequel soon, so it’s a perfect time to watch this classic holiday comedy! More than anything, Ralphie wants a BB gun for Christmas. Hilarity ensues as he schemes to get one.
14. It's a Wonderful Life
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
In this classic from 1947, an angel shows frustrated businessman George Bailey what life would have been like if he hadn’t existed.
15. The Santa Clause
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
In this hilarious Christmas film, Tim Allen is forced to fill in for Santa when the jolly old elf falls off of his roof on Christmas Eve.
16. Elf
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
As a baby, Will Ferrell crawled into Santa’s bag of goodies and was carried back to the North Pole. Raised as an elf, he now has to make his way as an adult in the human world.
17. The Christmas Chronicles
Where to Watch: Netflix
In The Christmas Chronicles on Netflix, after accidentally crashing Santa’s sleigh, a brother and sister must save Christmas by delivering the presents themselves.
18. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
Parents and grandparents may remember this stop-motion TV Christmas special about the reindeer with a glowing nose who finds his purpose guiding Santa’s sleigh through a snowstorm.
19. A Charlie Brown Christmas
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
This animated classic, in which kindness makes a misfit Christmas tree shine, is sure to please family members of all ages.
20. The Polar Express
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
This animated film starring Tom Hanks was one of the first all-CGI films. A doubting young boy travels by train to the North Pole to discover that Santa is real.
21. Miracle on 34th Street
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
In this 1947 holiday classic, a department store Santa is out to prove that he’s the real Santa Claus.
22. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
Dr. Seuss’s short book has a long list of adaptations, including the all-ages TV animated classic, and the live-action version, which might be better for older kids.
23. The Nightmare Before Christmas
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
Tim Burton’s delightfully dark tale. Bored with Halloween, Jack Skellington wants to celebrate Christmas, but his plan goes awry as Santa is kidnapped, and chaos ensues.
24. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
Another one that might be better for older kids and teens. The Griswold family’s Christmas plans go hilariously wrong.
25. The Nutcracker
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
This modern adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s Christmas ballet stars Macaulay Culkin and Kevin Kline. A young girl’s love for her nutcracker toy turns him real.
26. Frosty the Snowman
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
In this animated musical classic from 1969, children’s wishes bring a snowman to life.
Christmas Rom-Coms for Grown-Ups
After the kids are off to bed, why not cozy up with some romantic holiday cheer? Here are some of our faves. Ever wonder why are Lifetime and Hallmark Christmas movies so popular?
The holidays are a time to relax with your loved ones and enjoy heartwarming holiday films with happy endings. This describes Lifetime and Hallmark Christmas movies to a T.
Hallmark is putting out 40 new Christmas movies this year. 40!!!! See them all and pick your favorites here. In the meantime, we’ve picked some of the best Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas rom-coms and more holiday movies for adults below.
27. Merry Textmas
Where to Watch: Lifetime
In this new Lifetime Christmas movie, a young, single woman accidentally adds Alex to the family group chat, her family secretly invites him to join them for the family Christmas at Abuela’s house in Mexico.
28. Sit. Stay. Love
Where to Watch: Amazon
Aid worker Annie returns home to Vermont to spend the holidays with her family. When the local animal shelter closes, Annie must team up with the local vet, her old school nemesis Dylan, to save the animals.
29. Mistletoe and Menorahs
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
In this Hannukah and Christmas movie, an executive for a toy company has to learn about Hannukah to score a new account. She reaches out to a friend of a friend for advice. Sparks fly.
30. Single All the Way
Where to Watch: Netflix
In this Netflix Christmas film about friendship, everyman Peter asks a buddy to pose as his boyfriend when he goes home for Christmas. But, surrounded by holiday spirit, their pretend feelings soon become real.
31. A Castle for Christmas
Where to Watch: Netflix
In this Netflix Christmas movie adventure, a bestselling author flees to Scotland after a Christmastime scandal. There, she falls in love with a castle...and into conflict with the grumpy duke who owns it.
32. A Christmas to Treasure
Where to Watch: Lifetime
Six friends are reunited in their hometown for a Christmas treasure hunt. Sparks fly when Austin is reunited with his childhood best friend, Everett.
33. Eight Gifts of Hanukkah
Where to Watch: Hallmark
Newly single optometrist Sara juggles several suitors while her childhood best friend, Daniel, nurses a secret crush. On each night of Hannukah, Sara receives a thoughtful give from a secret admirer. Guess who?
34. The Perfect Holiday
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
A compliment from a department store Santa leads to a complicated love affair for a divorced mother of three.
35. Hitched for the Holidays
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video
In this Hannakuh movie, a Jewish man goes online to try to find a partner to fulfill his grandmother’s dying wish to see him partnered up. He meets a woman in a similar situation, and they pretend to be together for the holidays. Romance ensues.
36. You Can't Fight Christmas
Where to Watch: The Roku Channel
In this new Christmas film, a decorator runs up against the Christmas-hating grandson of the owner of the hotel she is decorating for Christmas. His Christmas wish is to end the hotel’s holiday tradition. She must convince him to keep the tradition going. Naturally, they fall in love.
Are you ready for holiday fun? Grab your remote, and let’s go! For even more Christmas movies you can watch right now check out The Top 10 Chick Flicks to Watch This Holiday Season.