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Every new holiday season brings with it hundreds of new movies designed to bring you tidings of comfort and joy (or at least help you kill time between various family Zooms and perilous trips to the mall). Between all of the new movies on cable networks like Hallmark and Lifetime, as well as all of the new offerings on streamers like Netflix, there’s close to 400 hours of new Christmas content for you to binge. So… uh… what are you waiting for…?
Face it: it’s impossible to watch all of the new holiday content that arrives every year — unless you are Santa Claus and have whatever technology allows him to deliver presents all over the world in just one night. That’s why a list like this one is so important to your season’s streamings! Instead of taking a gamble on all of the brand new content this year, why not look back to last year and focus on the movies that really hit. That’s exactly what these 8 movies did in 2021: they made us laugh, cry, and believe in the Christmas spirit (at least for two hours). If you’re looking to add a few new films into your personal Christmas canon, you can’t go wrong with these. And if you want even more suggestions, follow this up with the list we did last year for 2020’s best holiday offerings.
'8-Bit Christmas'
Before HBO Max gifted us A Christmas Story Christmas, we got a spiritual successor to it of sorts to in last year’s ’80s-set comedy 8-Bit Christmas. Similarly framed as a nostalgic yuletide story being told by a narrator (in this case Neil Patrick Harris), 8-Bit Christmas swaps out the Red Rider BB-gun for something that Gen X’ers and old Millennials can relate to as an object of overwhelming Christmas desire: a Nintendo Entertainment System. Winslow Fegley plays Harris’s middle-school-aged self as he embarks on a wild adventure to score a Nintendo and win Christmas. But watch out: 8-Bit Christmas is consistently funny, but it also has the potential to punch your feels like Mario punching a Coin Block.
'The Bitch Who Stole Christmas'
A year removed from the release of The Bitch Who Stole Christmas, it’s very easy to wonder if the movie was a bizarre fever dream — the result of conking out on the couch after drinking spiked eggnog and bingeing a season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. While that actually sounds like a pretty chill way to spend a cold December night, you don’t need to hallucinate in order to watch The Bitch Who Stole Christmas. The movie is very real, very fierce, and very festive. This send-up of Hallmark romcoms drops Kyrsta Rodriguez (Smash) in a tiny, Christmas-obsessed town populated by glamazons (a.k.a. Drag Race superstars like Ginger Minj, Brooke Lynn Hytes, Jan, and Peppermint) who are determined to win the annual Christmas decoration contest. But Rodriguez’s reporter is there for more: she’s a journalist looking for a scoop, mama, and nothing will stand in her way… except for maybe all the friendship… and all those 6’5″ drag queens.
'A Boy Called Christmas'
If your kids were too young to watch A Boy Called Christmas last year, then maybe 2022 is the right time for Maggie Smith to tell them the tale of Santa Claus’ epic origin. This Netflix original doesn’t borrow from classic Santa mythology as much as it does creepy ’80s kids’ movies like The Witches and The NeverEnding Story. There are no Coca-Cola bottles or belly-jiggling laughs in this tale of young Kris Kringle. Instead, there’s Kristen Wiig as the absolute worst babysitter ever and one adorable mouse named Miika.
'A Clüsterfünke Christmas'
Saturday Night Live legends Ana Gasteyer and Rachel Dratch spearhead the holiday romcom parody A Clüsterfünke Christmas. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s Vella Lovell plays an up-and-comer in the high-stakes world of hotel development who travels to the rustic Clüsterfünke Inn on a mission to buy it and turn it into a luxury resort. There are just a few things she didn’t count on: a pair of elderly Clüsterfünke nanas (Dratch and Gasteyer) and their hunky AF nephew (Cheynne Jackson). If you prefer your holiday movies with a whole lot of irreverence, then check into the Clüsterfünke.
'A Kiss Before Christmas'
It’s easy to view Hallmark holiday movies as interchangeable, simply because the network releases 40 new ones every year. That’s not the case with A Kiss Before Christmas, an instant classic that absolutely deserves a rewatch alongside all of this year’s debuts. Desperate Housewives power couple Teri Hatcher and James Denton reunite to play a married couple who are stuck in a rut. The solution? Drop the pair in a total It’s a Wonderful Life scenario wherein we see what their lives would’ve looked like had they never had their chance encounter. If they want their old lives back, they’ll have to share — say it with me — a kiss before Christmas.
'Reba McEntire's Christmas in Tune'
The reason to rewatch Reba McEntire’s Christmas in Tune is right there in the title: Reba McEntire. What else do you need to know? This movie has country music legend Reba McEntire singin’, sassin’, and romancin’ her way through a good ol’ holiday romcom. Can Reba’s country diva reunite onstage with her ex-husband for a charity concert without losing it? An even better question: can she reunite with him without also falling back in love?
'Single All the Way'
The queer holiday romcom subgenre is still super new, but it already has a few perennial classics. Netflix’s Single All the Way is exactly that — a gay romcom that lives up to all the seasonal expectations (oh, you bet Michael Urie tries to pass off his BFF as his BF so he can avoid being harangued by his Christmas-obsessed mom) and it defies them, too. For one thing, the movie is hilarious and absolutely stacked with comedy MVPs. Kathy Najimy! Jennifer Robertson! Jennifer Coolidge! Single All the Way is the gift that keeps on giving.
'An Unexpected Christmas'
An Unexpected Christmas shouldn’t seem like an unexpected addition to this list. Yeah, it’s one of the million Hallmark movies that you can watch this year. It’s also one of the many, many, many fake engagement holiday movies out there. However, there’s one thing that sets the Tyler Hynes/Bethany Joy Lenz romcom apart from all the rest: it’s cool. Yeah — a cool Hallmark movie! You want all of Hallmark’s cozy Christmas charm, but with a little bit of a self-aware edge? An Unexpected Christmas will give you exactly what you asked for.
