MovieMuse
Over the last few years the MovieMuse team has logged more than 80 Christmas movies in our MovieViews database, which has enabled us to produce this list of films for the festive period. Some are good, some are bad and some are far less Christmassy than others, but if you’re wondering whether any of those made-for-TV movies are worth a watch, are looking for something a little different or just want a reminder of some Yuletide classics, look no further than our handy reference guide!
You can also see the MovieMuse team’s Top Ten Christmas films by checking out the YouTube video at the bottom of the page.
Please note that the below list spans multiple pages – the navigation buttons at the bottom of the list will move between them.
| Poster | Movie | Genre | Year | Comments | Rating | Reviewer |
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12 Dog Days Till Christmas | Drama, Family | 2014 | The concept is fairly original and refreshingly lacks the schmaltz of most Christmas movies, but the whole thing is ruined by some absolutely atrocious acting. Even the cute dogs can't save it! | 2 | Mat |
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A Christmas Carol | Drama, Family, Fantasy | 1984 | One of the definitive tellings of a well known tale. Tiny Tim is annoying though! | 3.5 | Gordon |
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A Christmas Horror Story | Horror | 2015 | This anthology is a bit of a mixed bag, with a couple of the stories being quite creepy while others are rather lame. The twist was quite unexpected though and the William Shatner scenes offer some humour, intentional or otherwise. | 2.5 | Mat |
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A Christmas Movie Christmas | Comedy, Romance | 2019 | The usual trappings of bad made-for-TV Christmas movies are smartly explained away by the 'movie within a movie' premise, but that doesn’t really make this any less cringeworthy despite a few amusing self-referential moments. | 2 | Mat |
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A Christmoose Story (Midden in de Winternacht) | Comedy, Fantasy | 2013 | A lonely boy meets a magical talking moose in this Dutch film whose story is vaguely reminscent of E.T. It suffers from the dubbed American voices and some mean-spirited characters but the animatronic moose is quite good and there are a few funny scenes | 2.5 | Mat |
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A Doggone Christmas | Adventure, Comedy | 2016 | Has almost no relevance to Christmas, with all but the opening scene obviously shot in summertime, and much of the acting is woeful, but the canine star is endearing and there are a few genuinely funny moments. | 2 | Mat |
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A Monster Christmas (Abominable Christmas) | Animation, Family | 2012 | The only Christmas miracle in this 45 minute film is how they got recognised names like Ray Liotta and Emilio Estevez to provide voices to CG-animated characters that look like they were done for a GCSE Media Studies project. | 1.5 | Mat |
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Angela's Christmas | Animation, Family, Short | 2017 | A delightful and charming short animation about a 1910s Irish girl who steals the baby Jesus from a display because the church isn't heated and the baby looks cold. | 3.5 | Gordon |
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Angela's Christmas Wish | Animation, Comedy, Family | 2020 | A superb continuation of the short film Angela's Christmas as the poor Irish children hatch a plot to get their father back from Australia in time for christmas. Captivating. | 4 | Gordon |
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Anna and the Apocalypse | Comedy, Horror, Music | 2017 | Blending a zombie apocalypse movie with a musical comedy is certainly an original idea, the acting is decent and there are some funny scenes, but most of the musical numbers are unremarkable and unnecessary, breaking the flow of an otherwise fun film. | 3 | Mat |
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Arthur Christmas | Adventure, Animation, Comedy | 2011 | Run of the mill Christmas tale, but has some wonderful characters and comedy moments. | 3.5 | Gordon |
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Bad Santa 2 | Comedy, Crime | 2016 | Deeply offensive and not particularly funny, this is a poor attempt to build on the themes of the first film and is almost certainly the worst film ever made that features two Oscar winners in its cast! | 1.5 | Mat |
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Becoming Santa | Comedy, Fantasy | 2015 | A thinly-veiled rip off of Meet the Parents with some generally dreadful acting, gargantuan plot holes and some of the worst snow effects in movie history. | 1.5 | Mat |
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Better Watch Out | Horror, Thriller | 2016 | An unexpectedly smart Christmas horror film packed with dark humour, impressive acting from the young cast and some genuine shocks in the storyline. A welcome surprise from a genre overloaded with duds. | 3.5 | Mat |
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Black Christmas | Horror, Thriller | 1974 | Despite some awful acting (from Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder in particular) and the film having aged quite badly, the original Christmas slasher is still an enjoyable thriller and its influence endures. | 3 | Gordon |
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Black Christmas | Horror, Thriller | 1974 | Its influence on the slasher movie genre is clear, the premise is good and there are definitely creepy moments, but the acting is dire and the plot twists are completely predictable, though I appreciate that may not have been the case when it was made. | 2.5 | Mat |
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Black Christmas | Horror | 2006 | This slasher film starts off being unexpectedly amusing, but soon degenerates into run-of-the-mill horror with an over-complicated story and awful acting. | 2 | Mat |
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Chasing Christmas | Comedy | 2005 | This twist on the typical Scrooge tale is original enough to have deserved a better movie to be made from it, but despite the mediocre production values and acting talent, there's still enough to place it above many similar Christmas movies. | 2.5 | Mat |
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Christmas Eve | Comedy, Drama | 2015 | The concept of several groups of strangers stuck in elevators is decent and some of the scenarios work well, but several story threads are not fully resolved and Patrick Stewart is disappointingly under-used. Marginally better than average. | 3 | Mat |
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Christmas in Canaan | Drama | 2009 | This Hallmark production has several tear-jerking moments but is far from the usual sentimental Christmas fare, focusing on a friendship between two boys that crosses the racial divide in 1960s America, and is a heartwarming story with reasonable acting. | 3 | Mat |
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Christmas in the Clouds | Comedy | 2001 | The Native American aspect of the story is barely touched upon, but this is a good-natured comedy that relies mainly on mistaken identity situations for the humour with some entertaining characters. | 3 | Mat |
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Christmas on Chestnut Street | Comedy, Family | 2006 | A very generic Christmas movie with some pretty shameful racial stereotyping and a depressing sub-plot about an old man with dementia. Abysmal stuff! | 1 | Mat |
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Christmas With The Coopers | Comedy, Drama | 2015 | A stellar cast for pretty standard christmas-fare as a middle class American family air their dirty laundry over Christmas. However, it could have been so much more but for the trite and annoying voice over. | 3 | Gordon |
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Christmas with the Kranks | Comedy, Family | 2004 | Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis decide to skip Christmas in a film whose message appears to be that it is OK to bully and ostracise someone for not taking part, because Christmas. | 2 | Gordon |
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Daddy's Home 2 | Comedy | 2017 | Entirely predictable and occasionally cringeworthy, this sequel offers more of the same but the addition of Mel Gibson and John Lithgow does make for some funny moments and the festive theme makes it slightly more forgivable. | 2.5 | Mat |