Hallmark Holiday 2025 Movies, Ranked: Which ‘Countdown to Christmas’ Film Is the Best?
Hallmark’s annual “Countdown to Christmas” event has started, and every year, there are some movies that stand out more than others.
This year’s offerings include another team-up with the NFL for Holiday Touchdown: A Bills Love Story as well as one with the Grand Ole Opry for A Grand Ole Opry Christmas. Paul Campbell, Tyler Hynes, and Andrew Walker are back to make the Brenner boys’ movies into a trilogy, this time with Three Wisest Men. Walker also stars in She’s Making a List with Lacey Chabert, their first together in seven years. And Hynes has another film this year as well, Christmas Above the Clouds, his and Erin Krakow‘s first together since 2021. Thanksgiving weekend — Friday, November 28, Saturday, November 29, and Sunday, November 30 — will feature double features each night (at 6/5c and 8/7c).
Below, as the films premiere, we’re ranking the movies, from worst to best. Let us know what tops your list in the comments section. (Note: This list only includes new movies, not Mistletoe Murders, airing its first season on Hallmark for the first time and its second after, or the Cherry Lane films, which were previously released on Hallmark+.)
7. A Royal Montana Christmas
Fiona Gubelmann plays a princess of a Hallmark country who decides to spend the holidays on vacation at a ranch she visited as child, while Warren Christie plays the son of the family that owns said ranch. They, of course, fall in love after a mishap of a meet cute. While there’s nothing special about this film and how they end up together, what is refreshing is that she tells him she’s a princess and it’s not a big deal that leads to an automatic split.
6. A Christmas Angel Match
Meghan Ory and Benjamin Ayres star as Christmas Angels whose job it is to bring together soulmates. It’s easy to see where this is going when they’re assigned to match the same pair and both go about their job in a different way. The story is, of course, watching them fall in love while they’re trying to create a match for others, with them being the soulmate match that mattered. It’s a sweet ending, but not the most unique Hallmark film.
5. Christmas on Duty
Janel Parrish and Parker Young‘s characters are rivals in the military, reuniting after some conflict during training over a job. When their rivalry causes quite the scene (and ruins the cake) at an event, they’re assigned to Christmas Duty together and ultimately team up to make sure that the families on base get the presents for the kids when a storm delays deliveries. That means driving around together, getting to know one another, and bonding. The use of tactical planning to get some of the presents is a bit much, as is how much their fathers hate each other until the end when it devolves into a snowball fight of the dads vs. their kids. But Peter Jacobson as Parrish’s character’s father is a standout, as is him trying to get into the Christmas spirit after their non-traditional traditions.
4. A Newport Christmas
This film, starring Ginna Claire Mason and Wes Brown, gives serious Kate & Leopold vibes by the end, which is a one of its best parts. Their characters, Ella and Nick, meet when she time travels from 1905 to 2025 and ends up on his (formerly her) boat. But even as they fall in love, they know she must go back to her time because her legacy begins being erased — and she’s said to marry someone else, who, too, shows up in 2025. But he’s not willing to go back, and so that leaves his identity free for Nick to assume when he follows Ella back to the past. Any time a movie can put a twist of any sort on time travel is a plus.
3. Christmas Above the Clouds
The A Christmas Carol homage is strong in this one, and that’s putting it mildly. Erin Krakow plays workaholic CEO Ella Neezer, with her “bah humbug” attitude stemming from the end of her relationship with her ex (Tyler Hynes), and what do you know it, they’re both on the same flight over Christmas. Only Ella’s joined by three ghosts of her past, present, and future. Some of the twists on the classic story for the modern/plane setting work, while others are a bit much, but all in all, it’s an enjoyable movie, and Krakow and Hynes are great together.
2. Merry Christmas, Ted Cooper
Easily the best Hallmark holiday movie of 2025 so far, and Kimberley Sustad and Robert Buckley‘s chemistry from their first scene together is a big reason. The story is a standout as well, with Buckley’s weatherman, the titular Ted Cooper, back in his hometown for the holidays and for work. The asides of his injuries, with Brendan Penny a coworker cataloguing the bets, is just the right side of humorous. Sustad plays Dr. Hope Miller, whom Ted had a crush on in high school and who treats him after one such injury. The inevitable misunderstanding isn’t the worst — he loses his phone, and she thinks he’s seeing someone else — and it’s not even painful to sit through the brief split before their reconciliation in the final moments.
1. A Keller Christmas Vacation
If we’re being honest, movies in which there are multiple main love stories which we’re supposed to care about can be a hit or a miss. After all, what usually ends up happening is one gets more screen time than the others or one just falls way short than the rest. That’s not the case with this film, starring Jonathan Bennett, Brandon Routh, and Eden Sher as siblings who join their parents (Nigel Whitmey and Laurel Lefkow) on a Christmas cruise. (The siblings’ relationships are especially a highlight.) While Routh and Sher’s characters find love on the cruise, Bennett’s is at a crossroads in his relationship, due to his boyfriend (Anand Desai-Barochia) not saying yes to his proposal ahead of the vacation. But that ties into the secret that the siblings’ parents are keeping from them, something that, yes, is used as a wedge to drive them apart, but is, at the same time, understandable — there’s no “bad” guy here. Yes, that does seem to be resolved relatively quickly, but it’s the nature of a Hallmark Christmas movie because you need to see that moment onscreen. It’s a touching story about love, family, and Christmas, and it all comes together in a film that’s instantly rewatchable.
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