2025 Netflix Holiday Movies, Ranked: Which Was the Best?
It used to be that Hallmark owned the holiday movie space each year. But over the years, that’s changed, with other networks and streaming services getting into the business as well. Such is the case with Netflix, which debuts a number of original holiday films every year, and already, there are several out that may or may not be worth your time checking out (or rewatching over the festive season).
This year, Netflix kicked it off with A Merry Little Ex-Mas, with Alicia Silverstone and Oliver Hudson playing exes who spend the holidays together with their kids — and their new love interests — but will sparks fly? Then there’s Champagne Problems with Tom Wozniczka and Minka Kelly‘s meet-cute getting complicated when it turns out they really should have shared information about their jobs. Jingle Bell Heist combines the holidays and a fun caper when Olivia Holt and Connor Swindells team up, but there’s a bit of a twist in store. Still to come is My Secret Santa, starring Alexandra Breckenridge and Ryan Eggold and following a single mom who gets a job as a ski resort’s Santa and hides it from the hotel’s heir who’s falling for her.
Most of these films don’t exactly break the mold, but sometimes there’s a refreshing angle. Either way, they’re still almost always enjoyable and a great watch for the holidays. Below, we rank Netflix’s original offerings (with spoilers). Let us know yours in the comments section.
3. A Merry Little Ex-Mas
This movie is certainly quirky, and we’re not just talking about the characters (like the couple’s daughter who brings home a Harry Potter-obsessed boyfriend).
It’s full of cliches, with exes and a couple going through a divorce (the “I feel” statements are particularly overly polite and borderline annoying at times). Oliver Hudson and Alicia Silverstone are fine together, but the major problem with this film is it’s actually hard to root for Kate and Everett to get back together because it feels a bit too much like they’re going through the motions: insisting they’re fine being apart and seeing each other with new love interests, trying to make the other jealous, “accidentally” using present tense love, and finally, a happy family just in time for the holidays.
Without feeling true yearning from either side, do we really care that they’re together again as a couple and not just spending the holiday as a family with their kids at the end?
2. Champagne Problems
Tom Wozniczka and Minka Kelly are great together, particularly during Sydney and Henri’s meet-cute at the bookshop and subsequent evening and night together as he guides her around the city. His proposal to be her guide, in French that she doesn’t understand, is particularly sweet — maybe even more so than their eventual get-together at the end of the film.
Of course, there’s the typical conflict, with her company trying to acquire his champagne brand and the misunderstanding that ensues near the end. But seeing the way these two open up to one another over the course of the night makes us want to root for them to get together, and the cast of characters surrounding them, especially Sean Amsing as Roberto.
All in all, it’s an enjoyable, if standard, film.
1. Jingle Bell Heist
This is easily the most fun Netflix holiday movie thus far, with Olivia Holt and Connor Swindells teaming up to rob a department store on Christmas Eve — she works there, while he was blamed for a prior crime by its owner.
There are some fun twists: He’s not actually the thief he was previously convicted as (which is why she’d originally thought they’d be able to pull this off), and the store owner is actually her biological father who refused to have anything to do with her or her mother, and Sophie and Nick exposed him for insurance fraud, leading to his arrest.
It’s a movie that works because we do care about the outcome for both main characters — we want her to get the money she needs to care for his mom, and we want his name cleared and to see him in the good graves of his ex and daughter — and it almost feels, at time, that the romance is secondary, which works in this case.
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