Best New Holiday Movies — Catherine Browne

Can you believe there are only 4 days until Christmas? With the holiday season in full swing and the brisk weather setting in, it’s time to cozy up on the couch with a warm cup of hot chocolate and a great holiday movie. 🎄

I love watching Christmas movies with my friends and family. As kids, my brother and I used to marathon movies on Christmas eve day. Since then, watching festive films has become one of my favorite traditions. While I love Christmas classics like Elf and Love Actually, there are dozens of new holiday movies to watch this year. Here is my guide to the best and worst new Christmas movies. Happy Holidays!

New Holiday Film Favorites:

Noelle: The new Disney+ Christmas film feels like Elf re-imagined, and I loved every minute. In the movie, Kris Kringle’s daughter Noelle helps her brother Nick train for his role of becoming Santa. When Nick panics, and flees to Arizona to teach yoga, Noelle saves Christmas in an adventure full of holiday spirit and cute reindeer. Watch on Disney+.

Sweet Mountain Christmas: Lifetime is holiday movie central this year. While most of them are boring (see below), I thought Sweet Mountain Christmas was super cute and heart warming. Country music star Laney Blu spends the holidays snowed into her small mountain hometown. During her stay, she reconnects with her roots and falls back in love with her ex. Available on Hulu or Amazon Prime.

The Knight Before Christmas: In Vanessa Hudgens’s latest Christmas movie, she helps a time-traveling medieval knight acclimate to modern times, and they fall in love. While the film is as cheesy as it sounds and the acting is ridiculous, I thought it was super festive and fun. Available on Netflix.

My Christmas Inn: Tia Mowry stars in this Lifetime movie as an executive up for a big promotion. Her life turns upside down when she inherits a rundown Alaskan inn. Mowry decides to spend the holidays away from work fixing up the inn, and falls in love. While Lifetime holiday movies all have predictable plots, I liked this one and thought Mowry did a good job. Watch on Hulu.

A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby: The final segment of A Christmas Prince trilogy does not disappoint. In the movie filled with love, royalty and holiday cheer, Princess Amber and Prince Richard must find the hidden treaty in order to save an alliance with another Kingdom. Watch all three movies on Netflix.

Christmas Around the Corner: In another adorable Lifetime love story, Claire is a venture capitalist from New York who spends the holidays in Vermont. As a guest of the Fortenbury Bookstore, she helps revitalize the failing store, brings back the festive spirit to the town, and falls in love. View on Hulu or Amazon Prime.

Movies Not Worth The Watch:

Let It Snow: I had high hopes for this new Netflix movie, since it was called the new Love Actually. Instead, this coming of age film had too many cringe-worthy teen moments. I could have fast forwarded through the whole 90 minutes. The multiple story lines were disjointed and not fully developed. I would not recommend watching.

Holiday in the Wild: Rob Lowe and Kristin Davis star in this new Netflix Christmas movie. With two talented actors, you wouldn’t expect the movie to be so bad. Lowe and Davis’s characters bond over nursing a baby elephant back to health in Zambia. At the end of the movie, Davis leaves her life (and son) in New York and runs off with Lowe’s character to live in Africa. The love story felt forced and the whole movie was blah. Pass.

The Road Home For Christmas: In this Lifetime movie, two rivaling musicians road trip home for the holidays. They catch a few lucky breaks and fall in love on the route, making it back to their neighboring home towns just in time for major family events. The trailer is all the time you need to give this boring movie. Available on Hulu.

Christmas in Rome: I was initially excited about the Hallmark holiday movie based in Rome, but the acting was so boring and the love story seemed fake. I also had to sign up for Fubo’s free 7 day trial to watch the movie, which was not worth the effort.

A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish: An aspiring singer is held back from her dream by her evil stepmother and step sisters. With a predictable ending, bad costumes, and uncomfortable acting, do not add this Netflix movie to your watch list.

The Princess Switch: This popular 2018 Christmas movie took the genre by storm with Vanessa Hudgens playing both main roles. In the film, a baker travels to the Kingdom of Belgravia for a competition, and discovers that she looks identical to the Duchess engaged to marry the Crown Prince of Belgravia. The baker and the Duchess switch places, and fall in love with men in each other’s lives. With Hudgens’ terrible fake accent and the lack luster plot, I’d give this Netflix movie a thumbs down.

Falling for Christmas: Injured champion figure skater Claire travels to a small mountain town for rehabilitation and ends up falling in love. I thought the story sounded cute in the review, but the acting was bad and Claire was mean and entitled. This Amazon Prime movie is definitely low on my list of holiday films.

Twinkle All The Way: I had high hopes for this Lifetime Christmas movie, since it features Grey’s Anatomy actress Sarah Drew. Two single parents fall in love while bonding over their children’s Christmas play. The acting was poor quality and the story line was boring.

Wedding Planner: This 2017 Netflix film was a holiday romance fail. In the movie, Kelsey plans her cousin Emily’s wedding while falling in love with Emily’s ex Connor, who is a private investigator. On the day of the wedding, Connor reveals that Emily’s fiancé impregnated his maid. Instead of canceling the wedding, Kelsey and Connor realize they’re in love, get engaged, and use Emily’s wedding to get married themselves. Who comes up with these ridiculous stories?!

What are your favorite Christmas movies? Have you seen any on my list? Let me know in the comments below! ☃️