Where everything's decked up and the plots don't matter

November 25, 2023 1:51 PM

Please recommend some actually good Hallmark-type holiday movies!

'Tis the season for holiday-themed fluff!

Please recommend your favouritest and bestest comforting, undemanding Hallmark-style holiday movies. I'm going to crochet (or cook or corral children etc) while keeping approximately half my attention on whatever is playing on my TV or laptop, and I'd like to be entertained/engaged without feeling lost when I miss something.

The snowflakey aspect of my Ask is that I hate switching movies after starting one. So for me, a bad Hallmark holiday movie is like being stuck in a stalled elevator with bad muzak. You know what I mean? I am not asking for greatness, I just want something "good" within the confines of the genre.

I like:

- Plots on the meatier side! Shenanigans, drama, hijinks, respectable stakes, and/or side quests are all good. I would LOVE some unusual cross-genre recs here, e.g. a cozy mystery stuffed inside the standard hallmark formula, perhaps? I don't mind if the execution is mediocre, but the plot needs to be more than two people making eyes at each other while decorating the tree/baking cookies/sledding.

- Cheesiness! I'm SO HERE for a good old-fashioned meet-cute, and I love it when they make up weird contrivances to have snow at the end despite the movie being set in LA or whatever. Alllll standard tropes are welcome. Genre-savvy ironic meta-commentary is also extremely welcome.

- Escapism! Give me your period pieces, your accidental time-travelers, your huddled fictional european countries' royal families yearning to understand the true meaning of christmas. I tend to not like present-day set movies (especially not the rural lumberjacky/ranchy ones) unless the movie is very, very well written or the actors are very, very hot.

- Diversity! Please, please, please recommend any even halfway decent Hallmark-esque holiday movies with queer romances and/or nonwhite leads.

Some movies I watched in the last couple of years:

A Christmas Waltz - the entire movie was just the title! A total nothingburger. 1/5
A Timeless Christmas - the lead actors were fabulous! Kinda meh on plot execution. 3.6 roentgen/5
The Christmas Veil - painfully boring and very badly written, -1 for awkward execution of the magic veil concept. Also I realized here that maybe I just don't like Lacey Chabert as an actor? 2/5
On The 12th Date of Christmas - decent plot but it fizzled out. Mediocre acting. Also by this time I was getting very tired of only white people everywhere in every movie. 2/5
A Hollywood Christmas - the meta commentary was cute, the humor was refreshing by genre standards, and automatic +1 for at least one nonwhite lead actor. 5/5
A Christmas Prince - good acting and good production values, quite a substantial plot for the genre. Lots of cheesiness, lots of charm. 5/5

posted by MiraK to Media & Arts (33 answers total)

Single All the Way https://g.co/kgs/iT9Ccf Queer romance + Jennifer Coolidge! One of my new recent faves
posted by too bad you're not me at 2:01 PM on November 25, 2023 [10 favorites]

Noelle on Disney Plus starring Anna Kendrick is pretty cute.
posted by MadMadam at 2:14 PM on November 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Love Hard on Netflix.
posted by essexjan at 2:23 PM on November 25, 2023 [8 favorites]

Breakfast with Scot! (Only vaguely a Christmas movie, but it ends at Christmas.)
posted by hoyland at 2:31 PM on November 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

Broadway actors had some spare time on their hands in 2020 which resulted in a bunch of them including Aaron Tveit (and Laura Osnes, I know) starring in Hallmark's One Royal Holiday. We have Tony award winners in this cast! He's a prince, she's a nurse, he and his mother (y'know, a Queen) are stranded because of a snowstorm. They meet cute, her dad owns a B&B and it's Christmas.

It airs on Hallmark at midnight on 11/20 this year, set your DVR. It's my favorite.

(Avoid The Most Colorful Time of the Year - it's beyond stupid.)
posted by kimberussell at 2:51 PM on November 25, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: If you liked A Timeless Christmas, you might like The Knight Before Christmas (one of Netflix's many Vanessa Hudgens holiday movies; this one features a time-traveling knight on a magical quest).

The Princess Switch is Hudgens' first Netflix holiday film. It's a Christmas-themed adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper if the pauper were instead a Chicago baker taking part in a fake European country's baking competition. If you like it, there are two sequels that get progressively zanier, plot-wise (kidnappings! a heist!).
posted by rebekah at 2:56 PM on November 25, 2023 [5 favorites]

I really do not like this genre but will watch party one or two a year for the sake of friendship, and I actually kind of enjoyed Last Holiday starring Queen Latifah.
posted by eyeball at 3:43 PM on November 25, 2023 [8 favorites]

I don’t know if The Holiday qualifies as Hallmark due to the high production value and a-list cast, but it certainly has:

-meaty super contrived plot

-cheesiness—the romance is high, and sometimes uncheesy and sometimes very cheesy, and okay, since you mentioned meet-cutes, this is actually an important meta piece on the topic IMHO

-escapism- both a quant Kinkade-ian cottage in England AND a fabulous LA mansion

-diversity- Jack Black and other characters are Jewish, and have a realistic low key Hanukkah supper (also tho JB is a hunk in my eyes, he’s not exactly the typical romance leading man type)
posted by kapers at 3:50 PM on November 25, 2023 [5 favorites]

Also not much of a fan, also can rec The Princess Switch for being just good enough to be watchable. Last Holiday is a bit better than that and, as someone else said, pretty much enjoyable. The Holiday (with Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz) has the vibes you're looking for with much higher production values and better acting.

I also tolerated a movie from 2011 called A Princess for Christmas; it stars Katie McGrath and the guy from Outlander.

There is also a 1972 film called The Amazing Mr Blunden that involves time travel between 1918 and 1818. It's not really a Christmas film (and depicts some child abuse!), but it's often shown around Christmas and has magical elements, and a happy ending. It's on Prime right now. It might suit your "historical vibes" request.
posted by verbminx at 3:54 PM on November 25, 2023

Best answer: Pop on over to this thread to read about the good and the bad that people are watching (and writing about) this year. It might help you avoid some of those bad time sinks.
posted by sardonyx at 3:54 PM on November 25, 2023 [8 favorites]

Best answer: Snow Bride! (my personal cheesy hallmark fave)
A Princess for Christmas!
Love at the Christmas Table!
posted by bahama mama at 3:55 PM on November 25, 2023 [3 favorites]

(one of the hard parts about this is that Hallmark-ish stuff isn't typically historical. They're low-budget movies. I think the show When Calls the Heart might have done some stuff like that.)
posted by verbminx at 3:55 PM on November 25, 2023

Best answer: - Diversity! Please, please, please recommend any even halfway decent Hallmark-esque holiday movies with queer romances and/or nonwhite leads.

Maybe higher budget and production quality than you're looking for, but I really liked Happiest Season which is directed by Clea DuVall, centered around a lesbian couple played by McKenzie Davis and Kristen Stewart, and has Dan Levy and a bunch of other great folks in supporting roles.
posted by Special Agent Dale Cooper at 4:06 PM on November 25, 2023 [5 favorites]

Best answer: I was pleasantly surprised by A Chance for Christmas, a Tubi original, that is basically A Christmas in Connecticut except with a time loop. It's broad enough you don't have to pay that much attention.

It's also an interracial romance.

The time-loop element actually helps when it comes to the low-budget aspect.

I'm not saying it's a masterpiece but I went in with super low expectations and was very surprised that it was good (you know, as these things go).
posted by edencosmic at 4:23 PM on November 25, 2023 [3 favorites]

I enjoyed The Spirit of Christmas far more than I should have. He's a ghost who haunts an inn on Christmas Eve, she's a lawyer who is tasked with preparing the inn for sale. In order to do the latter, she has to unhaunt the inn which means solving the mystery of why he's haunting the inn.
posted by Constance Mirabella at 5:36 PM on November 25, 2023 [5 favorites]

I also really enjoyed The Spirit of Christmas; the weirder and more contrived the situation, the better, as far as I'm concerned! I also like 12 Dates of Christmas (similar title, but different from the one in your description). It has a Groundhog Day plot that I thought was pretty good and it's also cheesy, but it does not check your escapism or diversity boxes.
posted by catabananza at 5:52 PM on November 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Ghosts of Christmas Always is my favorite Hallmark, and includes some historical look back.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:24 PM on November 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

You should download PureFlix for the holidays. SunMoon is actually good - it's about a jilted woman who goes to teach in South Korea (I think) and finds acceptance. I don't recall if it's actually a holiday movie or not.

And many in the romance/holiday section are perfectly fine. What's funny is often the 'lady's best guy friend' character gets the girl instead of the high-powered guy, (or girl, the do have plenty of female-led movies). There is also no sex or swearing, and the gays only get to be side characters.

Other than that, they are fine simple movies completely on par with Hallmark or Lifetime. Most of the time, the religious stuff is not overwhelming either if you read the descriptions or are looking for it.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:18 PM on November 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I tend to use this type of movie to play in the background when I am doing rote data entry, so I hear you on what you are asking for. I'm seconding The Holiday, A Princess for Christmas, and also Love at the Christmas Table (which has a wacky plot and includes a callback to Conan the Barbarian). I am going to add The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (title is ironic), which benefits from having Henry Winkler as the uncle and has some good humorous bits. (Love at the Christmas Table and The Most Wonderful Time of the Year are the two movies of this genre that my husband actually enjoys.)

A couple of other decent ones with royals would be Crown for Christmas and The Royal Nanny. Netflix has A Castle for Christmas which could be better, but has Brooke Shields and Cary Elwes and Scotland, so I forgive its flaws.

Jolly Good Christmas is set in London and stars Reshma Shetty as the main love interest so has a bit more diversity than a lot of this genre. The Nine Lives of Christmas has a very cute cat and Brandon Routh, and the plot is decent. A few others I have a fondness for are The Mistletoe Promise, Christmas Next Door, and Debbie Macomber's Trading Christmas. While You Were Sleeping (1995) is set partly at Christmas and is not a Hallmark movie, but is a romantic comedy so fits this genre to my mind.

Holiday Road is a new one which I kind of skimmed, but seems fairly decent and has a non white character who has significant screen time.
posted by gudrun at 7:38 PM on November 25, 2023 [5 favorites]

A series, but Home For Christmas really scratched the Hallmark-but-good itch for me a few years ago. Charming cast, and beautiful Norwegian villages in full snowy Xmas splendor, and an engaging plot.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 8:39 PM on November 25, 2023 [5 favorites]

(I live in Scotland between two castles which also happen to be conveniently located for Edinburgh airport. During deep lockdown they were filming Princess Switch 3 in one and A Castle for Christmas in the other - both are, indeed quite fun).
How about Carol? - you know nobody with that name is going to be safe from the genre.
posted by rongorongo at 3:36 AM on November 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: oh my goodness THANK YOU everyone!!!

Last night I watched Happiest Season and it was marvelous - way too good to be a proper answer in this thread, technically, because I had to stop crocheting and really watch the movie properly. Can't complain, though, because what a great movie!

This morning I watched Love Under The Christmas Table and that was also cute as heck. I did get some crocheting done, but not nearly enough! I ask you how am I supposed to keep my eyes off the screen when Ted Mullens is on it? You all need to stop recommending movies that force me to watch, haha.

I'm going to work my way through all your other recommendations over the next month and I'll be back here to mark more Best Answers. Thank you so so so much.
posted by MiraK at 9:26 AM on November 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Red, White and Royal Blue. It’s on Amazon Prime.
posted by vunder at 10:25 AM on November 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

Christmas with Holly is charming, goofy and sweet. Premise: After her mother's passing, six-year-old Holly goes to live with her Uncle Mark, the youngest of her three uncles and a bachelor. Mark quickly realizes that Holly needs extra support, and so he decides to move the two of them from the big city to the small coastal town where he and his siblings grew up. They move in with Mark's two older brothers and together the three uncles try to figure out how best to nurture Holly and bring her out of her shell.

The movie is sweet without being saccharine, and while it is set during the holiday season it doesn't have the feeling of being in a Balsam Hill catalog that some of the more recent Hallmark Christmas movies have. The Hallmark website has it listed as airing on December 11th on the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel.
posted by panther of the pyrenees at 11:07 AM on November 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

Ok, off the wall suggestion here, but my kid and I are watching this 8 episode miniseries thing on Netflix called Dash and Lily. They’re two high school kids and contrivances abound. I haven’t finished the series yes, but there’s a good bit of diversity among the cast and it’s so very very sweet. The characters are likable but also realistic.
posted by Night_owl at 10:26 PM on November 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Christmas In Connecticut! (The 1945 one) Period piece, the lead is a single woman who writes a column about being a cooking housewife, but whose editor has no idea she’s faking and has linked her up for a publicity stunt with a war veteran who just wants to spend a good old fashioned Christmas with her and the home she’s talked about. She has to fake a home, husband, and baby - though finds herself falling in love.
posted by corb at 4:59 AM on November 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

Response by poster: I also watched Love Hard last night and it was completely adorable and wonderful, they even had an amazing un-rapeified cover of Baby It's Cold Outside?! Loved it! I rate it 11 out of 5 stars.

IDK if I can keep up this pace. Can't remember the last time I watched 3 movies in a single weekend, but this was so much fun! Going forward I'll just mark my faves as Best Answer on this thread and take my reviews to FanFare. Thank you, please keep the recs coming, I love all of you and wish you a wonderful holiday season!!
posted by MiraK at 5:38 AM on November 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Belatedly seconding Christmas in Connecticut (the 1945 one), Christmas with Holly, and coming back to add The Shop Around the Corner (1940).
posted by gudrun at 7:16 AM on November 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

Also, weirdly, there are two movies where the protagonists get sucked into snowglobes. Neither is high art. I like the 2007 one done by ABC Family, and just called Snowglobe, much more than the other one, and the main female love interest is not white. It includes a comic turn by Matt Keeslar (who is a favorite of mine for The Middleman series though he has completely given up acting.) It also has Erin Karpluk in an early supporting role and Lorraine Bracco. (The other one is called A Snow Globe Christmas and is from 2013, but I would not bother with that one.)
posted by gudrun at 7:32 AM on November 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I would normally never watch a movie of the type you're looking for, but I found Last Christmas with Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, and Emma Thompson to be irresistible and have been watching it every December for a few years now.
posted by orange swan at 12:26 PM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Last Christmas except unlike orange swan I can’t watch it again.
posted by Night_owl at 4:04 PM on December 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Fun update: I went to watch 12 Dates of Christmas yesterday, was pleased to find it on Max, and sat through 30+ minutes of it feeling wildly impressed, because wow, look at this, a movie that so very perfectly spoofs a reality TV show! That's so inventive! Ohh look, two of the leads like each other instead of their dates whom the reality show has set them up with. Niiiice setup, I'm hooked. These actors are phenomenal, they're extremely convincing as reality show participants! The director is INCREDIBLE, their commitment to the movie's conceit is absolute! Wow, I wonder when we'll break the frame and see these people step outside of the reality show's world and into their own...

...I kept watching until I realized I *was* watching episode 1 of a reality TV show by that name. D'oh.

I still think it would have worked amazing as a movie. COME ON! This is just begging to be made! Maybe I should ditch my current story in progress and start working on a script, haha.
posted by MiraK at 10:07 AM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Posting "The 25 best Christmas films – ranked!" here - not all fitting your criteria but some already mentioned and maybe a few new matches.
posted by rongorongo at 1:14 PM on December 15, 2023