The Merry Gentlemen
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Chad Michael Murray dances shirtless. |
| I think the entire point of this movie is an excuse to see Chad Michael Murray and other hot men, or merry gentlemen, to dance shirtless. Hey, there are far worse reasons for movies to be made. There is an argument that the movie should have leaned even further in and given us an hour and a half of the male dance revue, because instead after each quick dance number, we’re treated to the most cliché tropes around. | 2024 Directed by: Peter Sullivan Screenplay by: Jeffrey Schenck, Peter Sullivan, Marla Sokoloff Starring: Britt Robertson, Chad Michael Murray | |
| See full review of The Merry Gentlemen | ||
Jingle Bell Run
A simplistic and enjoyable romance.
| While Hallmark Christmas movies are always simplistic, sometimes they lean into that simplicity perfectly. Jingle Bell Run spends all of its time on Wes and Avery and their budding relationship as they race around the United States in an Amazing Race type reality competition show. It’s the right focus because the actors fit their characters perfectly and there is that much growth in their relationship. | 2024 Directed by: Lucie Guest Screenplay by: Tom McCurrie, Stephanie Sourapas Starring: Ashley Williams, Andrew W. Walker | |
| See full review of Jingle Bell Run | ||
Christmas with the Singhs
Family drama that over-complicates a nice romance.
| First, Hallmark has to be congratulated on recognizing that there are other cultures and races in the world. It is such an overwhelmingly White network that Christmas with the Singhs is their only foray into a more diverse lineup. But before we go too far, it’s very important to note that the Singhs, an Indian American family, are Christian so Christmas still looks like Christmas. | 2024 Directed by: Panta Mosleh Screenplay by: Patricia Isaac, Emily Ting Starring: Anuja Joshi, Benjamin Hollingsworth | |
| See full review of Christmas with the Singhs | ||
Hot Frosty
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Whimsy and comedy in a lightweight, simplistic rom-com. |
| Hot Frosty is the second of Netflix’s four holiday rom-coms releasing each Wednesday in the month of November. If the first one, Meet Me Next Christmas, was a typical romantic comedy (it was), then this is an atypical romantic comedy. It’s not every day that snowmen come to life. In this made-up fantasy, which is set in the real world, a hot perfect man is born out of the snow by placing a red scarf around his neck. | 2024 Directed by: Jerry Ciccoritti Screenplay by: Russell Hainline Starring: Lacy Chabert, Dustin Milligan | |
| See full review of Hot Frosty | ||
A Sudden Case of Christmas
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A good premise ruined by everything else. |
| A Sudden Case of Christmas is about a young girl and her parents travelling to Italy to visit her grandfather, during the summer. It’s supposed to be about the girl recreating Christmas to be able to deal with her parents’ impending divorce. The problem is that it’s barely about that. The movie seems to spend most of its time with random characters that do not add to the story at all. | 2024 Directed by: Peter Chelsom Screenplay by: Peter Chelsom, Tinker Lindsay Starring: Danny DeVito, Antonella Rose | |
| See full review of A Sudden Case of Christmas | ||
Santa Tell Me
Santa's magic can't save this rom-com.
| The appeal to Santa Tell Me is in the magical intervention on Olivia (Erin Krakow’s) love life, because everything else it does in service of a holiday rom-com is very unappealing. Olivia is a one-dimensional no-nonsense, over-worked television show interior designer. It’s a common, but over-used character for Hallmark movies, and it’s very tiring here. And then the worst trope of all, she misidentifies her future romantic interest and is immediately extremely rude and antagonistic towards him. | 2024 Directed by: Ryan Landels Screenplay by: Ryan Landels Starring: Erin Krakow, Daniel Lissing | |
| See full review of Santa Tell Me | ||
Trivia at St. Nick's
Christmas, trivia, romance and an unlikable lead character.
| Welcome to Nick’s Bar where the annual Christmas trivia tournament is the most important thing in this Vermont college town. There are a lot of things to like in Trivia at St. Nick’s and a whole lot of things to dislike. It’s a movie fighting to incorporate so many tropes and stereotypes that it can’t help but bring down a movie a solid premise, but at the same time, you’re sure to find parts of it to love. | 2024 Directed by: Marlo Hunter Screenplay by: Christine Garver, Stephanie Jackson Starring: Tammin Sursok, Brant Daugherty | |
| See full review of Trivia at St. Nick's | ||
Meet Me Next Christmas
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A typical romantic comedy filled with romance, laughter and music. |
| For their 2024 Christmas rom-com slate, Netflix is releasing four movies, one each Wednesday in the month of November. With Meet Me Next Christmas, we are off to a rockin’ good start (please pardon the pun). The romantic comedy features not one but two meet cutes, an act two which has multiple laugh out loud funny scenes, an ending with all the sweet romance you could hope for, and last but not least, it is filled with fantastic music. | 2024 Directed by: Rusty Cundieff Screenplay by: Molly Haldeman, Camilla Rubis Starring: Christina Milian, Devale Ellis, Kofi Siriboe, and Kalen Allen | |
| See full review of Meet Me Next Christmas | ||
Holiday Mismatch
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An enjoyable pairing of romance and comedy. |
| Holiday Mismatch should be at the top of any Hallmark Christmas rotation. The characters are very simplistic but it’s a really nice romance with the right amount of comedy sprinkled in. It also employs two of the better rom-com tropes: fake dating turning into real dating; and meddling families who are constantly trying to get them together and then break them up and using reverse psychology and reverse-reverse psychology and then rinse and repeat. | 2024 Directed by: Caroline Labrèche Screenplay by: Sarah Wise Starring: Beth Broderick, caroline Rhea, Maxine Denis and Jon McLaren | |
| See full review of Holiday Mismatch | ||
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
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Cheesy and wholesome, but still a winning formula of kindness and acceptance. |
| Based on the 1972 novel of the same name, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever has a Christian director and based on a very Christian story of a town hosting a Christmas pageant of the traditional Christmas story of Jesus’ birth. While I was concerned it might get too preachy or religious, it won me over because its only message is kindness and having an open-mind, which most of the Christian characters within the movie are unable to practice. | 2024 Directed by: Dallas Jenkins Screenplay by: Platte Clark, Darin McDaniel, Ryan Swanson and Dallas Jenkins Based on the novel by Barbara Robinson Starring: Judy Greer, Molly Belle Wright | |
| See full review of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever | ||
A Carol for Two
A nice and boring Christmas musical.
| Usually the musical Hallmark Christmas movies are the better ones, adding another dimension to the holiday romance. Unfortunately that’s not the case for A Carol for Two, which is just a boring version of the romantic drama. Technically they have good singing voices, but nothing that adds any fun or excitement to the usual drama. | 2024 Directed by: Jeff Beesley Screenplay by: Nina Weinman Starring: Ginna Claire Mason, Jordan Litz | |
| See full review of A Carol for Two | ||
The 5-Year Christmas Party
Let down by underplaying its premise.
| The 5-Year Christmas Party has the same premise as See You Next Christmas. And I don’t mean they’re the same in the general sense that all Christmas rom-coms are the same (which is a lame criticism), I mean they literally have the exact same premise. The 5-Year Christmas Party features Alice and Max who meet up at Christmas parties every year for a 5-year period as they evolve apart and grow closer together. | 2024 Directed by: Peter Benson Screenplay by: Zac Hug Starring: Katie Findlay, Jordan Fisher | |
| See full review of The 5-Year Christmas Party | ||
The Christmas Charade
The usual Christmas romance fare, bundled in an FBI sting operation.
| Normally, Hallmark should stay in their own lane and not try to do a movie about FBI agents going undercover in a sting operation, but admittedly, The Christmas Charade is light and fun and arguably better suited to the genre than all the big budget movies that go way too big and way too far. There’s still a degree of suspension of disbelief required, but Hallmark makes it more about the romance than the FBI. | 2024 Directed by: Corey Sevier Screenplay by: Kate Pragnell Starring: Rachel Skarsten, Corey Sevier | |
| See full review of The Christmas Charade | ||
Christmas in Notting Hill
An adorably cute romantic pairing.
| This is what a cute Christmas rom-com looks like. Georgia (Sarah Ramos) is visiting her sister Lizzie in London and meets cute stranger, Graham (William Moseley); but there’s a few things she doesn’t know about him: that he’s a famous professional footballer and that he’s the brother of her sister’s boyfriend. He also doesn’t know her connection. So when he accidentally tells her that his brother’s proposing this Christmas, she doesn’t know the significance. | 2023 Directed by: Ali Liebert Screenplay by: Alex Yonks Starring: Sarah Ramos, William Moseley | |
| See full review of Christmas in Notting Hill | ||
A Merry Scottish Christmas
| Lacey Chabert and Scott Wolf have been reunited as brother and sister in A Merry Scottish Christmas. And when you have TV royalty with their adorableness, you might as well make them duke and duchess, almost. Estranged siblings Brad (Scott Wolf) and Lindsay (Lacey Chabert) have been invited by their mother to a castle in Scotland. They don’t know why, she’s acting weird, although given the references to their childhood, I don’t know how you identify what’s weird with her. | 2023 Directed by: Dustin Rikert Screenplay by: Andrea Canning, Dustin Rikert, Andrew Gernhard Starring: Lacey Chabert, Scott Wolf | |
| See full review of A Merry Scottish Christmas | ||
Navigating Christmas
A Hallmark Christmas on a cute island.
| Navigating Christmas is set on a remote island off the coast of Washington state. It’s a small island with a lighthouse, a diner and a few people who all wear plaid. It is a fictional place, but it’s a lovely set and not overdone unlike most of Hallmarks fictional small-town settings. Recently divorced single mother Melanie (Chelsea Hobbs) takes her teenage son on a last-minute Christmas vacation after his father bailed on him. | 2023 Directed by: Peter Benson Screenplay by: Starring: Chelsea Hobbs, Stephen Huszar | |
| See full review of Navigating Christmas | ||
Dashing Through the Snow
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Off-kilter but adds something new to Santa Claus. |
| Dashing Through the Snow is weird and off-kilter for most of it, but it also has a sense of fun and something for the whole family. Eddie (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges) is separated from his wife, has a daughter, and is a social worker who spends his time helping others who are less fortunate. He’s spending Christmas Eve with his daughter until he catches a guy breaking into his neighbor’s house. | 2023 Directed by: Tim Story Screenplay by: Scott Rosenberg Starring: Lil Rel Howery, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges | |
| See full review of Dashing Through the Snow | ||
Best. Christmas. Ever!
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A messy comedy filled with cynicism, jealousy, loss and depression. |
| Best. Christmas. Ever! is not intentionally using that title ironically even though the first half is a cynical mess and the second half uses grief and depression to make everything worse. The premise fulfills the first half of the movie, two jealous friends who want to bring down the other person no matter the cost. It’s a common cynicism in comedies which I hate; this is not good-natured ribbing, this is jealousy and animosity wrapped up in forced laughter. | 2023 Directed by: Mary Lambert Screenplay by: Todd Calgi Gallicano, and Charles Shyer Starring: Heather Graham, Brandy Norwood, Jason Biggs | |
| See full review of Best. Christmas. Ever! | ||
EXmas
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A comedy first rom-com. |
| A predictable rom-com, EXmas provides plenty of laughs, some well-earned emotions and the right amount of Christmas. Ali (Leighton Meester) loves the holiday but has nobody to celebrate it with, until her ex-fiancée’s family invites her to their house. A few Christmas movie reviews ago (for The Christmas Classic), I mentioned that my favourite trope is the ex who is still friends the family, and now we get a whole movie of that and it is exactly as delightful as expected. | 2023 Directed by: Jonah Feingold Screenplay by: Dan Steele Starring: Leighton Meester, Robbie Amell | |
| See full review of EXmas | ||
Christmas Island
Well-balanced Christmas cheer.
| To clear up the first bit of confusion, this Christmas Island is a real town in Nova Scotia not the Australian territory in the Indian Ocean. Don’t worry, they’re not doing something silly like flying from the US to Switzerland by way of the south Pacific. The only silly thing this film is doing is having a massive storm over the Atlantic Ocean which is so severe that all flights have had to be grounded for almost a week. | 2023 Directed by: David Weaver Screenplay by: Samantha Herman Starring: Rachel Skarston, Andrew Walker | |
| See full review of Christmas Island | ||
Flipping for Christmas
All of Hallmark’s worst characteristics.
| Flipping for Christmas is yet another one of Hallmark’s big city girl travels back to her small hometown, falls for the local handyman, and rediscovers the meaning of family and Christmas. And I would love to say, that at least one of those things got switched up, but only barely: she actually rediscovers the meaning of family, Christmas and community. It’s a very low budget production with overdone characters that it’s impossible to get wrapped up in the romance. | 2023 Directed by: Katherine Barrell Screenplay by: Brett Heard Starring: Ashley Newbrough, Marcus Rosner | |
| See full review of Flipping for Christmas | ||
The Christmas Classic
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Every Christmas rom-com rolled into one ridiculous but funny story. |
| The Christmas Classic is every Christmas cliché wrapped into a ski competition to save the chalet. But the story is also told with tongue firmly in cheek and having as much fun with it as possible. Elizabeth (Malin Akerman) works for her fiancé’s father’s real estate company and has been tasked with buying a ski resort in her small hometown in New Mexico. | 2023 Directed by: Shane Dax Taylor Screenplay by: Shane Dax Taylor, Austin Nichols Starring: Malin Akerman, Ryan Hansen | |
| See full review of The Christmas Classic | ||
Mystic Christmas
Perfectly pleasant and often boring.
| Mystic Christmas is an occasionally cute but often just boring Christmas romance. Usually exes at Christmas leads to a lot of fun in movie world, but here it’s just very tame. Juniper (Jessy Schram) is a marine expert returning home to temporarily help out the local aquarium. Her ex is the very nice Sawyer (Chandler Massey). They are both just nice people leading nice lives and it’s all a little boring. | 2023 Directed by: Marlo Hunter Screenplay by: Nicole Drespel Starring: Jessy Schram, Chandler Massey | |
| See full review of Mystic Christmas | ||
Christmas by Design
A lazy Christmas romance.
| I was looking forward to a fashion-based Christmas rom-com, but Hallmark’s Christmas by Design forgot the crucial element of successful romantic comedies – characters that audiences want to root for. Charlotte (Rebecca Dalton), aka Charlie, is fine by the end, but at the beginning she’s a delusional, extremely self-absorbed narcissist who likes being antagonistic towards strangers and dismissive of people who care about her. And it forgot the fashion. | 2023 Directed by: Max McGuire Screenplay by: Carley Smale Starring: Rebecca Dalton, Thomas Chovanec | |
| See full review of Christmas By Design | ||
Checkin' It Twice
| Checkin’ It Twice is my new favourite genre – the hockey rom-com. Scott (Kevin McGarry) is a journeyman minor league hockey player, he’s in his mid-30s still looking for his shot at the NHL, but instead he’s sent to Idaho Falls a feeder team for the AHL. Meanwhile, Ashley (Kim Matula) is a hot shot commercial real estate agent in New York who has just lost a client to her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend. | 2023 Directed by: Kevin Fair Screenplay by: Steve Beauregard Starring: Kevin McGarry, Kim Matula | |
| See full review of Checkin' It Twice | ||
The Price of Family
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So much dysfunction, so little comedy. |
| The Price of Family is an Italian dysfunctional family comedy, but it’s a real struggle to see where the comedy is in the dysfunction. Two empty nesters are distraught when their adult children move out of their family home and get jobs. The kids don’t come home for the funeral of an old distant relative and all hell breaks loose (this is a slight exaggeration on my part, but their reactions are far from normal). | 2022 Directed by: Giovanni Bognetti Screenplay by: Giovanni Bognetti Starring: Christian De Sica, Angela Finocchiaro | |
| See full review of The Price of Family | ||
I Believe in Santa
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A confused movie with no audience. |
| I Believe in Santa does not know its audience. First it has a really silly premise – a grown adult who actually believes in Santa. And second, it’s a kid’s movie but not for kids. The rom-com element is too mature to be interesting or funny to kids. So it’s for adults who believe in Santa? Those don’t exist. If we can overlook that existential problem, it is a mostly cute and sweet Christmas movie. | 2022 Directed by: Alex Ranarivelo Screenplay by: John Ducey Starring: Christina Moore, John Ducey | |
| See full review of I Believe in Santa | ||
Looking for Her
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Slow-moving but cute and sweet with a good lead couple. |
| Looking for Her opens with two common character types: Taylor (Olivia Buckle) an uptight, hard-working writer who bottles up her feelings and usually ignores her family for Christmas; Olive (Alexandra Swarens) is a perpetually late, behind on rent, struggling actress who has a sweet nature but doesn’t have two dollars to rub together to be able to make good decisions with. Olive is a really easy character to like and the film desperately needs her presence. | 2022 Directed by: Alexandra Swarens Screenplay by: Alexandra Swarens Starring: Olivia Buckle, Alexandra Swarens | |
| See full review of Looking for Her | ||
A Hollywood Christmas
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| A Hollywood Christmas is another self-aware Christmas rom-com, gently poking fun at itself while paying homage to the tried-and-true formula. It opens with the movie-within-the-movie: a big city lawyer walks into a small-town girl’s struggling cupcake shop, he threatens to shut it down because he hates Christmas, and the girl teaches him the magic of Christmas and together they save her store and fall in love. | 2022 Directed by: Alex Ranarivelo Screenplay by: John Ducey Starring: Jessika Van, Josh Swickard | |
| See full review of A Hollywood Christmas | ||
Your Christmas or Mine?
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Too many rom-com tropes with unenjoyable characters. |
| A young couple Hayley and James are saying goodbye at the train station to go spend Christmas with their own families. Only they both make the same impulsive decision to get off their train, get on the other person’s train to spend Christmas together, but are now heading to each other’s families, apart. Your Christmas or Mine? is a holiday rom-com in a comedy-of-errors format. | 2022 Directed by: Jim O'Hanlon Screenplay by: Tom Parry Starring: Asa Butterfield, Cora Kirk | |
| See full review of Your CHristmas or Mine? | ||
A Tale of Two Christmases
Limited comedy, overplayed romance and an uneven main character.
| Two Christmas romances are not necessarily better than one, especially when the film wants to be this unsubtle about which one is the right one. A Tale of Two Christmases features Emma an architect in Chicago and when she over-sleeps her alarm and runs into a Santa Claus-type person in the airport, her life splits into two directions: one if she makes her flight home to Vermont for Christmas Eve, the other where she spends Christmas Eve in Chicago. | 2022 Directed by: Jason Bourque Screenplay by: Cylin Busby, Nanci Katz Starring: Katherine Barrell, Chandler Massey, Evan Roderick, and Keith MacKechnie | |
| See full review of A Tale of Two Christmases | ||
Merry Kiss Cam
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Hockey and love and comedy in an indie rom-com. |
| Shot and set in Duluth, Minnesota, Merry Kiss Cam is a hockey movie for rom-cam fans, or maybe it’s the other way around and is a rom-com for hockey fans. Either way it’s the perfect coupling of comedy and romance in a college hockey town setting. The team in question is the University of Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs, a real team, but don’t worry you don’t need to know anything about them, just that they lose a lot. | 2022 Directed by: Lisa France Screenplay by: Maya Boudreau, Evan D. Watkins Starring: Katie Lowes, Jesse Bradford | |
| See full review of Merry Kiss Cam | ||
Holiday Harmony
Uplifting and sweet tale of music and romance.
| Holiday Harmony is an uplifting and sweet tale of music and romance, and in equal measure. Gail (Annelise Cepero) is an aspiring musician who lives out of her van and plays music in dive bars and on Instagram to all her friends in her phone. A real-life friend helps her apply for iHeart Radio’s Christmas show for her big break on national TV; however, on her way to LA she runs into van trouble in Harmony Springs, Oklahoma. | 2022 Directed by: Shaun Piccinnino Screenplay by: Lauren Swickard, Christopher James Harvill Starring: Annelise Cepero, Jeremy Sumpter | |
| See full review of Holiday Harmony | ||
The Noel Diary
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A Christmas romance in sullen drama form about death, grief, and forgiveness. |
| The Noel Diary features Justin Hartley as Jake Turner, a famous and successful author returning to his childhood home after his mother passed away; and Barrett Doss as Rachel, a woman on search for the identity of her birth mother. It’s a subdued drama about two strangers connecting with one another as they deal with past traumas. Which then of course turns into a romance. | 2022 Directed by: Charles Shyer Screenplay by: Charles Shyer & Rebecca Connor, and David Golden Based on the novel by Richard Paul Evans Starring: Justin Hartley, Barrett Doss | |
| See full review of The Noel Diary | ||
Christmas on Mistletoe Farm
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For the love of animals only. |
| A widowed father, Matt Cunningham (Scott Garnham), who has a full-time job and five young kids to take care of, then inherits a farm from his estranged father and decides to juggle his job plus raising his kids plus running a farm, and needless to say it doesn’t go smoothly. Mistletoe grows on Mistletoe Farm but the farm is a regular farm with animals, and eggs for sale, and minimal other revenue sources. | 2022 Directed by: Debbie Isitt Screenplay by: Debbie Isitt Starring: Scott Garnham, Scott Paige | |
| See full review of Christmas on Mistletoe Farm | ||
Inventing the Christmas Prince
Wrong in almost every possibly way.
| Inventing the Christmas Prince is definitely on the children’s movie end of the Hallmark spectrum, but the comedy isn’t cute, more nonexistent, and the romance is inappropriate. This is very poorly written with uneven acting and messages that make no sense. Considering Hallmark’s other choices are better, this should be a last resort. | 2022 Directed by: Paul Ziller Screenplay by: Kim Beyer-Johnson Starring: Tamera Mowry-Housley, Ronnie Rowe | |
| See full review of Inventing the Christmas Prince | ||
Christmas with You
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Familiar Christmas rom-com with Latin flair. |
| Christmas with You is another Netflix Christmas romance but this time with a Latin flair. All of the main characters and actors are Latino-American and the story is centered around a girl’s quinceañera, but otherwise it’s a movie you’ve seen before and in typical Netflix fashion, very exaggerated. Angelina (Aimee Garcia) is a pop star, and supposedly one of the most famous pop stars on the planet. | 2022 Directed by: Gabriela Tagliavini Screenplay by: Paco Farias, Jennifer C. Stetson, and German Michael Torres Starring: Aimee Garcia, Freddie Prinze Jr. | |
| See full review of Christmas with You | ||
In Merry Measure
Nice music and a whole lot of sweetness.
| This is my second Hallmark Christmas romance of the season and it’s not a bad decision. The first half of In Merry Measure carries the movie with some nice singing, and a very enjoyable – almost relatable – relationship forming. It’s sweet and then just gets sickeningly sweet, so be ready for a sugar rush, since the movie never dials it back. | 2022 Directed by: Paula Elle Screenplay by: Russell Hainline Starring: Patti Murin, Brendan Penny | |
| See full review of In Merry Measure | ||
Falling for Christmas
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Light on laughs and romance, but it is sweet and charming. |
| Falling for Christmas is Netflix’s first Christmas movie of the season, and it’s also their first entry into the Lindsay Lohan renaissance (with the romantic comedy Irish Wish expected in 2023). It starts as an immature comedy about a spoiled brat acting like a spoiled brat, but the charm eventually wins over as it becomes a sweet comedy about a girl who doesn’t know who she is. | 2022 Directed by: Janeen Damian Screenplay by: Jeff Bonnett, Ron Oliver Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Chord Overstreet | |
| See full review of Falling for Christmas | ||
Lights, Camera, Christmas!
A self-aware delight of a Hallmark Christmas romance.
| Lights, Camera, Christmas! is a self-aware Hallmark Christmas movie, and is exactly what the genre needs. A Christmas romance that takes place on the set of a Hallmark-style Christmas romance movie featuring one lead character who hates the genre and her co-lead who makes a living off them and loves it. It has all the necessary ingredients to succeed, and it does. | 2022 Directed by: David Weaver Screenplay by: Gary Goldstein Starring: Kimberley Sustad, John Brotherton | |
| See full review of Lights, Camera, Christmas! | ||
Single All the Way
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Funny and sweet. |
| Michael Urie (from Ugly Betty and Younger) has finally landed himself a lead role, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Netflix has just started to realize it needs to step up its game with gay rom-coms while its most recent heterosexual offering A Castle for Christmas is hitting rock bottom. Single All the Way is a really silly title, but the comedy is well-earned especially with Urie shining throughout all the well-meaning hijinks. | 2021 Directed by: Michael Mayer Screenplay by: Chad Hodge Starring: Michael Urie, Philemon Chambers | |
| See full review of Single All the Way | ||
A Castle for Christmas
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Stripped of all humour, charm and common-sense. |
| Netflix original romances and Christmas movies don't have a good rap in the first place, but A Castle for Christmas is quite possibly the worst one yet. It's illogical, unromantic, not funny and boring. Famous author Sophie Brown (Brooke Shields) travels to Scotland on a whim, buys a castle on a whim, and falls in love, also on a whim since there's really no logic employed here. | 2021 Directed by: Mary Lambert Screenplay by: Kim Breyer-Johnson, Ally Carter, and Neal H. Dobrofsky Starring: Brooke Shields, Cary Elwes | |
| See full review of A Castle for Christmas | ||
Black Friday
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Funny, disgusting and entertaining. |
| How has there not been a Black Friday set horror movie until now? After Halloween, it is the ideal holiday tailor-made for the genre, and yet nobody has pulled it off. Luckily our first foray into the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas shopping day is a bloody entertaining horror-comedy romp. It’s Thanksgiving night at a Toys R Us type store with a dozen employees on the inside and a couple hundred shoppers on the outside. | 2021 Directed by: Casey Tebo Screenplay by: Andy Greskoviak Starring: Bruce Campbell, Devon Sawa, Ivana Baquero and Ryan Lee | |
| See full review of Black Friday | ||
See You Next Christmas
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Premise that eventually really works. |
| See You Next Christmas is an indie romantic comedy. Set in Annie and Tom’s apartment, you can feel the low budget. The dialogue has some awkward delivery which limits the comedy, and it takes awhile to be interested in the characters. The romance is a very slow burn. However, the concept of seeing the same people one day each year really works. A snapshot of your life each Christmas as you grow into adulthood. | 2021 Directed by: Christine Weatherup Screenplay by: Christine Weatherup Starring: Elizabeth Guest, AJ Meijer, Christine Weatherup and Vin Vescio | |
| See full review of See You Next Christmas | ||
Love Hard
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Some bad writing, but funny characters deliver a mostly entertaining rom-com. |
| There’s a lot of bad writing at the beginning to get past, but eventually Love Hard delivers a reasonably funny and entertaining rom-com. It starts with our lead character, Natalie (Nina Dobrev), narrating her life. She’s a successful writer of a ‘bad at love’ blog (which gives some scary Sex and the City flashbacks) and she then turns to online dating because there are just no good men in Los Angeles. | 2021 Directed by: Hernan Jimenez Screenplay by: Daniel Mackey, Rebecca Ewing Starring: Nina Dobrev and Jimmy O. Yang | |
| See full review of Love Hard | ||
Christmas on the Carousel
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An indie romance with well written characters. |
| Writer and director Erik Bloomquist has been busy with Christmas at the Carousel his third movie released this year after Weekenders and Night at the Eagle Inn. He also stars as Greyson, one of four friends who have made the trip back home for the Christmas holidays during their final year at college. It’s time to grapple with their relationships, their future, their past and what home ultimately means. | 2021 Directed by: Erik Bloomquist Screenplay by: Erik Bloomquist, Taylor Turner Starring: Erik Bloomquist, Madeleine Dauer, Taylor Turner and Rachel Oremland | |
| See full review of Christmas on the Carousel | ||
Boyfriends of Christmas Past
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Enjoyable lead couple, frustrating drama. |
| Two years ago, the Hallmark Channel aired and then promptly pulled a commercial which included a lesbian wedding. They knew their White brand and it did not include homosexuality. Boyfriends of Christmas Past is a surprising and refreshing change for the company with gay couples, interracial couples, and featuring two Asian-American leads. | 2021 Directed by: Don McBearty Screenplay by: Lisa Parsons, Edie Grace Starring: Catherine Haena Kim, Raymond Ablack | |
| See full review of Boyfriends of Christmas Past | ||
Silent Night
Dark, bleak, funny and interesting.
| Silent Night is a smart, unsettling combination of a family holiday comedy, a relationship drama and an end of the world, apocalyptic horror. Perhaps The Family Stone meets 28 Days Later…, a bleak dark comedy about inevitable death but held when everybody gets together for Christmas dinner. It’s a story of privileged people accepting death but not accepting that others might not share their world view. | 2021 Directed by: Camille Griffin Screenplay by: Camille Griffin Starring: Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode | |
| See full review of Silent Night | ||
Midnight at the Magnolia
A cute and charming bundle of holiday joy.
| Romantic comedies most often suffer from predictability and Midnight at the Magnolia just may be the most predictable, but in all the right ways. Jack and Maggie form a very cute couple and the charm radiates through the entire story. Even though it feels like it could have been written by a computer or a thousand monkeys on typewriters. | 2020 Directed by: Max McGuire Screenplay by: Carley Smale Starring: Natalie Hall, Evan Williams | |
| See full review of Midnight at the Magnolia | ||
Worst. Christmas. Ever.
Convoluted story and lack of comedy.
| Worst. Christmas. Ever. has such a tough hill to climb. It sets some pretty big goals for itself given all the chaos happening in the plot description, but falls very flat. Low production quality issues combined with poorly defined characters keeps the audience too far removed from the action that is supposed to be occurring but never really comes. | 2020 Directed by: Johnny Chechitelli Screenplay by: Johnny Chechitelli Starring: Raychael Lane, Leonardo Mancini | |
| See full review of Worst. Christmas. Ever | ||
A New York Christmas Wedding
A very different kind of Christmas movie.
| A New York Christmas Wedding is a very different kind of Christmas movie. It has the look and feel of an indie film (which it is) and, most importantly, it’s inclusive. I am going to try very hard to not give anything away, but I just have to say holiday rom-coms are not just for the straights anymore. | 2020 Directed by: Otoja Abit Screenplay by: Otoja Abit Starring: Nia Fairweather, Adriana DeMeo | |
| See full review of A New York Christmas Wedding | ||
Middleton Christmas
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A lot of sweetness, romance, drama and cheesiness. |
| Middleton Christmas starts out as pure sweetness. Hershey chocolate wrapped in a glittery red bow. You know exactly what you’re getting when you unwrap it, but it’s sweet and comforting, and oh so bad for you, especially in large quantities, so hopefully we can keep these movies to a minimum this year (I say that knowing it’s the first week of November, I’ve already seen two, and avoided another dozen). | 2020 Directed by: Dale Fabrigar Screenplay by: Tricia Aurand, Suzanne DeLaurentiis Starring: Kennedy Tucker, Michael Varde | |
| See full review of Middleton Christmas | ||
Operation Christmas Drop
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No romance but a feel-good finale. |
| Netflix’s newest addition to the Christmas romance genre starts out very shaky but eventually lands on its feet. Viewers who can get past the unfunny, unromantic, very typical opening with unlikable characters, will eventually be rewarded with a feel-good, inspirational flick. The set-up is awful, but the pay-off is solid especially for movies of this ilk. | 2020 Directed by: Martin Wood Screenplay by: Gregg Rossen, Brian Sawyer Starring: Kat Graham, Alexander Ludwig | |
| See full review of Operation Christmas Drop | ||
Holidate
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A romantic comedy missing that crucial element of humour. |
| Emma Roberts has built herself a nice career. A long string of comedies – some hits, some nots, but peppers them with roles that have a real bite to them like Scream Queens and American Horror Story. Such that when she returns to a typical romantic comedy, it feels like home. There’s a comfort level to casting Roberts and Luke Bracey in a holiday-themed romantic comedy, and that’s why Holidate will get its audience. | 2020 Directed by: John Whitesell Screenplay by: Tiffany Paulsen Starring: Emma Roberts, Luke Bracey | |
| See full review of Holidate | ||
Noelle
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Good-natured comedy. |
| What starts out as a mundane, cloying, seen-it-a-thousand-times-before Christmas movie turns into a genuinely funny and charming modern update to the seen-it-a-thousand-times before Christmas movie; all thanks to the wildly different comedic charms of Anna Kendrick and Billy Eichner. In Noelle, Santa Claus has been in the Kringle family for 10 generations, when the latest Santa Claus passes away, it’s up to son Nick (Bill Hader) to step up and save Christmas. | 2019 Directed by: Marc Lawrence Screenplay by: Marc Lawrence Starring: Anna Kendrick, Bill Hader | |
| See full review of Noelle | ||
Last Christmas
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Sweetness and charm carrying a movie about nothing. |
| Marketed as a romantic comedy with the possibility of a twist, most viewers are shrewd enough to know that Last Christmas does indeed have a twist, otherwise the movie would be about nothing. And nothing is generally not enough to win audiences over. All three things are going on in this movie: it is a romantic comedy, except very light on the romance. There is a twist, more on that later. And apart from the twist, nothing happens. That’s not entirely fair, but the main issue is how slight the movie is in terms of plot and story. | 2019 Directed by: Paul Feig Screenplay by: Emma Thompson, Bryony Kimmings Starring: Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding | |
| See full review of Last Christmas | ||