’Tis the season when families gather around the fire, pour themselves a cup of eggnog, and put on a Netflix Christmas movie with a ludicrous premise and all your favorite stars from ’90s television.
This year the streamer has stepped up its game once again. Though it has only been in the holiday movie business for a few years, it’s delivered an impressive lineup for 2025, featuring a mom posing as Santa (just go with it), a classic rom-com, a sexy French offering, and a Christmas Eve heist, because why not.
We at Glamour took the liberty of watching each Netflix Christmas movie and giving our honest opinions on the films, so you can be prepared this holiday season.
43 Classic Christmas Movies That’ll Get You Through the Holiday
43 Slides
By Christopher Rosa
A Merry Little Ex-Mas
Release Date: November 12
Starring: Alicia Silverstone, Oliver Hudson, Melissa Joan Hart
A.K.A.: His Girl Friday gets the holiday rom-com treatment
What should you do when your ex gets a hot new girlfriend? Move on. What should you do when you ex gets a hot new girlfriend but you live in a rom-com fantasy land? Get a hot dumb boyfriend, of course!
This is, more or less, the plot of A Merry Little Ex-Mas, the 2025 Netflix Christmas movie about divorcees Kate (Alicia Silverstone) and Everett (Oliver Hudson), who apparently live inside a snow globe. Kate’s ambition was stifled when they moved into said snow globe (a fictional Vermont suburb called Winterlight) and she became their kids’ primary caregiver. Everett, meanwhile, worked long hours as the town’s sole doctor. They drifted apart and eventually made the decision to “consciously uncouple.”
Then, just before Christmas, Kate discovers Everett is dating the comically overachieving Tess (Jameela Jamil). Naturally, she decides she must also bring home a new partner for the holidays, and picks up the Christmas tree guy, Chet (Pierson Fodé). Hijinks ensue, etc.
Helmed by Silverstone as the eco-warrior handywoman Kate and Melissa Joan Hart as her pot-stirring bestie April, A Merry Little Ex-Mas is millennial bait that failed to keep this viewer on the hook. The film teeters between sickeningly sincere and absurd, without ever really finding its center. The one bright spot in Winterlight is Fodé, who deserves a lot more screen time than he gets as the jack-of-all trades Chet. He succeeds in a role that, in less capable hands, could seen as a throwaway. A chiseled man who puts out a Christmas tree fire with his stripper tuxedo? Let’s be so for real, that’s all we really want in a Christmas rom-com anyway.
—Sam Reed, senior news and entertainment editor
Champagne Problems
Release Date: November 19
Starring: Minka Kelly, Tom Wozniczka, Thibault de Montalembert
A.K.A.: Emily in Paris meets Succession-lite
Three things to know about Champagne Problems: (1) It’s like Emily in Paris on a holiday (in this case, the most charming French countryside), (2) Tom Wozniczka (Apple TV’s Slow Horses) will be your newest crush, and (3) there’s a really, really cute dog.
The easy-to-watch holiday rom-com (which my dad actually really enjoyed after being certain he wouldn’t) centers on an ambitious mergers-and-acquisitions executive (a magnetic Minka Kelly) who travels to Paris to secure the corporate purchase of a world-renowned Champagne brand before Christmas. However, her plans are upended when she falls into a whirlwind romance with a charming Parisian (Wozniczka)—who turns out to be the founder’s son.
Yes, it’s a bit predictable, but honestly who cares? It’s such a gorgeous film with great chemistry between the two leads, and that’s what makes it worth your time. Plus, Sean Amsing as Roberto is so damn hilarious, he deserves his own spin-off movie. So pour a glass of Champagne (or hot chocolate), grab some holiday treats, and let yourself be swept away to Paris.
—Jessica Radloff, senior West Coast editor
Jingle Bell Heist
Release Date: November 26
Starring: Olivia Holt, Connor Swindells, Lucy Punch
A.K.A.: Ocean’s Eleven mixed with Robin Hood, holiday edition
Fair warning: About five minutes into Jingle Bell Heist, you might be a bit disappointed when you realize, as I did, that this is a real movie. What I mean is, I usually turn on a holiday movie expecting—wanting, even—to see something with a nonsense plot, tons of schmaltz, and actors clearly phoning it in for the paycheck. There’s comfort in the cheese!
Jingle Bell Heist, however, has surprising twists I didn’t see coming. The characters are motivated by very real stakes. The script clearly took longer than a half day to write. It’s the kind of movie you might pay real money to see in a theater, if you can believe it. As much as I liked watching Jingle Bell Heist, it’s a different flavor than the typical Christmas rom-com.
Written by Abby McDonald, a staff writer and storyboard editor on Bridgerton, the movie stars Olivia Holt (Cruel Summer, Heart Eyes) as Sophia, a malcontent employee at one of London’s most famous department stores. She and her ailing mother moved to the city from America for the free health care, but the move was expensive and the experimental health trial that could save her mom still costs a lot of money. So when a stranger named Nick (Sex Education favorite Connor Swindells) approaches her about teaming up to rob the store’s vault, Sophia feels like she can’t say no. But it’s all a lot more Robin Hood than Bonnie and Clyde. The motivations behind Sophia and Nick’s heist are empathetic, and it turns out that the department store owner is a Scrooge engaged in his own schemes. I won’t spoil the rest other than to say: Yes, of course they fall in love.
—Anna Moeslein, deputy editor
My Secret Santa
Release Date: December 3
Starring: Alexandra Breckenridge, Ryan Eggold, Tia Mowry
A.K.A.: Mrs. Doubtfire and The Santa Clause combined and gender-swapped
There are films that are cohesive and make logical sense, and then there are films for which you simply must strap in and enjoy the ride. My Secret Santa is the latter. For instance, does it make sense that main character Taylor (Alexandra Breckenridge of Virgin River fame) would be able to get a job as a ski resort Santa Claus by just putting on a gruff voice and an admittedly good costume, even though she’s using her own (female) Social Security number? Not really, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Our story begins with Taylor, a single mom who used to be in a rock band as a teenager (i.e., she once was cool and spontaneous) but gave it all up to raise now teenage daughter Zoey (Madison MacIsaac) as a single parent. Taylor struggles to make ends meet, which is exacerbated when she’s laid off right before Christmas. Besides the fact that she can’t pay her rent, Taylor’s bigger concern is that Zoey has gotten into an elite snowboarding school and mom can’t afford it. Her woes mean she doesn’t even have time to flirt with the handsome stranger she meets in a record store and asks her to go get a hot chocolate with him.
So what’s an enterprising mom to do? Head down to the ski resort, of course, and try to get a job there to solve her financial troubles and get a discount on snowboarding school. The problem is that the only job open is the resort’s Santa Claus, but Taylor quickly realizes that she could make that work. Her brother and his husband are obsessed with Halloween (?) and have an incredibly elaborate costume-making room at their house, complete with some sort of 3-D printer and a surplus of prosthetics. What a happy coincidence!
Within a few days, she’s hired as the resort’s newest Kris Kringle by none other than hot chocolate boy Matthew, who it turns out is the billionaire trust fund baby of the resort’s owner trying to prove to his dad he can have a real job after a few decades of being a screw-up. The only person unhappy about the situation is Natasha (Tia Mowry—hey, girl!), a resort employee passed over for the general manager job in favor of Matthew who is just a little suspicious of this new Santa.
Would you believe that hijinks ensue? Of course! Does this all seem like a lot of effort for Zoey to take what seems to be a weeklong snowboarding lesson? Sure does. Is it a little weird that grown adult Matthew won’t stop asking Taylor to get hot chocolate, specifically, with him? I mean, he could spring for a coffee at least? But that’s not why you’re watching My Secret Santa. You’re watching this because it’s ridiculous and silly, and ultimately, you’re pretty sure how it’s going to end. And isn’t that the true gift of holiday movies?
—Stephanie McNeal, senior editor
