12 Holiday Movies For However You Holiday

Some feast on Christmas cookies. Some fill up with fruit cake. And others simply stack three grapes into a little snowman shape before popping them into their mouths. Hey, we don’t judge. We know there’s a holiday treat to satisfy every appetite. Similarly, we think there’s a holiday film to suit every movie night. That’s where we come in. We've gone through the many, many entertainment options in the ‘Tis the Season for Streaming holiday collection on Paramount+, checked 'em twice, and come up with 12 recommendations for every type of holiday season movie-watcher.

Whether you’re looking to get in the holiday spirit, or just get out of a family dinner, we’ve got the perfect flick to match your vibe (and ugly Christmas sweater). Read on to get our list of curated picks. No matter what holiday genre you’re into, we’ve got an option that’s guaranteed to sleigh … er … slay!
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Best holiday movie for when you want to shake up your Yule

1. Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)

Even at their most magical, the holidays can give you a sense of stuckness. Carolers crooning the same Christmas classics. Brands hauling out the same seasonal flavors. High-school pals listing the same litany of life-successes in their holiday cards (oh, joy, the Peterson triplets made Honor Roll again). These traditions sometimes feel a little stale, reminding you of tired routines in your own life. 

That’s the state Bridget (Renée Zellweger) finds herself in at the start of Bridget Jones's Diary, the Jane Austen-channeling rom-com classic. Then, a particularly unfortunate Christmas turkey-curry buffet spurs the thirtysomething singleton to grab the reins of her life and change direction. During the course of the next year, she works on losing weight, cutting her cigarette intake, and finding the perfect man, all the while recording her progress in her trusty diary. Christmas again approaches, and Bridget has developed a fresh attitude. Surely she won’t allow old romantic habits to sabotage her new sense of self …

Christmas is a time for celebrating with loved ones, and Bridget Jones’s Diary certainly features a hero with a strong bond to her family and friends. But the holidays are also a time to reflect on who we’ve been for the past 12 months, and who we’d like to be for the next 12. Are New Year’s resolutions notoriously hard to keep? Sure. But Bridget offers us a flawed but ever-plucky role model for personal development. 

WATCH NOW: Bridget Jones’s Diary 

Best holiday movies for those who love to debate what is (and isn't!) a holiday movie

2. Mean Girls (2004)

3. Mean Girls (2024)

The North Shore winter talent show! The candy-cane grams! Glen Coco! No argument here: We say no Christmastime streaming experience is complete without Cady, Regina George, and the Plastics. The original Mean Girls movie stars Lindsay Lohan as Cady Heron, a teen new to the public-school experience – and all the social complexities that come with it. When Cady falls in with the Plastics, the most popular of the student cliques, she finds herself loving her newfound status, but losing all the qualities that made her her. Will Cady regain her humanity before she becomes too plastic for her own good?

While the 2004 version of Mean Girls has plenty of must-see musical moments, 2024's Mean Girls is literally a musical. Based on the Tony®-nominated show of the same name, the new Mean Girls stars Angourie Rice, Reneé Rapp, and Tony® nominee Jaquel Spivey. It’s your favorite flick – plus 12 Tony®-nominated bangers to add to your holiday playlist. Could anything be more fetch?

WATCH NOW: Mean Girls (2004)

WATCH NOW: Mean Girls (2024)

Best holiday movie for when your season needs a little seasoning

4. Last Holiday (2006)

You know what rekindles that holiday spirit? Gratitude. Also, a luxe vacation and slammin’ new wardrobe! Last Holiday stars Queen Latifah as Georgia Byrd, a department store sales clerk who amid the hustle and bustle of Christmastime learns she has only a few weeks to live. Determined to experience all life has to offer while she still has the time, she checks into an upscale European hotel, gets a head-to-toe makeover, eats gourmet spreads prepared by her culinary hero, and proceeds to tick item after item off her bucket list. 

‘Tis the season for giving thanks for what we have, and Last Holiday serves up an important, entertaining reminder to count blessings and chase dreams. Plus, Georgia – a major foodie with money to burn – orders several mouthwatering (and lovingly filmed) meals throughout the course of the film. We can bet you’ll be inspired to create similar concoctions for your own holiday tables.

WATCH NOW: Last Holiday
   

Best holiday movie for when you’re feeling seasonally silly

5. Surviving Christmas (2004)

Sometimes, it’s simply fun to watch a gaggle of top-tier performers act their hearts out in a silly Christmas movie. And we mean silly in the best way possible.  

Surviving Christmas stars Ben Affleck as Drew Latham, a wealthy ad executive who finds himself newly single and completely alone for the holidays. To cheer himself up, he pays Tom (James Gandolfini) and Christine (Catherine O’Hara), the couple who lives in his childhood home, $250,000 for their help in recreating his Christmas memories. Though Drew’s arrogance and litany of demands initially infuriates the pair, as well as their grown daughter, Alicia (Christina Applegate), the family discovers that there’s more to their visitor than first met the eye.

Surviving Christmas delivers the message that winning the holiday season isn’t about being able to buy the most expensive gifts, or curated experiences. It’s about finding a place to truly belong. Also, for us, the viewers, it's about getting to see Oscar® and Emmy® winners roll around in the snow, seemingly having a grand old time. 

WATCH NOW: Surviving Christmas 

Best holiday movie for when you're stuck at the airport

6. Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)

Want to get in the Yuletide mood, but outside forces, particularly of the traffic kind, seem to be conspiring against you? Have we got a road-trip comedy for you … In the John Hughes classic Planes, Trains and Automobiles, marketing exec Neal Page (Steve Martin) wants to travel from New York City to Chicago to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family. But inclement weather, money mishaps, and transportation disasters thwart him at every turn, keeping his destination – and that warm turkey dinner – just out of reach. What’s more, fate throws him together with Del Griffith (John Candy), a chatty shower-curtain-ring salesman with whom Neal couldn’t possibly have less in common. Or so he thinks …  

It’s impossible to remain un-merry in the face of Martin's and Candy’s uproarious chemistry, just as it's impossible to resist rooting for their characters' unlikely friendship. If you’re feeling slow to experience the holiday magic this year, Planes, Trains and Automobiles is your fast track to joy.

WATCH NOW: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Best holiday movie for when you love some Dickens … with a twist

7. Scrooge (1970)

You probably know the story of A Christmas Carol forward, backward, and sideways. Nearly every year, you can find a new adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novella at your local multiplex. But nothing else is like Scrooge. 

Starring Albert Finney, this Oscar®-nominated 1970 movie combines Dickens’ classic redemption story with lively musical numbers and choreography. Yep, Ebenezer Scrooge sings and dances, as do all the major characters in this family-friendly film. And if you’re worried that these tunes and twirls distract from the central message, fear not: Finney can sell a ditty, and get to the heart of literature's famed miser.

As directed by Ronald Neame, Finney and his fellow stars – among them, Dame Edith Evans, as the Ghost of Christmas Past, and Sir Alec Guinness, as Jacob Marley’s ghost – deliver this quintessential morality tale in style appropriate for children: The performances lean (delightfully) theatrical, and the musical sequences present a visual and aural feast. But make no mistake – there’s nothing childish about the way they deliver Dickens’ lesson on salvation. 

WATCH NOW: Scrooge

Best holiday movie for when you're still mourning the end of Halloween

8. Scrooged (1988)

So, as we were saying about how A Christmas Carol has been made and remade a bajillion times … Scrooged is another adaptation, except it's not just another adaptation. 

Love Christmas, but miss spooky season? This iconic, darkly comedic movie stars Bill Murray.as TV exec Frank Cross, a cheapskate and loudmouth who’s perfectly comfortable firing those who disagree with him and forcing his underlings to work during the holidays. But when he’s visited by apparitions who force him to look at his lonely past and potentially bleak future, Frank sees an opportunity to rebuild his life and relationships. 

Though Scrooged has all the hallmarks of a holiday movie, and while it’s certainly got the laughs you’d expect from a film starring Murray and featuring Carol Kane and Bobcat Goldthwait, Halloween aficionados will appreciate the genuine creepiness of the ghost sequences. This cantankerous character needs a kick in the pants from the spirit world, and my goodness, do these ghouls give it to him! 

WATCH NOW: Scrooged
   

Best holiday movie for when you're feeling a little, well, devilish

9. Dear Santa (2024)

A holiday movie tinged with hellfire? Would you believe we’ve got just the thing…

From Peter and Bobby Farrelly – aka The Farrelly Brothers – Dear Santa is a comedy about Liam (Robert Timothy Smith), a young boy who mails his Christmas wish list to Santa with one crucial spelling error, resulting in the arrival of a devilish Jack Black. Though the demon initially takes advantage of the mix-up, relishing in the opportunity to wreak Yuletide havoc, he learns that even the Prince of Darkness isn’t immune to the Christmas spirit. 

Unlike so many Christmas films, Dear Santa never buckles under the weight of treacly sentimentality. And don’t worry: it never gets nearly as dark as a story about a child summoning Lucifer might lead you to think it would. This is a Jack Black flick, after all; the vibe is mischievous. This devil might be a chaosmonger, but he also knows how to connect and experience compassion. Like the movie itself, this hellish hero straddles the line between naughty and nice. 

WATCH NOW: Dear Santa

Best holiday movie for adult children of divorce who (still) wish their parents had never split

 

10. All I Want For Christmas (1991)

Wishes are a big theme in Christmas movies. We guess when a magical wish-granter like St. Nick’s on the scene, that’s to be expected. Usually, however, he handles requests of the toy and boardgame variety. What’s an elf to do when a little girl asks him to reunite her divorced mom and dad? 

In All I Want For Christmas, Manhattan-dwelling siblings Ethan (Ethan Embry) and Hallie (Thora Birch) cook up a scheme to rekindle a spark between their split-up parents, Catherine (Harley Jane Kozak) and Michael (Jamey Sheridan). As mentioned, part of this strategy involves enlisting the help of Leslie Nielsen’s Santa Claus – though the children also devise a backup ploy that involves luring Catherine and Micheal to the same place at the same time, while simultaneously trapping Catherine’s new beau (Kevin Nealon) in a Jersey-bound ice-cream truck. One can never be too thorough, planning-wise, where family-repair is concerned … 

Also starring the inimitable Lauren Bacall as the children’s grandmother, All I Want For Christmas is a warm and heartfelt Christmas watch. You’ll feel like a kid again, believing that, hey, maybe the holiday season does bring forth a little magic. 

WATCH NOW: All I Want For Christmas

Best holiday movies for when you wish there was a return policy for family members

11. Home for the Holidays (1995)

Ah, family. The reason for the season! The reason to gather, celebrate, and give thanks! But, yeah, also, arguably, the thing that causes the most stomach-roiling stress. Home for the Holidays understands all the complicated feelings associated with kin, especially when the entire brood - including spouses, kids, and everybody’s respective dietary requirements - is gathered around a single table. Directed by Jodie Foster, and featuring an all-star cast that includes Holly Hunter, Robert Downey, Jr. and Anne Bancroft, as well as Charles Durning, this family comedy is about the holiday experience of single mom Claudia Larson (Hunter). Ditched by her teen daughter (Claire Danes) for the occasion, and smarting from a recent firing, she travels solo to the home of her parents (Bancroft and Durning), where she suffers a long weekend of indignities and dysfunction known as Thanksgiving.

Love your relatives, but don’t always love your relatives? Home for the Holidays is the perfect movie for the time of year where everyone you cherish – plus all their opinions and habits – is packed together in one small space. Pass the eggnog.

WATCH NOW: Home For The Holidays

12. Happy Christmas (2014)

Sometimes, holiday family issues are not a case of being overwhelmed by too much family (see Home for the Holidays), so much as feeling swamped by one family member outstaying their welcome. Meet Jenny (Anna Kendrick), a scattered twentysomething who moves in with her filmmaker brother Jeff (Joe Swanberg) in order to get back on her feet after a recent breakup. This new roommate doesn’t thrill Jeff’s novelist wife Kelly (Melanie Lynskey), who’s got books to write and a 2-year-old to raise. Can two very different women actually improve each other’s lives?

Also starring Lena Dunham, the largely improvised Happy Christmas feels as though it’s populated by a version of your friend group, having slightly more clever versions of conversations you’ve engaged in yourself. For a slice-of-life piece that feels as though the filmmakers have eavesdropped on your own holidays, try this indie gem.

WATCH NOW: Happy Christmas