To quote a notorious line from a James Bond movie, “Christmas comes but once a year.” Since that’s the case, you better have something fun planned, or the holidays can quickly turn sour. You could watch a football game or go to the movie theater, but why bother with all that hassle when Netflix is just sitting right there?
The streamer has plenty of movies available, especially Christmas-themed ones. But the following list doesn’t include such recent films as Hot Frosty or The Merry Gentlemen. Instead, these five movies are all guaranteed crowd-pleasers, even if they don’t explicitly involve the holiday.
Need more recommendations? We also have guides for the 10 best TV shows to watch on Christmas, the 10 best movies to watch on Christmas, the best Christmas movies on Netflix, the best Christmas movies on Disney+, the best Christmas movies on Hulu, the best Christmas movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best Christmas movies on Max, and the best Christmas movies on Hallmark Channel.
Sometimes, you need to get your action on during Christmas. To heck with those cheesy rom-coms and family movies: I want to see stuff get blown up real good. Well, Netflix has you covered this year as the streamer just made the perfect action-thriller that will satisfy all those die-hard Die Hard fans: Carry-On.
In this tense thriller, young TSA officer Ethan Kopek (Taron Egerton) has a lot on his mind. His co-worker and girlfriend, Nora (Sofia Carson), is pregnant. He doesn’t much like his thankless job. And this Christmas, he has a passenger who has one specific request: turn a blind eye as a suspicious package, which is most likely a bomb, is loaded onto a boarding plane. If he doesn’t do as he’s told, Nora will be killed.
That’s quite a predicament, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone except my grade school bully. (Because honestly, to heck with him, too.) It’s also a great setup for an action movie, which the director, Jaume Collet-Serra, milks for all it’s worth. Egerton is a fine everyman hero, and Jason Bateman makes a surprisingly scary villain.
Carry-On is streaming on Netflix.
Some say Christmas is the time of miracles. If that’s the case, then it’s only appropriate to watch The Miracle Club right about now. Haven’t heard of it? The movie received a muted release here in the U.S. and is now known for Maggie Smith’s final screen role. The film, though, is a low-key charmer, with a cast that also includes Kathy Bates, Laura Linney, and Stephen Rea.
Lily (Smith), Eileen (Bates), and Dolly (Agnes O’Casey) form a band called the Miracles to win a musical contest held by the Catholic Church. The prize? A trip to Lourdes, a Catholic shrine in France. Each woman has their own reason for wanting to take the trip. For Lily, it’s always been her dream to go there, while Eileen hopes the trip might cure the lump in her breast. Dolly has a mute son, so she’s banking on the location’s saintly designation to somehow make him speak again.
It’s all an excuse for the women to travel together, reveal intimate secrets no one else knows, and learn valuable life lessons along the way. The Miracle Club doesn’t offer any surprises, but it does have several talented actresses sporting thick Irish accents and plenty of middle-aged attitude. Best of all is, of course, Smith, who was one of the great insult queens to have lived. With one withering look and curt drop of a phrase, she could make a grown man cry. She will be missed.
The Miracle Club is streaming on Netflix.
This list had to include one unabashedly cheesy Christmas movie, and Single All the Way is it. Why? Well, it hits all the sweet spots. A hackneyed story about two best friends who realize they love each other? Check? A scenic small New England town in which the love story takes place? Check. Scene-stealing turns from older female character actors like Kathy Najimy, Schitt’s Creek‘s Jennifer Robertson, and the indomitable Jennifer Coolidge? Check. It’s sugary fluff, but what else would you want to watch around Christmas? Schindler’s List?
When Peter, a stressed-out Los Angeles social media strategist, finds out his boyfriend is actually married, he decides to go back to his family’s snow-covered home in New Hampshire. He takes his best friend, Nick, along with him, and as his family tries to set him up with the local hunk, Peter realizes he has romantic feelings for his longtime bestie. Will he work up the courage to take a chance on Nick? Or will he lose his nerve and go back to L.A. with someone he doesn’t really love?
Single All the Way is streaming on Netflix.
I have no idea why, but when Christmas rolls around each year, I get the urge to watch an animated movie or two. The Prince of Egypt is always at the top of my list. For starters, it’s a gorgeously animated movie that tells the story of Mosesand how he was given up by his mother for a better life and raised by an adopted family who just so happens to be the rulers of Egypt. It’s also a Biblical tale that isn’t preachy, and prioritizes the unforgettable story of how Moses heard the voice of God and led his followers to salvation.
In addition, the voice cast is impressive, with Val Kilmer as Moses, Conclave‘s Ralph Fiennes as his vengeful adopted brother Rameses, Michelle Pfeiffer as Moses’s wife Tzipporah, Sandra Bullock as Miriam, Patrick Stewart as Seti, Wicked‘s Jeff Goldblum as Aaron, and many more. Finally, The Prince of Egypt boasts an epic score by Hans Zimmer and an Oscar-nominated tune, When You Believe. Come for the animated locusts and plagues, stay for the still-impressive parting of the Red Sea.
The Prince of Egypt is streaming on Netflix.
Bridesmaids has nothing to do with Christmas; I don’t think there’s single snowflake, Santa Claus hat, or mention of the holiday. But damn, it’s a funny movie, and sometimes, you need to laugh. And Christmas calls for laughter since it can be a pretty stressful time of the year.
If you haven’t seen Bridesmaids yet, here’s the 411: Annie (Kristen Wiig) isn’t having the best time in her life. Her bakery closed down, she’s living with a brother and sister who may or may not be sleeping together, she has a dead-end job at a jewelry store, and her best friend, Lillian (Maya Rudolph) is about to get married. You’d think that last one would be cause for joy, but all it does for Annie is remind her that her life sucks compared with that of Lillian’s rich new friend, Helen (Rose Byrne).
Bridesmaids’ laughs largely stem from Annie’s attempt to outdo her new rival and impress her fellow bridesmaids, Megan (Melissa McCarthy), Rita (Wendy McLendon-Covey), and Becca (Ellie Kemper). To highlight just one joke in Bridesmaids is a fool’s errand as there are just too many of them; instead, just watch the above sequence set on a plane when Annie mixes a sleeping pill with alcohol. That alone should get you through the holiday.
Bridesmaids is streaming on Netflix.
We also have guides to the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on Max, and the best movies on Disney+.
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?