Best Netflix Christmas Movies

It’s HOLIDAY MOVIE SEASON, ya’ll! And this year, I discovered the best Christmas party of all – you + a friend + bottle of wine and a Netflix Christmas movie. Invite a friend who can come over without compelling you to straighten up your house first and who doesn’t care if your snack is Costco pizza bites rather than a charcuterie board with salami that looks like roses.

Netflix Christmas movies are predictable, cheesy, preposterous, and marvelous. Watching with a friend who can predict, laugh, and comment on all of the cheesy details makes the experience so much more entertaining.

They all share same exact plot line: damsel unexpectedly meets prince, something forces them together.

Sparks fly.

You know they want to be together, but something keeps them apart. One of them lies about their identity. Or, he’s from a different century and needs to travel back to his own time.

In the middle of the movie, someone trips and falls into the other one and they almost kiss, but don’t.

In the end, after several obstacles, they overcome the thing that kept them apart.

Someone tells the truth.

They realize they love each other.

Then, they kiss.

The end.

• The best netflix christmas movies
• A California Christmas
• A Castle for Christmas
• The Christmas Catch
• The Princess Switch
• A Christmas Prince
• Holiday in the Wild
• The Knight before Christmas
• The Christmas Inheritance
• Midnight at the Magnolia
• Cute netflix christmas movies for kids

The best netflix christmas movies

Cheesiness rating explained

I’ll be watching all the Christmas movies and rating their cheesiness on a scale of 🧀 to 🧀🧀🧀🧀🧀

Factors include:

🧀 How preposterous is the story line?

The more imaginative and absurd reason the destined couple couldn’t be together, the more cheese the movie earns.

🧀 How far-fetched was the sexy instructing embrace?

The sexy instructing embrace: She needs to know how to do something, necessitating him to stand behind her, with his arms around her, to instruct her how to do something.

Examples: shoot a bow and arrow, knead dough, swing a golf club.

🧀 Was the interrupted first-kiss moment predictable?

The interrupted first kiss: usually a trip and fall incident. They trip and one falls on top of the other. They gaze into each other’s eyes for 3 seconds, are just about to kiss, but something interrupts the magical moment.

Here’s what I’ve watched so far:

A California Christmas

• The Damsel: Super hot and smart farm girl struggling to figure out how to save her family’s land
• The Prince: Super hot and smart, yet sensitive and also handy, rich kid struggling to win his mother’s approval
• Plot: He poses as a ranch hand to try to persuade the gorgeous female farmer to sell her land to his rich mom’s company.
• Love Lesson learned: Find a man that looks good scooping poop in plaid.
• Ranking: 🧀🧀🧀🧀🧀The side-story of the butler and the real ranch hand drinking wine is one of the best parts of the movie.
• Wine to pair with this cheese: a California Cab that ranch-hand Manny would love, like Decoy Cabernet Sauvignon

A Castle for Christmas

• The Damsel: Brooke Shields
• The Prince: Wesley from A Princess Bride
• Plot: She’s a world-famous romance author getting over a divorce and he’s an Oxford and Cambridge educated environmentalist Duke, who’s financially struggling to keep the castle and village afloat.
• Love Lesson learned: Buy a castle, get the Duke.
• Ranking: 🧀🧀🧀🧀🧀
• Wine to pair with this cheese: If you don’t want to drink Scotch, go for the light Rodney Strong Chardonnay. After you watch it, read this hilarious Vogue article: 60 thoughts I had while watching Netflix’s Castle for Christmas

The Christmas Catch

• The Damsel: Awkward Christmas-loving cop
• The Prince: This one is a mystery: my friend and I couldn’t decide if it was going to be her hot partner cop or the alleged criminal so not going to spoil the story here.
• Plot: She meets a cute, single guy at a party and the next day is assigned to investigate him by the FBI for stealing jewelry.
• Ranking: 🧀🧀🧀🧀 there are no royal titles, and there is some unpredictability because you’re not sure if he’s a criminal or not
• Wine to pair with this cheese: Sparkling pink rosé, which goes with everything including Costco pizza bites

The Princess Switch

• The Damsels: A Type A schedule-loving Baker from Chicago and a duty-driven Duchess from a made-up country
• The Princes: The baker’s hot BFF and a smart, compassionate prince from a made-up country (different from the Duchess’s made-up country)
• Plot: Damsels discover they are distant cousins but look like identical twins, so they switch places so the Duchess can experience a normal life while her husband-to-be (who she’s met twice) is out of town.
• Love Lesson learned: Love unexpectedly happens when you’re pretending to be someone else
• Cheesy Ranking: 🧀🧀🧀🧀🧀Preposterous parent-trap situations with lots of glam outfits make this a winner
• Wine to pair with this cheese: A good port to pair with Christmas cookies

A Christmas Prince

• The Damsel: A cute journalist
• The Prince: Reluctant future King Richard, who dreads the Christmas Eve coronation ball
• Plot: She goes undercover as Princess Emily’s tutor to get the scoop for a career-changing story
• Love Lesson learned: Aldovian royal security is weak so you can spy your way into the heart of a prince, plus converse sneakers go with anything
• Cheesy Ranking: 🧀🧀🧀🧀🧀
• Wine to pair with the cheese: A champagne you’d sip at an Aldovian ball, like the popular Veuve Clicquot, which, like Converse, pairs with anything

Holiday in the Wild

• The Damsel: Charlotte from Sex & the City, blindsided by divorce request, goes solo on a planned anniversary trip to Africa
• The Prince: Ruggedly handsome artistic pilot that flies her to destination
• Plot: They nurse a hurt baby elephant back to health together
• Love Lesson learned: You can find love and second chances on high-end African safaris
• Cheesy Rating: 🧀🧀🧀 This one is actually fun to watch and while the situation of their meeting is a little preposterous, it’s not as cheesy as a prince from a faux country falling for a commoner
• Wine to pair with the cheese: An earthy red wine, like the rustic Cotes du Rhône

The Knight before Christmas

• The Damsel: Gorgeous and generous well-to-do teacher, heartbroken over a scoundrel who cheated on her
• The Prince: Tall 14th century knight who time travels to 2019
• Plot: Knight must complete his unknown quest by Christmas Eve in order to return to his own time. Everyone thinks he has amnesia after she hit him with her Subaru, so they play along with his knight story but are impressed by his heroic acts.
• Love Lesson learned: Chivalry still exists if you find someone from the 14th century, invite him to shack up in your guest cottage, and let him wield a sword in public.
• Cheesy Ranking: 🧀🧀🧀🧀🧀
• Wine to pair with the cheese: An easy drinking red blend, like the Z. Alexander Red Blend

The Christmas Inheritance

• The Damsel: Rich, cute, but smart blond known in tabloids as the “Party Heiress”
• The Prince: The handsome kind-hearted innkeeper
• Plot: Rich daughter needs to prove her to father that she can be the CEO of the successful company he founded by surviving in the small town where it all started anonymously with only $100.
• Love Lesson learned: Go to a small town to find your man.
• Cheesy Ranking: 🧀🧀🧀 It’s no doubt cheesy but compared to the princess movies or the time-traveling knight, this scenario is a little more plausible
• Wine to pair with the cheese: A good basic, affordable Chardonnay that you can afford on a $100 getaway budget, like Rodney Strong Chardonnay

Midnight at the Magnolia

• The Damsel: Adorable blonde radio host
• The Prince: Her best friend and co-host of their morning talk show
• Plot: They are about to get their big break, but are forced to pretend they are together for ratings. The big reveal is happening at a New Year’s Party, which also is happening at their family’s struggling jazz bar.
• Love Lesson learned: If you’ve never been able to hold down a relationship because your best friend keeps getting in the way, perhaps you should date your best friend.
• Cheesy Ranking: 🧀🧀 There’s no trip and fall scene, or time travel, or royalty, or twin-switching situation, so this one gets just two cheeses.
• Wine to pair with the cheese: Sparkling wine for that New Year’s Eve kiss 🥂

On my list to watch next:

These are all the top netflix christmas movies on my list to watch next!

• Holidate
• Princess Switch 2 & 3
• A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding, and a A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby
• A Princess for Christmas
• A Very Country Christmas
• The Holiday Calendar
• Christmas with a Prince
• Christmas in the Heartland
• Operation Christmas Drop
• Love Hard
• Christmas Catch
• Let it Snow
• Holiday Rush
• Snowbound for Christmas
• My Dad’s Christmas Date

Cute netflix christmas movies for kids

My kids loved all of these:

• Christmas Chronicles
• Christmas Chronicles 2
• Noelle
• Christmas Break-In

Cheers, ya’ll!