The 5 Worst Christmas Movies You Secretly Love
With reindeer being hitched to slays and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas” blaring in every shop, ‘tis officially the season. So grant yourself full permission to watch the cheesiest, most delightfully cliché holiday films of all time.
While Christmas films come in all forms, perhaps the most enduring are the romantic comedies. The Holiday and Love Actually are genre classics, of course, but there’s something extra special about the so-bad-they’re-good Christmas films—the mix of tropes, kitschy aesthetics, and absurd plots that warm the heart more than a hot toddy.
Here are five of the worst Christmas movies you secretly love, and where you can stream them all this holiday season.
A Lindsay Lohan Christmas film? Yes, please! The new Queen of Christmas made a triumphant return with Falling for Christmas, the first in a string of gloriously cheesy festive movies, marking a comeback for the Mean Girls star. Lohan plays Sierra Belmont, a spoiled heiress to a luxury hotel chain who loses her memory in a skiing accident in Aspen. While recovering, she ends up in the care of the handsome Northstar Lodge owner, Jake, and the two slowly fall in love.
Seeing Lindsay Lohan act again after nearly a decade off screen is easily the film’s biggest draw. The delightfully named Chord Overstreet is no match for Lohan’s charisma, but he does a perfectly charming job as the floppy haired, down-to-earth widower she falls for. Falling for Christmas leans into almost every Christmas film trope in the book, and its embrace of a low-budget aesthetic and predictable plot make it a fun, cosy watch for the holidays.
By now, most Christmas movie aficionados have seen or heard of The Princess Switch. Starring Vanessa Hudgens as both the “commoner” Stacy De Novo and her royal lookalike, Lady Margaret Delacourt, the film plays like a Christmas mash-up of The Princess Diaries and The Parent Trap.
The story centres on Stacy, a talented baker whose friend Kevin secretly enters her into a prestigious competition in the kingdom of Belgravia. While there, she literally bumps into the Duchess of Montenaro and discovers they look exactly alike. The Duchess, desperate to experience a “normal” life, suggests they swap places for two days, and Stacy reluctantly agrees. But what starts out as a lighthearted place-swap quickly gets complicated when both fall in love with people from each other’s worlds.
Cheesy, predictable, and ridiculous, The Princess Switch might not be the Citizen Kane of Christmas romances, but its bubbly charm and unabashed 2018 cringe make it more than worth the watch.
“She’s holding him hostage, but he’s stealing her heart!” This incredible tagline might be all the convincing you need to put Holiday in Handcuffs on your Christmas watch list—and yes, it is just as wild as it sounds!
Sabrina, the Teenage Witch star Melissa Joan Hart plays Trudie, a down-on-her-luck artist and waitress who, after being dumped, missing a job interview, and suffering a full-on breakdown, decides to kidnap a handsome customer, David (played by Mario Lopez), to present to her family at Christmas as her boyfriend.
As he repeatedly tries to escape the remote cabin, David slowly comes to understand why Trudie felt driven to such drastic measures, and the two begin to fall in love. It’s essentially what would happen in Stephen King’s Misery if it were remade as a Hallmark Christmas film.
Ever wondered what the secret to healing a broken heart is? According to this film, it’s learning to love again from a snowman who magically transforms into a hunky human.
In Hot Frosty, Mean Girls alum Lacey Chabert plays Kathy, a widow of two years who has fallen into the habit of taking care of everyone but herself. Her life takes a surreal turn after she ties a scarf on a snowman and he magically turns into Jack: muscular, alive, and very confused. As sweet, naive Jack adjusts to this new human existence, he helps Kathy rediscover laughter, joy, and the possibility of love after loss.
Hot Frosty sits firmly in the realm of self-aware, campy Christmas kitsch—but it's absolutely worth the watch. The cherry on top is the cheeky Mean Girls nod: Chabert’s character sees Lindsay Lohan’s Falling for Christmas (as mentioned on this list) on TV and comments that the actress looks like someone she went to high school with… It’s a pitch-perfect wink that proves the film knows exactly who its audience is.
Arguably the crème de la crème of bad Christmas movies, you can’t help but adore A Christmas Prince. When it was released, Netflix was just beginning to experiment with the Hallmark formula and couldn’t quite afford any Mean Girls alumni yet—but everyone involved rose to the occasion.
A Christmas Prince stars Rose McIver as Amber, a journalist sent to cover the royal family of Aldovia, but who is mistaken for the new tutor to the young Princess Emily and suddenly gains unusually intimate access to the family—despite some major ethical red flags. As she spends more time with them, including the handsome Prince Richard, she finds herself falling for more than just the story.
Despite leaning hard into Christmas rom-com clichés, A Christmas Prince is surprisingly well-rounded and emotionally affecting. Each character feels more three-dimensional than you’d expect, and the plot actually takes its time to unfold. It’s not just about crackling chemistry; it’s about the bonds Amber forms with the different members of the royal family, her relationship with her own father, and the push-pull of her career. It's sincere, it’s silly, and it’s just so good— highly recommended.
