Your guide to the best Christmas entertainment
streaming this holiday season
By Brian Bowe
I know the feeling. You’ve just cracked open your fourteenth selection box of the day, your christmas jumper — once a colourful vision of yuletide cheer — is now caked in crumbs, stains, bits of tinsel, unknowable debris charting a season of gluttony. You start thumbing through all your TV apps as your eyes begin to gloss over. Netflix… Disney… Prime Video… It’s a never-ending digital merry-go-round. “Just pick something,” says the voice in your head. “Something… anything!”
In an era of streaming TV, we can easily get sucked into a vortex of indecision, becoming paralysed by choice. Well, the good news is that we’ve done the hard work for you and rounded up a list of the very best of festive entertainment streaming right now, so you can spend less time deciding on what to watch and more time tackling those selection boxes.
Netflix
Last Christmas (2019)
Nothing seems to go right for young Kate, a frustrated Londoner who works as an elf in a year-round Christmas shop. But things soon take a turn for the better when she meets Tom — a handsome charmer who seems too good to be true. As the city transforms into the most wonderful time of the year, Tom and Kate’s growing attraction turns into the best gift of all — a Yuletide romance. If you can look past Emma Thompson’s jaw-droppingly cringe supporting performance — topped off with a baffling Croatian (?) accent — and embrace the true meaning of Last Christmas: a chance to see Emilia Clarke being silly and shambolic, then yeah, it’s grand tinsel telly twaddle.
The film — directed by Paul Feig, best known for Bridesmaids (2011) as much as his much-derided Ghostbusters 2016 remake — hovers just above Hallmark territory but ultimately makes for enjoyably cheesy and uncomplicated viewing. Golding, too, as Clarke’s love interest — and an actor who’s been long-rumoured to replace Daniel Craig as Bond — is very watchable, indeed, but makes for an insufferably bland manic pixie dream boy. Still, if you wanted to hear Wham’s enduring classic but without the same snow-capped music video we’ve had for the last forty-odd years, Last Christmas makes for a fun, colourful backdrop.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
When Dr Bill Hartford (Tom Cruise) learns of his wife Alice’s (Nicole Kidman) sexual desires for another man, he becomes fixated on exploring his own desires. In his quest for fulfilment, he stumbles upon an underworld of secret sexual gatherings and decides to participate in one. However, as he delves deeper into this mysterious world, Bill gets in over his head as things spiral out of control.
What, you thought this list would be filled with nothing but schmaltzy crowd-pleasers? Not a chance! Stanley Kubrick’s masterful swansong is my favourite film of his (well, maybe tied with Barry Lyndon). And yes, it’s a Christmas movie, dammit! Sure you can’t help but see a sad-looking Christmas tree in practically every scene. Many critics regard Kubrick’s style as dry and emotionless, but those people either haven’t seen Eyes Wide Shut yet (or Lyndon, for that matter), or the film’s dark, sharp humour somehow went over their head. It has a perfect ending, one which never fails to inspire a warm, crooked smile across my face.
Carry-On (2024)
A young airport security agent fights to outsmart a mysterious traveller who blackmails him into letting a dangerous package slip onto a Christmas Eve flight.
Arriving on Netflix December 13, Carry-On has the potential of becoming one of the better Die Hard rip-offs. It’s been too long since we’ve had a solid Christmas thriller to enjoy — and no, I’m not counting Yuletide horror, of which there’s been plenty. It’s a genre which has given us a fair dose of Christmas classics, think back to Silent Partner and Three Days of the Condor. Jaume Collet-Serra directs Carry-On, a filmmaker more than capable in delivering a satisfyingly tense and pulpy thriller having helmed some of Liam Neeson’s more enjoyable pictures during the actor’s late-career renaissance as an action star, including Non-Stop and The Commuter.
Disney +
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
It’s A Christmas Carol but with muppets, need I say more? Ok, I’ll try: Kermit the Frog plays Bob Cratchit, the put-upon clerk of stingy Ebenezer Scrooge (a terrific Michael Caine). Other Muppets weave in and out of the story, while Scrooge receives visits from the spirits. Oh, and there are songs! Very good ones!
Along with the aforementioned brilliant tunes, what I appreciate most about The Muppet Christmas Carol, surely the best Muppets movie, is Michael Caine’s ultra-committed performance. It’s as if no one in production told the then fifty-nine-year-old actor he was in a Muppets movie, because he is giving it his all. In fact, before shooting began, Caine reportedly told producer and director Brian Henson, “I’m going to play this movie like I’m working with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I will never wink, I will never do anything Muppety.” He certainly kept his promise, and the picture is all the better for it!
The Santa Clause (1994)
When divorced father Scott (Tim Allen) finds himself responsible for his son (Eric Lloyd) on Christmas Eve, a series of unexpected events unfold. A peculiar encounter with someone dressed as Santa leads them on a magical journey to the North Pole. There, an enchanting elf reveals a surprising truth: Scott must step into Santa’s shoes before the next Christmas arrives.
The Santa Clause was the first Christmas film to lodge itself in my brain as a child. I’m sure I saw plenty prior to seeing Tim Allen’s Santa-cosplaying shenanigans, but it definitely was the first to leave an indelible mark. Most of this, I think, is down to the gonzo premise; but, even more potent are the PG Cronenberg-esque images of Allen physically transforming into the big man himself — gut protruding, beefy white beard growing at an alarming rate. It’s maybe the closest Disney has ever come to live-action body horror (of course, when it comes to animation: Pinnochio is king)
Prime Video
The Godfather (1972)
Considered a cinematic masterpiece, and one you’ve most likely seen a few dozen times, this mob saga, adapted from Mario Puzo’s book, centres on the Italian-American Corleone crime family led by Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando). As the don’s youngest son, Michael (Al Pacino), is reluctantly drawn into the Mafia world, he finds himself entangled in a web of brutality and disloyalty.
Okay, this might be a cheat — but hey, it’s Christmas, the season of giving! So consider allowing me to include The Godfather on this list as your gift to me. Thank you! I appreciated it. In fairness, at least part of the film, and in fact one of the most pivotal parts, occurs during Christmas. So I think it’s fair game, to be honest. But regardless of its Christmas credentials, it’s never a bad time to throw on Coppola’s blockbuster American epic. Plus, if you’ve happened to catch the filmmaker’s latest work, the utterly bonkers Megalopolis, during its brief cinema run, and are looking for ways to wash away that funky aftertaste, look no further.
