Ranking Every Netflix Original Christmas Movie

I...I...I did something I'm not proud of.

You may or may not be familiar with the wonderous world of Netflix Original Christmas Movies. It's this baffling subgenre of holiday films, with more and more of these increasingly clichéd and lazy films being mass-produced by the streaming service each year. By now, there are a lot of these films, and let me tell you - most of them aren't very good.

That being said, I did watch them all. Now, in my defense, it wasn't all this year - knowing that I wanted to a post on this topic but that watching them all during one holiday season would be self-destructive, I started last year by watching as many of them as I could stomach during December. I then watched the rest of Netflix's offerings this year, and have now seen them all. Well, in a manner of speaking - I decided to give myself some mercy and narrowed the selection down a bit.

For example, foreign films are excluded - not because I'd want to be all 'America first', but because this project would've been even more insane if I had gone down the rabbit hole of German and Dutch Netflix Originals. When excluding those, as well as films that are on the gray area of how 'Netflix Original' they really are (for example, there are many Christmas films that are originally by the Hallmark channel but that were re-released as supposed "Netflix originals"), I was still left with twenty-four films. Here's my ranking.

24. Holidate (2020)

Ugh. The phrase "In poor taste" was made for things like this movie - while nothing in the film is blatantly downright offensive, it's all just in really poor taste. It's the kind of film that if it had been made in the 80's, you'd think "Ah, well, it's just a product of it's time so we can't judge it too much!". But it was made in 2020, which is weird - the writers really should've known better. There are just so many instances of subtle sexism and outdated attitudes in this holiday rom-com's dialogue, that it'll leave you feeling uncomfortable - not the atmosphere that feel-good Christmas movies aim for.

23. A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby (2019)

I'm usually a sucker for sequels, at least much more so than typical movie buffs, because it's simply fun to see the familiar characters again and to continue the story. The feel-good element of seeing the Christmas Prince family again and catching up with their lives is what barely puts this film ahead of the likes of Holidate, a film that doesn't have any such likable elements in it.

That being said, the third Christmas Prince instalment is one crappy film.

The fun catching-up we get in the first fifteen minutes or so isn't enough to make up for the terrible, lazy writing that you'd expect from the Part 3 of a Netflix Original Christmas Movie franchise. Really scraping the bottom of the barrel here.

22. A California Christmas (2020)

I expected A California Christmas to be slightly above-average for this particular wing of cinema, simply because it looked different - the aesthetic of a ranch in California isn't your typical holiday film setting. Well, as it turns out, I was both right and wrong - the ranch setting is quite fresh and different for this genre, but that is the only positive thing this film has going on for it. The farm milieu is nice and everything, but otherwise this is such an unoriginal clichéd-out holiday rom-com, that my hypothesis of it being "better than average" ended up being dead-wrong. Oh well.

21. A Castle for Christmas (2021)

The narrative of the protagonist being a writer, struggling to overcome the controversy of her last book while coming up with ideas for her new one, is quite intriguing. And that's about it for the film's good sides. A would-be intriguing Scottish setting that the film doesn't do much with, coupled with an afterthought-feeling Christmas setting and a generic love story, ensue.

20. The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star (2021)

The third Princess Switch film is, well, the third Princess Switch movie. It is slightly better than the third Christmas Prince movie (I feel like I'm having a stroke while writing this), mainly because the trilogy as a whole is a tad less crappy so the viewer is more attached to the characters. But that doesn't stop this film from being the third film about a Chicago baker and her royal lookalike getting into yuletide situations where they have to switch places and pretend to be each other. I can only imagine the level of shenanigans we'll have when The Princess Switch 5: Doppelganger Armageddon rolls into Netflix in 2025.

19. Christmas Inheritance (2017)

Christmas Inheritance does have its moments, such as the sweet and heartwarming friendship between main character Ellen's (Eliza Taylor) father Jim (Neil Crone) and his longtime friend Zeke (Anthony Sherwood). But those moments are in short supply when compared to the film's many, many shortcomings - the overall plastic feeling of everything, the annoying rom-com cliché where the male love interest seems sweet but is actually quite the douchebag in a lowkey manner, and other such things.

The film would be placed even lower, but it has to get some bonus points for the fact that the small town in the clichéd-out "busy big city gal has lost herself in her business but learns the true meaning of Christmas when she travels to a cozy small town where she falls in love with a dream hunk who is actually sort of an asshole" narrative is called Snow Falls. Absolutely brilliant. That town name just may have been enough to make this whole project worth it.

18. Operation Christmas Drop (2020)

The true story that Operation Christmas Drop is sort-of based on is quite heartwarming , so I'll give them that. However, other than that, there's not much to like: the main characters are adequate but not particularly interesting, the love story is beyond clichéd and generic, and the whole thing just feels very plastic, even in the context of this very plastic subgenre of films. Still, cool real-life inspiration!

17. A California Christmas: City Lights (2021)

Yep, A California Christmas is the only instance in the world of Netflix Original Christmas Movies so far where the sequel is better than the original. Granted, the bar was set extremely low, but still - quite impressive!

The reasoning for my liking of the second California Christmas flick better than the first can be boiled down to the sentiment that this film simply tries less. The first movie tried a bit too hard to be a good rom-com, not one bit self-aware of how generic and clichéd it was. The second film has less pressure and thus manages to have more fun - I especially enjoyed the goofy subplot where side characters Manny (David Del Rio) and Brandy (Raquel Dominguez) find love.

16. A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding (2018)

Well, this film is a tad or maybe even two tads better than you'd expect the sequel to a Netflix Original Christmas Film to be. But, once again, one must consider how low of a bar that is to pass. There are bits and pieces that are quite fun, and it is entertaining to see what's going on in the lives of the first film's characters, but overall, the story is very generic and lazy. If you like these sorts of films as a guilty pleasure, The Royal Wedding might be worth watching once, assuming you enjoyed the first one. Just don't expect great things from it.

15. The Knight Before Christmas (2019)

We're starting to get to the ones that I actually enjoyed watching, at least on some level. The Knight Before Christmas is a bit too wooden and lazy to be considered good cinema, but it certainly is goofy and endearing enough to be decent entertainment. It definitely sticks out from the generic crowd, with its premise of a medieval knight being sent into modern times, where he adapts to modern customs during the most wonderful time of the year. Josh Whitehouse is wonderfully silly as Sir Cole, while Vanessa Hudgens (the unbridled queen of the Netflix Original Christmas universe) is her charming self. It's all good fun.

14. The Holiday Calendar (2018)

I'm a big fan of Holiday calendars, so it makes sense that a film about a magical Christmas calendar that grants wishes would strike my fancy. I still can't rank The Holiday Calendar too high, because character- and dialogue-wise it is definitely in the rather extreme end of generic and interchangeable Xmas films, but still - the plot narrative with the magical Christmas calendar does set it apart in a nice way!

13. El Camino Christmas (2017)

With all the talk of representation in Hollywood buzzing around, I think it's nice that Netflix gave its own Christmas film for a whole culture of people who often appear as mere side characters and stereotypes in cinema. The culture in question is, for the lack of a better word, "dirtbags".

In the fictional town of El Camino, Nevada, a liquor store robbery gone wrong leads to a violent clash between criminals, drunken police officers and confused bystanders, in this holiday flick that replaces the cutesy love stories and over-the-top Xmas decorations of typical Netflix Original Christmas Films with an abundance of curse words, violent clashes and grunts. Featuring memorable performances by a more-gritty-than-you'd-expect Tim Allen as well as a just-as-gritty-as-you'd-expect Kurtwood Smith, El Camino Christmas might not be the most Christmas-y holiday film out there, but it's an okay dark comedy and it sure stands out from the crowd.

12. Holiday Rush (2019)

Like many of these films, Holiday Rush is unapologetically cheesy as hell, but its heart is in the right place. With Netflix mass-producing these films at a hectic pace each December and them having predominantly white casts, it's nice that the African-American community got their own Netflix Origina Christmas Film. You might expect such a film to be a bit "Spike Lee but without all the genius nuances" or "Atlanta (2016-Present) meets Hallmark", but here's the thing - yes. You'd be exactly right with these expectations. It's good fun, but it's once again a bit too plastic to be ranked any higher than this.

11. Single All the Way (2021)

It looks like I've a hit a token representation streak here - if El Camino is the Netflix Xmas flick for the dirtbag community and Holiday Rush for African American culture, then Single All the Way is the go-to LGBTQ+ (but, you know, mainly just the 'G' because mainstream) film from Netflix's catalogue. There are remarkably few decent gay rom-coms out there, as LGBTQ+ films are often divided into either very bad rom-coms or very good cinema that is much too grim and depressing to count as rom- or -com. Therefore, it's nice to catch a movie like Single All the Way, which is by no means any sort of masterpiece, but quite an okay yuletide romantic comedy. It's like most of the Hallmark-esque Xmas films, but with less straight people in it and a slightly more likable and relatable main character than the more generic ones.

10. The Princess Switch: Switched Again (2020)

If you're wondering what the sequel to The Princess Switch is doing this high on my list, ahead of cult classics (emphasis on the word "cult") like Operation Christmas Drop and The Knight Before Christmas, the answer is simple: shenanigans. This film may not have the deepest story, the most intriguing characters or much to say about the world, but it is astonishingly entertaining to watch simply due to its shenanigans. The body-switching hijinks of the first film are taken to a new level when a third look-alike character played by Vanessa Hudgens appears, and the film goes quite far with its delightful moments of mistaken identity confusion.

9. A Christmas Prince (2017)

The gold standard of the Netflix Original Christmas movie genre. If you haven't seen any of these films and are wondering just what the hell I'm talking about, A Christmas Prince is the one film you should watch in order to understand the phenomenon - it really says it all.

For better or for worse, all the clichés are there, from the generic yet heartfelt love story and the strange royal families from fictional countries to the "I'm a busy career woman who is uptight and I just really want to meet a charming literal prince who will teach me the meaning of Christmas" narrative and the closure-filled yet somehow semi-open ending that will guarantee one or two sequels. It's not exactly The Godfather, but it is the Godfather of this particular type of film.

8. The Christmas Chronicles 2 (2020)

The Christmas Chronicles 2 is very goofy but all good fun, with its success and likability being largely reliant on the fact that it does a good job as a sequel to the very awesome first film. It's nice to return to the lovable group of characters from the first film, as time has passed for the kids yet they still fondly remember their magical journey in a Narnia-esque way.

Kurt Russell's Santa Claus is delightful as ever, and we get to see more of Goldie Hawn's Mrs. Claus, who was just a cameo in the first film. The whole Belsnickel-narrative is more than a bit corny, but that doesn't stop the film from having a lot of fun with its setting and characters. Worth watching if you liked the first one!

7. Let It Snow (2019)

As hokey and plastic as Let It Snow is, I can't help but like it. I'm a sucker for rom-coms, and this bunch of mindless fun gives us many adequate, if not mind-blowing, love stories rolled into one interconnected story. Many semi-generic characters, played by attractive C-list actors, cross paths with each other during a Christmas Eve snowstorm, and all of this leads to a series of predictable yet wholesome payoffs in the end. It's very by-the-numbers, but if you simply feel like turning your brain off and watching a feel-good holiday rom-com, Let It Snow will most definitely get the job done. Not great cinema, but it did put a smile on my face, which more than I can say for a lot of these films.

6. The Princess Switch (2018)

While not quite as high on shenanigans as its sequel, the original The Princess Switch is an overall better film - it's not like any of these romps are exactly It's a Wonderful Life, but you get the gist. Vanessa Hudgens is entertaining and lovable in her double role as Stacy De Novo and Lady Margaret - while none of the performances in Netflix Original Christmas Cinema are exactly Oscar-worthy, her acting in this film and its sequels is the most impressive out the bunch. It can't be easy to play two very different characters, who must both pretend to be each other. If you're a fan of mistaken identity -hijinks, I can thoroughly recommend this corny but entertaining flick for your holiday season!

5. Holiday in the Wild (2019)

This otherwise basic and by-the-numbers holiday rom-com is carried by two factors. The first of these elements is the film's touching message about wildlife preservation, and the second is national treasure Rob Lowe being his charismatic self. One of this bizarre subgenre's overall better offerings.

4. Love Hard (2021)

American democracy. The climate. My love life. What do these things have in common?

2021 was not a great year for them.

But, if it's any consolation, 2021 was a surprisingly decent year for Netflix Original Christmas movies. Out of the far-too-many such films that get released each year, 2021's offerings had remarkably less total crap than previous years, and more of the 'surprisingly okay' variety. Especially notable is Love Hard, which exceeded my expectations by actually having a well-written love story, some decent laughs, and a yuletide feeling that didn't feel completely mass-produced. It may not be a Xmas classic for the ages, but it certainly drives home the point that Netflix has started putting at least some thought into these films - Love Hard appears to be written by actual humans, and not the generators that I imagine to have written The Christmas Prince and Christmas Inheritance.

3. Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (2020)

Compared to the lack of authenticity that defines most of these films, Jingle Jangle hits the real Christmas spirit in a way that made my inner child squeal with joy. You'll forget that this family film is a Netflix Original, because it doesn't hit any of the negative clichés - it's not a rom-com, it doesn't star a busy businesswoman from the big city nor does it feature handsome princes from made-up countries, and most importantly: it doesn't share a plot with tens of other similar films.

Featuring memorable performances by Forest Whitaker and Keegan-Michael Key, Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey is a soulful and whimsical adventure that will surely play well with children and serve as nice reminder of some playful yet important values for us grown-ups. Can't go too wrong with this one.

2. The Christmas Chronicles (2018)

The biggest problem with most Netflix Original Christmas Movies is that they feel very generic and plastic, therefore not having that sense of magic that has defined good Christmas cinema from Miracle on 34th Street (1947) to Home Alone (1990) and beyond. The Christmas Chronicles is the much-needed exception to that rule, as it feels much more genuinely magical than you'd expect from a film in this category. Kurt Russell's take on Santa Claus hits just that right balance of unconventional and conventional, feeling like it's "Santa with a twist" but still very much Santa. The main kids are genuine and likable as well, making for one of those rare Netflix Xmas movies that really hit the essence of the holiday instead of feeling like the merchandise around it.

1. Klaus (2019)

It's no surprise that the best Netflix Original Christmas Movie is the one that feels the least like a Netflix Original Christmas Movie. This future classic may have a concept that has sort of been done before - Finland's own Joulutarina (2007) is the real "Santa Claus origin story"! - but Klaus definitely sets itself apart by being original enough. This animated family film features a delightful visual aesthetic, a great voice performance by J.K. Simmons as the titular Klaus, and a powerful-as-hell central lesson for children and adults alike - as is repeated throughout the film, "one true selfless act always sparks another". Words to live by.

Thank you for reading! Tune in next week, as I celebrate the end of 2021 by sharing my traditional end-of-the-year list of the year's 10 greatest movies.