Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Netflix, Disney+, Hulu
Happy Thanksgiving! It is now officially appropriate to start watching B-list celebs attempt to act their way through festive and bizarre circumstances in all the new holiday movies available on various streaming platforms. If you need to know where you can find Minka Kelly falling in love with the reluctant heir to a Parisian Champagne dynasty or Chad Michael Murray playing a struggling artist who entangles himself in a lifestyle influencer’s web of lies — all at Christmas, of course — read on. Which cinematic masterpiece should you watch first? All of them!
Starring: Minka Kelly
Streaming on: Netflix
Logline: “A driven American exec heads to Paris determined to acquire a Champagne brand by Christmas — and accidentally falls for the heir to the bubbly empire.”
This is perhaps the most high-budget of the offerings this season. Netflix actually filmed in France for this one, and Minka Kelly got a chic long bob (instead of some sad wig). The plot is predictably fizzy: focused businesswoman goes to Paris on an important business mission at Christmas but falls for a handsome stranger on her one night off from work who then turns out to be a major obstacle to her mission. Will they somehow make a relationship work? Hint: The movie ends with a “one year later” epilogue. Bonus: If you’re currently on a Duolingo streak, there is so much subtitled French in this movie to help you practice. Incroyable!
Starring: Joe, Nick, and Kevin Jonas
Streaming on: Hulu and Disney Plus
Logline: “Three famous brothers race against time and face mounting challenges during a chaotic journey from London to New York, desperate to make it home in time for Christmas with their loved ones.”
The Jonas Brothers haven’t done much acting in the last decade, but their Disney training remains relevant here as they play versions of themselves attempting to get home to see their families for Christmas. I most enjoyed counting the celebrity cameos — Will Ferrell and Kenny G appear, as does Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Santa — and noting each brother’s unique approach to showing their real families onscreen. Kevin’s wife, Danielle, and their daughters appear several times in the movie; Joe’s daughters with his ex-wife, Sophie Turner, appear very briefly at the end; and Nick’s wife, Priyanka Chopra, appears while holding the couple’s daughter, whose face is not shown. I would love to know how all the contracts were worked out for this.
Starring: Alicia Silverstone and Oliver Hudson
Streaming on: Netflix
Logline: “All Kate and Everett want for Christmas is an amicable divorce and one last holiday as a family, but new flames and old feelings complicate their plans.”
Is it surprising that this is Alicia Silverstone’s first Christmas movie? I can’t decide. Either way, she is perfectly fine in this rom-com about a woman starting over again (or is she?) in midlife. Kate Hudson’s brother Oliver plays her recent ex-husband and — warning — Jameela Jamil plays his new girlfriend. Melissa Joan Hart is in it too! The most satisfying thing about this one is how many Christmas-movie clichés the screenwriter managed to stuff inside: They live in a small town where everyone knows everyone, the ex-husband is the town doctor, Silverstone is a former architect who gave up big-city life to follow said ex-husband, major emotional moments happen during ski trips and gingerbread baking contests, and the whole thing ends with a townwide power outage.
Starring: Chad Michael Murray and Emmanuelle Chriqui
Streaming on: Hulu and Disney Plus
Logline: “When a lifestyle guru’s carefully crafted, fictional perfect family is suddenly expected to appear on a live Christmas Eve special, she recruits friends and neighbors to pose as her family — including her best friend, who still has feelings for her.”
Chad Michael Murray is not new to the streaming Christmas-movie genre: He has starred in several Hallmark and Great American Family offerings as well as last year’s The Merry Gentlemen on Netflix, where he played a hometown handyman who ends up becoming, what else, a stripper for a charitable cause. Joy to the World is not nearly as suggestive but features Murray’s smoldering eyes and unplaceable country-ish accent all the same. He stars as Max, a struggling artist and best friend to Joy, a lifestyle influencer who has been lying about being married with children for several years (played by onetime Entourage star Emmanuelle Chriqui).
It seems inconceivable that Joy would be able to keep up her fake-family ruse over a dozen lifestyle books and myriad TV appearances, but somehow she is not called upon to show her family’s faces until a special Christmas Eve broadcast on something called the Home Cooking Channel (hosted by Ayesha Curry). When Joy asks Max to pretend to be her husband, chaos and romance ensue. How will it end? With Murray getting cast in another one these next year, I think.
Starring: Lindsay Lohan
Streaming on: Netflix
Options include: Falling for Christmas and Our Little Secret
Sometimes, you just need to watch a former Disney actress in her 30s navigate ridiculously contrived situations while wearing soft knits. None of this year’s offerings quite fit that bill, but remember that there are two extant Lindsay Lohan Christmas movies available to stream on Netflix at your leisure. She has been making one every two years — Falling for Christmas came out in 2022 and Our Little Secret came out in 2024 — so we’re due for a new one next holiday season. In the meantime, you can’t go wrong with Lohan playing a Hilton-esque heiress who gets amnesia after a skiing accident or Lohan playing a high-powered businesswoman who is forced to spend Christmas with her old high-school sweetheart because it turns out he’s dating her new boyfriend’s sister. Cheers!
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