Holiday TV viewing used to mean nostalgic animated specials like A Charlie Brown Christmas or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Now, ’tis the season of domination by round-the-clock Hallmark Christmas movies.
This time of year can be frustrating for TV viewers who don’t get the appeal of these movies. If this describes you, never fear — we’re here to help!
Whether you’re secretly curious or know you’re doomed to watch some of these with family over the holidays, these tips will help you endure and enjoy your time watching Hallmark Christmas movies.
Things Have Changed. Really!
We know all the Hallmark cliches: A high-powered career woman from the Big City is forced to spend Christmas in a snowy rural town where she finds love and the true spirit of the holiday.
This is… well, I suppose it’s still true for a fair percentage of these films.
But! Over the past decade, the explosion of interest in Hallmark movies has resulted in a vast library of new holiday film content, enough so there are now several subgenres to choose from.
Some of Hallmark’s newer Christmas movies still nod to the old formula, but even those have changed to better reflect the times.
Plots have thankfully veered away from the dated, sexist convention of a new couple’s romantic obstacles being either a bland, distracted boyfriend back in the city or a jealous, local ex-girlfriend.
Now, workaholic city folk return to vibrant hometowns full of old friends and family with active lives and story arcs apart from the leads.
There is more diversity in the main, secondary, and background characters. And not everyone owns a cupcake bakery or Christmas tree farm.
Even that trademark chaste, last-five-seconds-of-the-movie first kiss of the leads has been bumped up in some films to the ninety-minute mark.
But don’t hold your breath for steamier progress on that end; Hallmark will never go past first base.
No matter how sophisticated these films have gotten, gallons of hot cocoa are still consumed, and countless laps skated around rinks festooned with fairy lights.
These tropes will outlive us all, and that’s part of their charm! But they can also be a huge sticking point for reluctant viewers.
Reframe Expectations
The first rule of enjoying Hallmark Christmas movies is to accept that they are in a category of their own and are not to be compared to conventional films.
This is the biggest hurdle experienced by those who aren’t already into these movies. The good news is they share several qualities embraced in non-Hallmark films, making it easier to find an entry point into the genre.
Sure, you can take the “scavenger hunt” viewing route with these films, where you gleefully note their every business model discrepancy and glaring misconception of how social media works.
Don’t forget to include the number of times we’re asked to overlook how the actors playing middle-aged parents are roughly the same age as those playing their adult children!
But to borrow from Din Djarin: This is not The Way.
Instead…
Follow The Stars
A surprising number of big names have appeared in Hallmark Christmas movies, including but not limited to the following dazzlers.
Mariah Carey: She did not sing in A Christmas Melody (2015), but she directed, acted, and adapted her song, Oh Santa!, for it. Does she play a diva? Does she ever! But it’s all tongue-in-cheek and a lot of fun. Plus: Lacey Chabert!
Watch A Christmas Melody Online
Henry Winkler: You know how you may have only seen one episode of a TV show, but whenever you come across that show while flipping channels in a hotel room, it’s always that same episode?
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (2008) is the Hallmark Channel’s version of that every-freaking-time phenomenon. But it’s great! This film relies entirely on Henry Winkler’s charm, but luckily, that’s a visible-from-space level of charm.
Winkler plays Uncle Ralph, a retired cop who brings along this laid-back guy he met on the plane to spend Christmas with his uptight niece and her son. Despite their constant arguing, Uncle Ralph thinks he’s the best matchmaker ever!
Watch The Most Wonderful Time of the Year Online
Andrew McCarthy: We were *seriously* cheated out of seeing McCarthy dance at the prom in Pretty in Pink — he has got some Duck-worthy moves!
In Come Dance With Me (also titled Christmas Dance, 2012), he plays an exec from humble beginnings who takes dancing lessons to prepare for an elaborate proposal to the boss’s daughter but starts falling for his dance instructor instead.
This soulful film addresses class and family issues while proving that McCarthy is a romantic lead for the ages.
Watch Come Dance With Me Online
Mira Sorvino: Okay, I know amnesia is one of those overused tropes people like to make fun of in these movies, but listen.
Seriously, DREAMGIRLS-level listen to me, here!
In A Christmas To Remember (2016), Oscar-winner Sorvino will bring you to absolute *tears* as a caustic celebrity chef who loses her memory after a blizzard-induced car crash and becomes a sweet, integral part of her widowed rescuer’s young family. It’s so, SO good — and don’t forget those tissues.
Watch A Christmas To Remember Online
Now that you’ve warmed up a bit with the celebrity tie-in movies, it’s time for…
The Expanded Hallmark Universe
Non-viewers may still associate Hallmark Christmas movies with Lacey Chabert trimming trees, competing in confectionary contests, or charming the royalty of small European countries (she does all three in 2019’s Love, Romance, & Chocolate).
Watch Love, Romance, & Chocolate Online
However, a recent seismic shift expanded the possibilities for these films in terms of structure, dialogue, and creativity.
Hallmark veterans Kimberley Sustad and Paul Campbell are responsible for much of the channel’s Christmas movie renaissance.
Their individual and joint projects formed the first branches of Hallmark’s Expanded Universe and offer a convenient way for Marvel-fluent viewers to find holiday movies with a sensibility outside the channel’s usual tropes.
The pair have acted together in several Hallmarks, both holiday (Christmas By Starlight, 2020) and non (Wedding Every Weekend, 2020).
Watch Christmas by Starlight Online
They’ve also co-written a few, like the mega-hit Three Wise Men and a Baby (2022) and its sequel, Three Wiser Men and a Boy (2024).
Watch Three Wiser Men and a Boy Online
But Sustad’s true origin story was her leading role in The Nine Lives of Christmas, a 2014 film that’s become a holiday classic for Hallmark fans.
This movie has everything: cuddly kitties, home renovation tips, feline feeding guidance (most adult cats are lactose intolerant!), and Gregory Harrison as a silver fox fire chief.
Oh, and just to underscore our superhero universe analogy here, the movie’s male lead is Brandon Routh of Superman Returns.
Sustad and Routh have fantastic chemistry, but the movie can also be viewed as simply a romance between their kitties Ambrose and Queenie, the two best feline actors ever filmed.
Watch The Nine Lives of Christmas Online
Alternate Timelines
The Nine Lives of Christmas marked a branching-off point from the main timeline of Hallmark holiday film expectations.
Their plots now weren’t all about luring urban career women to rural towns where bake sales fix everyone’s financial problems.
The movies more often included witty banter, meta references, and larger casts of secondary characters who were essential to the story instead of just background scenery. They became more like… (gasp) real films!
Paul Campbell’s lanky, likable romantic leads ushered in a new crop of male actors who added humor, depth, and sensitivity to the average Hallmark hero.
Audience faves (and Campbell collaborators) Andrew Walker and Tyler Hynes can pivot from soulful to goofball on a dime, which explains the trio’s success in Campbell and Sustad’s Three Wise Men franchise.
This new loosening of Hallmark’s old formula opened the door to sly tweaks of familiar tropes, like the yearly obligatory remakes of A Christmas Carol.
In A Dickens of a Holiday! (2021), Kristoffer Polaha and Brooke D’Orsay play former high school drama club classmates who reunite for a stage production of A Christmas Carol in their historic hometown.
Jake is an action movie star who takes the gig to stretch his acting skills and visit his estranged family. Cassie is a failed Broadway director who needs a career win, even if just in a small-town theater.
The surprise is how Dickens’ play stays on stage without direct correlations to Jake and Cassie’s story arcs. Bonus: The best (perhaps only?) Ace Hardware product placement scene in film history!
Watch A Dickens of a Holiday! Online
This new Hallmark era also unleashed some truly inventive takes on the supernatural tropes of ghosts, alternate history, and time loops.
Ghosts And Time Loops
Perhaps the biggest Dickens trope breaker is Ghosts of Christmas Always (2022), a true gem that starts off in one of those otherworldly agencies where angels look more like harried government employees, and that’s usually right where I would change the channel.
But the film quickly turns into a lush, heartbreaking intergenerational drama that could definitely be mistaken for a “real” movie, and the supernatural aspects don’t overshadow its very human story.
Watch Ghosts of Christmas Always Online
Hallmark perfected the time loop trope in Round and Round (2023), a Groundhog Day-esque film where Vic Michaelis plays Rachel, a young woman stuck in a time loop of the night of her parents’ Hannukah party.
This movie defies and exceeds all possible expectations with surprising plot twists and blisteringly witty dialogue for every character, not just the incredibly swoony leads.
And it’s FUNNY! Seriously, be careful if you eat or drink while watching this one, or at least brush up on the Heimlich. Bonus: Rick Hoffman of Suits plays Rachel’s dad!
Watch Round and Round Online
Rounding out all the trope-tastic, time-traveling goodness is A Biltmore Christmas (2023), a sci-fi-tinged love story across the ages starring Hallmark royalty Kristoffer Polaha and Bethany Joy Lenz.
It also features gorgeous period costumes and high production values, plus it was filmed at the actual Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. Bonus: Jonathan Frakes!
Watch A Biltmore Christmas Online
Resistance Is Futile
Look, I know you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it pull an ornate sleigh through snowy, lantern-lit woods to a rustic cabin on a maple syrup farm that’s one bake sale away from foreclosure.
However, Hallmark Christmas movies are worth a try this season because so many of them are fantastic; there’s a ton of variety with them right now, and they’re just getting better every year. You’d be gifting yourself a good time!
Which Hallmark Christmas movies sound appealing to you, if any? We’d love to know!
Watch Three Wise Men and a Baby Online