The best Christmas movies on Disney+ to watch this season

Disney recently released its own reboot of the home-invasion series, Home Sweet Home Alone, but the streaming service is also home to the Macaulay Culkin classic (and its less-than-stellar sequels). It’s the holly-jolliest film about child neglect ever made!

For all the nightmarish Halloween chaos – Danny Elfman’s opening track is inarguably the best All Hallows song ever written – this macabre stop-motion treat takes its holiday spirit very seriously too (‘What’s This’ deserves a spot on any Christmas playlist). Sure, the amateur elves of Halloween Town botch the big day by delivering heads and snakes to unsuspecting kids, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

It’s pretty much exactly what the title implies: the immortal Charles Dickens story, as interpreted by Jim Henson’s daffy felt children. Although it was released during a rather down period for the Muppets, it’s still among the most entertaining versions of the tale. That’s thanks in large part to the brilliant Michael Caine – the lone human in the cast – portraying one of the Scroogiest Scrooges to ever bah humbug.

In the ‘90s, a movie that begins with the death of Santa Claus, features intense body modification and throws in a phone-sex joke could still be considered ‘family friendly’. Hey, it was a different time – it was also a time when Tim Allen was thought of as a viable film star. In fairness, he is well cast as a divorced dad forced by supernatural decree to succeed Old Saint Nick after the big man suffers a tragic accident on his property. The sequels pushed the concept further than it was ever meant to go, but the original is genuinely sweet and funny.

The ultimate in cuddly Christmas afternoon movies, this original stars Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle, who must prove he is in fact Santa Claus – not least to a young girl (Natalie Wood) who has lost the true meaning of Christmas. As a bonus, the better-than-expected 1994 remake with Richard Attenborough in the red suit is also available to stream. 

It’s really more of a ‘winter movie’ than a ‘Christmas movie’, and it’s not like your kids need an excuse to put it on, but the joy of watching Princess Anna’s adventure through the icy hinterlands of Arendelle is only enhanced when there are stockings hanging over the fireplace and maybe some actual snow falling outside. If you require something a little more holiday-specific, there’s also the spinoff short Olaf’s Frozen Adventure, in which wisecracking snowman Olaf quite literally learns the reasons for the season.  

For the last time: yes, it’s a Christmas movie. It’s got Christmas music. It’s got a message about protecting the family unit. It’s got ‘NOW I HAVE A MACHINE GUN HO HO HO.’ Sure, you shouldn’t need seasonal encouragement to watch Bruce Willis crack wise and run barefoot across broken glass – but for many households, it’s simply not the holidays until debris falls like snow around Nakatomi Plaza.

While the film takes a few liberties – we’re pretty sure Dickens never wrote about a shrunken Scrooge surfing on an icicle – technical wizard Robert Zemeckis’s motion-capture animated spectacle manages to keep the spirit of the source material intact, with Jim Carrey capably pulling quadruple duty as the world’s most famous miser and all three ghosts of Christmas. It’s a dazzler that doesn’t pull punches when it’s time for the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come to execute the world’s most effective ‘scared straight’ program. 

A movie that acknowledges the true meaning of Christmas – crass consumerism – and mines it for all the goofy humour its premise can muster, this retroactively classic comedy pits Arnold Schwarzenegger against Sinbad as desperate dads hoping to score their respective kids the most coveted gift of the season: a Turbo Man action figure. It’s unapologetically dumb, but if we’re being honest, so are a lot of things about this holiday we love so much, which makes it a great bonding experience for the whole family.

Meeting your partner’s parents is always stressful, especially at the holidays, when everyone’s a bit high-strung to begin with. In this ensemble dramedy, the late Diane Keaton is the matriarch of the sort of liberal New England family who’d vote for Obama a third time if they could. Sarah Jessica Parker is the anxious girlfriend desperate to ingratiate herself but can’t stop stuffing her Manolo Blahniks in her mouth. Despite the Hallmark-y plotting, it gets by on some charming performances, particularly from Keaton, Luke Wilson and Rachel McAdams.

An old-school Disney live-action comedy in the spirit of The Santa Clause, this holiday flick was one of Disney+’s banner offerings upon launch, then quickly forgotten. Shame too: Anna Kendrick is perfectly at place as Santa’s overlooked daughter, while Bill Hader is reliably hilarious as the big man’s unwilling heir. 

It might be better known these days for SNL’s classic ‘Lazy Sunday’ skit (‘Pass the chronic – what? – cles of Narnia’), but this snowy Christmas treat based on CS Lewis’s novel is, indeed, a dreamworld of magic. There’s both a Father Christmas and a White Witch, the latter played by Tilda Swinton.

Tim Allen isn’t the only Home Improvement star who parlayed sitcom success into a big-screen Christmas vehicle. In this family-friendly road-trip comedy, Jonathan Taylor Thomas – the Timothée Chalamet of the ’90s – is a preppy college kid lured home for the holidays by the promise of receiving his father’s Porsche as a gift. But after getting pranked by some jocks and abandoned in the California desert without a wallet, he must figure out how to make the cross-country trip in time to claim his prize – and stop his girlfriend (Jessica Biel) from hooking up with his arch enemy. 

The best versions of The Nutcracker are always going to take place onstage, but if your kids are looking for something more cinematic, this wintry confection turns the classic ballet into an eye-popping visual spectacle, with Interstellar’s Mackenzie Foy as Clara and Keira Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy. 

Victor Herbert’s turn-of-the-century operetta had already been adapted to screen a few times prior to Disney’s take, and has been remade since. But if this isn’t the definitive version, it’s certainly the most extravagant. The plot is a bit all over the place, but all you really need to know is you’ve got Annette Funicello singing and dancing with the kooky residents of Toyland as Christmas approaches.    

Look, if we’re going to count Die Hard as a Christmas movie, then we’re counting this timeless love story about two dogs learning the value of selflessness and snuggling. Plus, it begins with a lengthy Christmastime sequence and ends with a litter of puppies underneath the tree. Which is to say: Yippie-kay-yay, Bella Notte. 

Just what parents needed: a version of Frozen with even more songs! Indeed taken from a live Broadway performance, it brings the story of Princess Anna’s adventures in Arendelle to life, and as noted adds a dozen new songs – though chances are your kids will just opt to watch ‘Let It Go’ on repeat again.  

Same holiday, different shit. Well, slightly different. Only two Christmases after defending Los Angeles from a gang of Aryan terrorists, John McClane finds himself in Washington DC, battling a vicious drug lord and his crew at the airport. Guess what, nerds? This one’s a Christmas movie, too. Cry about it. 

Sandra Bullock exudes enough charm to light the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in this romcom as a lonely Chicago subway worker who saves the life of a passenger (Peter Gallagher) on Christmas Day, and through a series of misunderstandings convinces his family that she’s his fiancée – while he lies in a coma. It’s predictable, sure, but Bullock’s performance alone is warm enough it could reduce the Grinch himself to a pile of green goo. 

Lethal Weapon and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang scribe Shane Black is the king of the Christmas-set action movie, and his entry in the MCU is no exception. If you’ve ever wanted to watch Robert Downey Jr spend the holidays with an oversized teddy bear and save the world from certain doom while going full George Bailey during an identity crisis, here’s your dream movie. Throw in a detour to the Miss Chattanooga Christmas Pageant and you’ve got a stealthily cheery superhero Christmas-adjacent extravaganza.