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15 Nostalgic Holiday Movies to Watch This Year

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Holiday magic, rewound.

Nazarii Verbitskiy

TV Shows & Movies - November 10th 2026, 18:30 GMT+1

The Holiday — 15. The Holiday (2006)
Swapping houses across an ocean sounds like a vacation. For Amanda and Iris, it turns into the kind of reset neither of them knew they needed. The Holiday leans hard into cozy fireplaces, snowy English cottages, and Jude Law showing up at the worst possible moment with a stack of books. It is comfort food dressed up as a rom-com, and nobody pretends otherwise. | © Universal Pictures

White Christmas — 14. White Christmas (1954)
Four voices, one stage, and a song about snow that somehow outlived the movie itself. White Christmas runs on Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye's easy chemistry, built around dance numbers that feel loose even when they are precisely drilled. The plot is thin, an excuse to get everyone to a Vermont inn for one big finale. What stays with you is the sound of it, warm and orchestral and completely unbothered by subtlety. | © Paramount Pictures

Jingle All The Way — 13. Jingle All the Way (1996)
Howard Langston forgot to buy his kid's favorite toy, and now it's Christmas Eve. Jingle All the Way turns that one mistake into a full sprint through malls, radio contests, and a parade float chase that makes zero logical sense and works anyway. Arnold Schwarzenegger playing a stressed dad is funnier than it has any right to be. The whole thing is dumb in the most sincere way possible. | © 20th Century Fox

Scrooged — 12. Scrooged (1988)
Frank Cross runs a television network and treats Christmas like a scheduling problem. Three ghosts show up to fix that, and Scrooged turns the correction into something sharper and weirder than most versions of this story dare to be. Bill Murray plays the jerk without softening him too early, so the change actually lands. By the end, the sincerity sneaks up on you. | © Paramount Pictures

The Muppet Christmas Carol — 11. The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
Puppets telling a Charles Dickens story should not work this well. Gonzo narrates as Charles Dickens himself, Rizzo cracks jokes mid-ghost-story, and somehow The Muppet Christmas Carol still makes Scrooge's redemption feel real. Michael Caine plays it completely straight, acting opposite felt and foam like it's Shakespeare. That choice is the whole reason the movie holds up. | © Walt Disney Pictures

The Nightmare Before Christmas — 10. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Jack Skellington gets bored of Halloween and decides to hijack an entire holiday he doesn't understand. The stop motion animation still holds up, every frame built by hand and it shows in the texture of the thing. Danny Elfman's songs carry half the movie, from "This Is Halloween" to the quieter ache of "Jack's Lament." It is a Christmas movie and a Halloween movie, and it never once feels confused about which one it loves more. | © Walt Disney Pictures

How the Grinch Stole Christmas — 9. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
Green fur, yellow eyes, and a cave full of contempt for Christmas. Jim Carrey plays the Grinch like a man fighting his own face, all rubber-limbed fury and muttering. The makeup took hours to apply and you can feel every one of them baked into his performance. Whoville's noise ends up being the point, not the ornaments or the roast beast. | © Universal Pictures

Santa The Polar Express — 8. The Polar Express (2004)
A boy who no longer believes in Santa boards a train that does not care about his doubts. The Polar Express leans hard into motion capture animation, and the choice still splits people, but the train itself sells the whole film. Steam, snow, and that steep drop down the mountain track make the ride feel physical even through a screen. Tom Hanks voices six different characters and somehow none of them collide. | © Warner Bros. Pictures

The Santa Clause — 7. The Santa Clause (1994)
Scott Calvin knocks a man off his roof on Christmas Eve and ends up wearing his suit. The premise is silly, a lawyer slowly turning into Santa against his will, beard and belly and all. Tim Allen plays the transformation for comedy first, but the father-son thread underneath keeps it from floating away. Watching him accept the job instead of fighting it is the quiet reward of the whole movie. | © Walt Disney Pictures

Fred Gailey Miracle on 34th Street — 6. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Kris Kringle claims to be the real Santa Claus and gets institutionalized for saying so out loud. A courtroom becomes the unlikely stage for deciding whether he's telling the truth. Edmund Gwenn plays him with total calm, never defensive, like belief itself needs no defending. The mail sacks full of letters addressed to Santa still land as one of the simplest tricks in movie history. | © 20th Century Fox

Elf — 5. Elf (2003)
Maple syrup on spaghetti tells you everything about how Buddy sees the world. Will Ferrell plays him without a trace of irony, which is the only reason Elf works as well as it does. The joke could have been mean, a grown man acting like a child let loose in Manhattan, but the movie keeps choosing kindness over mockery. Underneath the tights and the yellow leggings, it is really about a guy who refuses to let cynicism win. | © New Line Cinema

Cropped Its a Wonderful Life 1946 — 4. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
George Bailey never gets to leave Bedford Falls, not once, and that failure is the whole engine of the story. It's a Wonderful Life spends most of its runtime on disappointment before it ever gets to the angel. Frank Capra lets the despair sit there, uncomfortable and real, so the ending actually means something when it arrives. Watching the town empty its pockets for George still works because the movie earned every bit of it. | © Paramount Pictures

A Christmas Story — 3. A Christmas Story (1983)
A pink bunny suit, a leg lamp, and a kid named Ralphie who wants exactly one thing for Christmas. A Christmas Story builds its whole world out of small humiliations, the kind every kid remembers but rarely sees on screen. Nobody is cruel, nobody is a villain, things just go wrong in the ordinary way childhood goes wrong. That gentle honesty is why people keep returning to it every December. | © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

National Lampoons Christmas Vacation — 2. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)
Clark Griswold wants one perfect family Christmas and gets a flooded basement, a dead cat, and a kidnapped boss instead. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation turns holiday perfectionism into slapstick without ever losing affection for the guy chasing it. Chevy Chase plays frustration like a physical comedy instrument, somehow funnier each time the string lights short out. The chaos never feels like punishment, just the gap between what we plan and what actually happens. | © Warner Bros.

Home Alone 2 Lost in New York 1992 cropped processed by imagy — 1. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)
Kevin McCallister gets lost in New York instead of left behind this time, and somehow the city makes the chaos bigger. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York leans hard into its predecessor's tricks, the booby traps now scaled up to apartment-destroying size. Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern take more punishment than should be legal, and the movie never once lets up on them. It is a sequel that knew exactly what people wanted and simply gave them more of it. | © 20th Century Fox

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Some holiday movies hit differently because you grew up watching them every December. These nostalgic favorites bring back the cozy living rooms, the lines you still know by heart, and that feeling that the season has officially started. Here are 15 nostalgic holiday movies to watch this year.

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Some holiday movies hit differently because you grew up watching them every December. These nostalgic favorites bring back the cozy living rooms, the lines you still know by heart, and that feeling that the season has officially started. Here are 15 nostalgic holiday movies to watch this year.