Grab a mug of microwave cocoa and your favorite store-bought cookies—it’s time to settle in for some of the worst Christmas movies cinema has to offer. From shameless knock-offs of beloved classics to painfully dull holiday fare, this guide rounds up the most spectacularly bad seasonal films that are somehow perfect for the festive season.
Honorable Mention: The Holiday
Technically competent and polished, The Holiday is still one of the most overrated mainstream “Christmas” films. The premise—two career-oriented women (Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz) swap homes for two weeks to escape their romantic troubles—promises charm but delivers scattered storytelling. The movie lingers too long on Cameron Diaz’s romance with Jude Law while cramming multiple unresolved threads into Kate Winslet’s arc (a former lover, an appealing neighbor, and a budding friend who only becomes a romantic option late in the film). Its attempt at old-Hollywood sentimentality is undercut by a lack of editing and focus, leaving a movie that feels overstuffed and oddly uneven.
10. Christmas Inheritance
Think Hallmark aesthetics, but produced as a Netflix original. Christmas Inheritance centers on an heiress who, after a public drunken stunt, is tasked with delivering a holiday card to her father’s former business partner in a small town—secret identity mandatory. Featuring an unremarkable lead and a familiar supporting face from a past season of a popular sitcom, the film is pleasant enough but bland: predictable, inoffensive, and forgettable.
Available on Netflix
9. A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding
The sequel to 2017’s A Christmas Prince promises a fairy-tale wedding but instead dwells on the frustrations of royal life in the fictional kingdom—complete with blog post censorship and archaic wedding traditions. Rather than delivering a romantic fantasy, the film becomes an odd critique of monarchy and national finance, leaving viewers expecting a dreamy celebration feeling oddly unsatisfied.
Available on Netflix
8. Christmas Wedding Planner
Kelsey, raised by a wealthy aunt, aims to launch her wedding-planning business by staging her cousin’s wedding—until the bride’s ex arrives, acting as a pseudo-private investigator and threatening to expose the groom. Bursting with over-the-top sound cues, misapplied comedic timing, and a bizarre habit of texting a deceased mother for emotional exposition, the movie climax feels confused and contrived. If you want a wedding film that flirts with spy-thriller tropes but never fully commits, this fits the bill.
Available on Netflix
7. 12 Dates of Christmas
Essentially a romantic comedy riff on the time-loop concept popularized by films like Happy Death Day, this movie follows Kate as she relives a disastrous blind date repeatedly after an unfortunate encounter with perfume. The film spends too much time on Kate’s lingering ex and features an awkward, uncomfortable first-date scene that misses both humor and heart. However, production values are marginally better than other entries on this list, so it at least looks and sounds competent.
Available on Hulu
6. Joseph and Mary
With set design that often feels amateurish and performances that resemble community-theatre staging, Joseph and Mary attempts to dramatize the nativity story but sidelines the titular couple for a bland subplot about a drunken rabbi named Elijah and a woman seeking vengeance after a Roman atrocity. The narrative favors preserving the status quo over exploring meaningful social change, and the film’s tone and intentions clash in ways that make it a strange and unsatisfying religious drama.
Available on Amazon Prime
5. Girlfriends of Christmas Past
This is not Dickens—expect instead a contrived revenge story in which three women plot petty retribution against a man who dumped them. The scheme involves forcing charity donations, orchestrating humiliating mishaps, and sabotaging a business meeting in a location that blurts between country club and private residence. Bad karaoke, clumsy mansplaining from a new love interest, and an unnecessary German accent complete the package of a film that repeatedly mistakes cliché for cleverness.
Available on Hulu
4. A Dogwalker’s Christmas Tale
A seemingly ordinary script about saving a dog park is recycled into a holiday setting without adding depth or stakes. The protagonist, a privileged college student who takes up dog-walking to cover debt, meets a veterinary student with aspirations of professional dog-care. The film’s characters and dramatic tension are thin, transforming what could have been a lighthearted community tale into a forgettable holiday filler.
Available on Hulu
3. My Santa
Imagine a hallucinatory, low-budget twist on family-friendly holiday fare: Santa’s son, Kris, must find a wife by midnight on Christmas Eve to follow in his father’s footsteps. He prowls shopping malls in costume, relying on inconsistent magic and questionable charm. A single mother reporter with a small son becomes his love interest amid confusing subplot choices and odd comic detours. If you enjoy rom-coms that miss their marks spectacularly, My Santa provides that uniquely train-wreck appeal.
Available on Hulu
2. Homeless for the Holidays
Shot heavily in close-ups and dragging through a mismatched tone, this film follows Jack Baker, a corporate veteran who suddenly finds himself unemployed and slipping into low-wage work. Tone shifts between attempted comedy and melodrama feel jarring, while the soundtrack leans toward cheap, cartoonish cues. At 105 minutes it overstays its welcome; scenes that could have been trimmed instead bloat the running time, turning the film into a slog best reserved for true aficionados of so-bad-it’s-interesting cinema.
Available on Amazon Prime
1. A Little Christmas Business
Topping this list is a film that charges viewers for the privilege of enduring clumsy performances, muddled subplots, and awkwardly handled themes. Daniel Baldwin leads a series of poorly recorded scenes set mostly in an office, where he’s visited by a smattering of spectral figures from his past. The script delivers blunt, on-the-nose messages about family time and regret, and treats some delicate topics—like dementia—without the necessary care. Short in length but long on cringe, this movie earns its place as the most entertainingly awful holiday pick.
Available on Amazon Prime
Have you watched any of these holiday misfires? Did this list inspire you to seek them out or avoid them forever? Share your thoughts in the comments—there’s a strange comfort in gathering around a bad movie during the holidays.