Christmas is quickly approaching, with Netflix having released its yearly selection of original festive romantic comedies.
Over the last few years we’ve seen the streaming service take inspiration from the likes of Hallmark and Lifetime to produce cookie-cutter Christmas romcoms guaranteed to numb your mind like one too many mulled wines.
Revolutionary these films are not, but boy, do they hit the spot during the festive season. With titles like The Princess Switch, The Knight Before Christmas and A Castle for Christmas on offer, audiences have learnt that no plot is too ludicrous for a Netflix Christmas romcom. The more time travel, magic, döppelgangers and fictional European royalty on offer, the better.
With that in mind, I’m taking a look at Netflix’s in-house Christmas romcoms and ranking them based on just how ridiculous they are. This list has also been updated for 2022, which means this is the third year in which I’ve driven myself to insanity watching the new slate of films. That, my friends, is what we call journalism for the people.
Which Netflix Christmas romcom will be named the most ridiculous of them all? Keep reading to find out…
19. Holidate
When it was released last year, Holidate carved itself out a niche as the “I’m not like the other girls” of Christmas films. Rather than adopting the standard optimism about the spirit of Christmas, we have two cool young millennials (Emma Roberts and Luke Bracey) who not only swear, smoke and drink – gasp! – but hate the festive season! Qu’elle horreur! But while these things make Holidate a cooler romcom than the others on this list, it’s an infinitely worse Christmas film for it. Sorry, but I actually do want to hear about the power of Christmas to bring people together and also maybe see some magic: sue me!
18. Holiday Rush
One of the more genuinely wholesome films on this list, Holiday Rush stars Romany Malco as a single father of four who’s let go from his job at a commercial radio station. He’s forced to downsize from his privileged life and ends up buying the small local radio station he used to work on with friend and soon-to-be love interest Roxy (Sonequa Martin-Green). Again, it’s a nice enough film, but it’s pretty low down the ridiculousness ratings – honestly, that Rush can make enough money working on local radio to feed a family of five is the most unbelievable thing here.
17. Single All the Way
It’s somewhat surprising that Netflix has taken this long to dip its toe into the LGBT+ Christmas film pond (Hallmark has been doing it for a while, while Kristen bloody Stewart appeared last year in Hulu’s Happiest Season). Single All the Way stars Ugly Betty’s Michael Urie as a perpetually single gay man whose family are always trying to set him up over the festive period. It features all the clichés we’ve come to expect from a Christmas film, but is still cute, if somewhat lacking in ludicrousness (although it definitely picks up a couple of points for starring Jennifer Coolidge). Also, Urie’s character Peter is a social media strategist AKA the most unridiculous job in the world – even if it does mean we get to hear the phrase “Instagays” said in a Christmas film.
16. Holiday in the Wild
Kate (Kristin Davis) is planning to spend her December on a surprise second honeymoon in Zambia; that is, until her husband reveals his plans to leave her. Instead, she heads there on a solo trip where she meets hunky pilot Derek (Rob Lowe). Vibe-wise, there’s far less snow than your average Netflix Christmas romcom, but there are a lot of elephants, which makes this one tough to place. It’s a nice way of switching up the formula, but it’s still lacking that ludicrous Christmas magic.
15. Christmas With You
Just like Let It Snow further down this list, the less intriguingly titled Christmas With You knows that there’s nothing people want more than to fall in love with a popstar. Former teen hearthrob Freddie Prinze Jr here plays a single father who ends up falling for singer Angelina Costa (Aimee Garcia) by way of his superfan teenage daughter. Points are gained for the implausibility of the plot, but lost because this came out in 2022, at a time when the “widowed dad” plot has been wrung dry in these films. Please, I beg, no more dead wives…
14. Let It Snow
There’s more than a hint of Love Actually to this YA novel adaptation, which sees multiple overlapping storylines eventually come together. Fortunately, there’s some moments of ridiculousness, too. Teenager Julie (Isabela Moner) fails to recognise pop star Stuart (Shameik Moore) on a train home, in a scene straight out of the One Direction fanfic I definitely didn’t spend my teenage years reading on Tumblr. There’s also a dramatic car crash at one point and a massive New Year’s Eve party, which, in a post-lockdown world, still feels slightly unbelievable.
13. Christmas Inheritance
Christmas Inheritance tells the story of Ellen (Eliza Taylor), a socialite – do they still really exist? – who’s mostly known for drunkenly getting her underwear out in public and being Generally A Lot. To prove to her CEO father that she’s ready to inherit his company, she must first travel to his conveniently named hometown of Snow Falls to learn about the value of hard work, helping others, etc. There’s an Undercover Boss type of thing going on where Ellen doesn’t want to reveal who she really is and Andie MacDowell is inexplicably in this film for some reason, but otherwise it’s pretty standard.
‘A Castle for Christmas’
