The Best Christmas Movies On Amazon Prime Video

As the Christmas season approaches, you’re probably ready to get into the holiday spirit with some on-brand movies — and if we’re putting aside all but one streaming service, there are some pretty great selections on Amazon’s Prime Video. I’m just as susceptible to holiday cheer as anyone else, and whether they’re from my childhood or new discoveries, I like to settle in on a chilly early winter night with a holiday-themed movie. So what are some great selections on Prime Video?

This list obviously excludes anything that requires a secondary subscription — looking at you, movies available on Prime through Max and Starz — as well as anything you have to pay to rent, but there are still some pretty solid holiday movies to choose from on the online retailer’s proprietary streamer. From dramatic family Christmases to a sprawling British ensemble comedy to one of the most famous (and emotional) Christmas movies in cinematic history, here are some films you can find on Amazon Prime to help you start feeling that holiday spirit, even if you’re a total Grinch or Scrooge at heart.

Unfortunately, a lot of people understand exactly how stressful it is to go home for the holidays and deal with your dramatic family; “The Family Stone” is a particularly dramatic version of what might happen during one family’s time together during Christmas. Directed and written by Thomas Bezucha, the 2005 dark comedy centers around matriarch and patriarch Sybil and Kelly Stone — played by Diane Keaton and Craig T. Nelson — who live in New England and welcome their five children and their partners home for a particularly fraught holiday season. Their eldest son Everett (Dermot Mulroney) decides to bring his girlfriend Meredith Morton (Sarah Jessica Parker), a tightly-wound career woman, back to his family’s home in New England, but Meredith has trouble bonding with the Stones … until she bonds a little too much with Everett’s younger brother Ben (Luke Wilson). 

With a supporting cast that includes Rachel McAdams, Claire Danes, Elizabeth Reaser, and Tyrone Giordano, “The Family Stone” is an unexpectedly layered Christmas movie, putting the family drama front and center and using the holidays as an inciting incident for the Stones to clear the air with each other. Plus, it’s unlikely that your family is quite as frustrating as the Stones, so there’s that.

I should be honest and say that I don’t know if “Love Actually” is a good movie, per se, I actually find a lot of it really infuriating. (Don’t get me started on the plotline where Colin Firth purchases a woman to clean his house with whom he cannot communicate due to a language barrier; they get engaged knowing nothing about each other to prove that love transcends language or something, and it’s gross.) I cannot deny, though, that “Love Actually” has become a total Christmas classic. Richard Curtis’ sprawling 2003 ensemble rom-com features a who’s who of British acting legends — including but not limited to Firth, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy, Rowan Atkinson, Liam Neeson, and American icon Laura Linney — in their own vignettes that all eventually end up intersecting. For example: Thompson’s beleaguered stay-at-home mom Karen, who’s married to Rickman’s cheating design executive Harry, eventually reveals that her brother David (Grant) is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom … forming a connection between two narratives that the audience didn’t know were connected before. This sort of thing happens a lot during the movie, to varying degrees of success.

I’ll say this: if Nighy dancing around in the loudest shirts known to man and singing a love song with the word “Christmas” hastily shoved into the chorus doesn’t put you in the holiday spirit, I don’t know what to tell you. “Love Actually” is a controversial, divisive movie, but it’s a holiday staple no matter what.

You can’t talk about great Christmastime movies without bringing up “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Frank Capra’s 1946 classic introduces audiences to George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart), who, in a moment of sheer desperation and depression, is considering ending his own life; luckily, these thoughts trigger the arrival of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers), who watches flashbacks of George’s entire life along with the viewer. George has, it should be said, not had an easy time throughout his life. Deaf in one ear and repeatedly cheated out of money by the family business’ board member Henry Potter (Lionel Barrymore), George is despondent, especially after he learns that his uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) lost a sum of money they sorely needed (though the truth is that Potter just stole it). When George leaps from a bridge into a river, Clarence rescues him and shows him an alternate timeline where he never existed, which terrifies George and makes him realize that life is worth living.

“It’s a Wonderful Life” is, to be fair, pretty dark at times, but it’s a holiday staple for a reason; Stewart is phenomenal as George, and the movie’s overall message that life is a beautiful gift is pretty important. If you’re looking for a classic in the genre, look no further than Capra’s movie, which has only gained new appreciation and new fans across multiple decades.

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Thank God that Nancy Meyers, the queen of cozy movies, has a Christmas movie — even though it’s never a bad time to queue up “The Holiday.” Released in 2006 and written and directed by Meyers, “The Holiday” introduces us to two very different women: lovelorn newspaper columnist Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) and emotionally unavailable film trailer editor Amanda Woods (Cameron Diaz). Desperate to escape their circumstances, the two women agree to swap homes for the Christmas holiday, so Amanda heads to Iris’ remote cottage in Surrey, England, and Iris enjoys the luxury of Amanda’s massive estate in Los Angeles. While they’ve swapped, both Iris and Amanda meet people who will eventually change their lives. Iris forms a close friendship with Amanda’s elderly neighbor, a famous Hollywood screenwriter named Arthur Abbott (Eli Wallach), as well as a composer named Miles Dumont (Jack Black) who unexpectedly charms her. Over in Surrey, Amanda, resistant to a new relationship, meets Iris’ handsome (and widowed) brother Graham (Jude Law) and his daughters Sophie and Olivia (Miffy Englefield and Emma Pritchard), finding herself surprised by how quickly she falls for the single father.

“The Holiday” is completely charming, thanks in large part to the performances from the four lead actors; even people who claim they’re allergic to romantic comedies can’t help but love this movie. Pair it with fuzzy slippers and a mug of warm tea and thank me later.

A sequel to writer-director Malcolm D. Lee’s 1999 hit “The Best Man” that takes place during the holidays, “The Best Man Holiday” didn’t come out until 2013, but it ended up joining the ranks as a Christmastime classic. The film follows up with Harper Stewart (Taye Diggs), a successful novelist struggling with writer’s block as he tries to write another hit; when he’s given the idea to write a biography of his former friend and football star Lance Sullivan (Morris Chestnut), he decides to attempt the project even though he and Lance have largely fallen out of touch throughout the years. As he tries to reconnect with Lance, Harper also has to prepare for the birth of his child with his wife Robyn (Sanaa Lathan), and when Lance figures out that Harper is trying to gather information for a project, the conflict between the two friends only gets worse.

“The Best Man Holiday” is a deceptively emotional film, and it uses Christmas as a setting for the massive ensemble cast to air their grievances and settle their differences (alongside Diggs, Lathan, and Chestnut, the movie also stars Nia Long, Harold Perrineau, and Regina Hall, among others). You might be surprised by just how deep the emotions run in “The Best Man Holiday,” so maybe have a pack of tissues on hand for this selection.

Based on the novel of the same name by Melissa Hill and directed by Daryl Wein (with a screenplay by Tamara Chestna), “Something from Tiffany’s” — which is actually an Amazon Studios original — sets its characters up with a wild dilemma right out of the gate. After Rachel Meyer (Zoey Deutch) rushes to her boyfriend Gary Wilson’s (Ray Nicholson) bedside after he’s hit by a car outside of the Tiffany’s store in Manhattan, she finds an engagement ring with his belongings; unfortunately, it actually belongs to Ethan Greene (Kendrick Sampson), the EMT who helped him after the accident. After Ethan goes to the hospital to check on both Gary and Rachel, he ends up spending a full day with Rachel and bonding with her, but when Gary uses Ethan’s ring to propose to Rachel, things take a turn. (Ethan ends up with a pair of earrings that Gary bought for Rachel, but because his girlfriend Vanessa, played by Shay Mitchell, likes them, he can’t explain the real situation). Both couples are then thrown into turmoil, and you can probably figure out that, by the end of the film, Ethan and Rachel are an item.

“Something from Tiffany’s” is a charming entry into the (admittedly niche) “romantic Christmas movie” genre, and Deutch and Sampson are both excellent in the lead roles. Since this is definitely a newer Christmas movie, you might not have caught this one yet … and luckily, it’s on Prime Video now.

“The Holdovers” is, without question, a Christmas movie. It takes place at Christmas and centers around people who get lonely around the holidays. What more could you possibly ask for? Alexander Payne’s brilliant film — which earned a rave review from /Film when it premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival — stars Paul Giamatti as a stubborn, strict boarding school teacher named Paul Hunham, who ends up staying behind at Barton Academy during the Christmas holidays to supervise any kids who, for whatever reason, couldn’t join their own families for the school break. One of those students is Angus Tully (newcomer Dominic Sessa), who, to put it lightly, has a terrible attitude about the entire endeavor; luckily, both Angus and Paul’s worst impulses are curbed (somewhat) by the presence of Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the manager of the school’s cafeteria who stays at Barton for the holiday after her son died in combat in the Vietnam War. The three form a somewhat uneasy friendship that becomes a basically unbreakable bond as they share secrets and open to up one another, even celebrating New Year’s Eve as a trio.

At the 96th Academy Awards in early 2024, Randolph took home her first Oscar for her supporting role — which she richly deserved — and “The Holdovers” competed for best picture, but even though it didn’t win, fans started fantasizing on social media about watching the movie every single year to celebrate the holidays. If you want to add “The Holdovers” to the Christmas movie Hall of Fame, now’s your chance, because it’s streaming on Prime Video.