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So many of the great Christmas movies came out in the 20th century that the best modern holiday flicks are comparatively underrepresented in roundups.
It doesn’t help when there are so many generic Christmas movies on cable and streaming that they all blur together.
That’s why Watch With Us is taking the Christmas spirit into our own hands and sharing the five best holiday movies to watch right now, as ranked by Rotten Tomatoes.
And unlike some other lists, all of the films we selected came out in the 21st century.
5. ‘Anna and the Apocalypse’ (2017)
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Rotten Tomatoes Score: 77 percent
Anna and the Apocalypse may be the world’s only Christmas movie musical that doubles as a zombie action flick. The biggest surprise is that it manages to be all of those things at a high level, and the songs are fantastic. Regardless, this film has yet to break into the larger pantheon of holiday flicks despite having the makings of a new holiday tradition.
Ella Hunt stars as Anna, a Scottish girl who’s ready to leave behind her small-town life despite the misgivings of her father, Tony (Mark Benton), and her best friend, John (Malcolm Cumming), who is desperately in love with her. There’s some genuine Christmas cheer before the zombie apocalypse throws Anna and her friends into a kill-or-be-killed world. Anna’s got big final girl energy, but even that may not be able to save herself or her friends.
Anna and the Apocalypse is streaming on Tubi.
4. ‘The Man Who Invented Christmas’ (2017)
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Rotten Tomatoes Score: 79 percent
Who’s the man who invented Christmas? Charles Dickens, a name you’ll know quite well if you paid attention in English class. Dickens (Dan Stevens) didn’t invent the actual holiday, but the celebration as we know it largely came out of his breakthrough novel, A Christmas Carol. The Man Who Invented Christmas takes a fictionalized approach to Dickens’ life as he races to finish his manuscript to save his family from dire financial straits.
Dickens has a lot of unresolved anger towards his father, John Dickens (Jonathan Pryce), which strains his relationship with his family. If Dickens’ wife, Catherine Dickens (Morfydd Clark), can’t emotionally reach him, then maybe his characters can. One by one, Dickens encounters his own creations, including his now-iconic miser, Ebenezer Scrooge (Christopher Plummer).
The Man Who Invented Christmas is streaming on HBO Max.
3. ‘A Boy Called Christmas’ (2021)
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Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83 percent
A Boy Named Christmas offers its own spin on the origins of the holiday, and it’s a pretty good fantasy flick as well. In an age long before the holiday season we know and love, Nikolas (Henry Lawfull), and his pet mouse, Miika (Stephen Merchant), had to stay home while Nikolas’ father, Joel (Michiel Huisman), accepted a mission from the king to bring back hope to the kingdom.
When Nikolas discovers a map that proves that the elf kingdom Elfheim is real, he and Miika race into the unknown to find Joel and complete his quest. There’s magic and mystical creatures awaiting on their journey, but the greatest power Nikolas has is his heart and his spirit, both of which have a profound effect on the world.
A Boy Called Christmas is streaming on Netflix.
2. ‘8-Bit Christmas’ (2021)
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Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84 percent
There aren’t a lot of people left who grew up wanting a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle like Ralphie in A Christmas Story. But there’s a whole generation that wanted a Nintendo Entertainment System at the height of its popularity in the ’80s. 8-Bit Christmas borrows a little bit from A Christmas Story and features Neil Patrick Harris as the narrator and the main character, Jake Doyle, in the present.
In 1988, young Jake (Winslow Fegley) is determined to get his own NES for Christmas, even though fate itself seems to be conspiring against him. The older Jake relates the story to his cell phone-obsessed daughter, Annie (Sophia Reid-Gantzert), as he tries to impart the lessons he learned from relentlessly pursuing his dream gift for Christmas.
8-Bit Christmas is streaming on HBO Max.
1. ‘Elf’ (2003)
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Rotten Tomatoes Score: 86 percent
In retrospect, it’s not too shocking that Elf is considered one of the top Christmas movies of the 21st century. This film has had 22 years to build a following through endless cable repeats, and it’s always streaming for the holidays. Will Ferrell stars as Buddy, an orphan who grew up at the North Pole thinking that he was just a really tall elf. When his adoptive father, Papa Elf (Bob Newhart), finally tells Buddy he’s human, the latter journeys to New York City to meet his father, Walter Hobbs (James Caan).
Walter had no idea he had a son, and he’s unprepared for the level of chaos that Buddy brings into his life. Buddy has a few manic episodes when he learns that the outside world doesn’t conform to his expectations. But his spirit is sincere, and Buddy may be just the right guy to help Walter and everyone else in NYC rediscover what Christmas means to them.
Elf is streaming on HBO Max.
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