Underrated Christmas Movies Worth Watching Year-Round

Directed by Sergio Pablos · Streaming on Netflix

The most visually stunning Christmas movie of the last decade, and one of the most emotionally honest origin stories for Santa Claus ever put to screen. Klaus is the first Netflix animated film to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature — and it earned it. Almost no one watched it. Almost everyone who does cries. If you've somehow missed it, this is the one to fix first.

Perfect for: Anyone who loved classic 2D animation and wants a Christmas movie that's new but feels timeless.

Directed by Brian Henson · Streaming on Disney+

Michael Caine plays Ebenezer Scrooge completely straight opposite a cast of Muppets — a creative decision that has no right to work and yet produces the definitive screen adaptation of A Christmas Carol. "It Feels Like Christmas" is the most underrated Christmas song ever written. People overlook this because it's "a Muppet movie," which is the wrongest possible take.

Perfect for: Every age. Genuinely. Kids love the Muppets; adults are wrecked by the emotional third act.

Directed by Tim Burton · Streaming on Max

Christmas is not the setting of Batman Returns — it's the soul of it. The film opens with a Christmas tree lighting, closes in snow, and weaves holiday imagery into every scene. Selina Kyle's apartment is decorated with Christmas lights. The Penguin uses Christmas gift-buying as cover. Tim Burton made the most beautiful, melancholy Christmas movie of 1992, and almost nobody calls it that.

Perfect for: Fans of dark, stylish Christmas movies who want something that feels nothing like a holiday film and everything like one.

Directed by Joe Dante · Streaming on Max

The Mogwai is a Christmas gift. The horror is unleashed on Christmas Eve. The entire film's premise only works because Christmas exists. Gremlins is inextricably a Christmas movie — it's just also a horror comedy, which throws people off. Once you accept that it qualifies, it becomes one of the most rewatchable Christmas films in the canon.

Perfect for: Adults who want a Christmas movie with genuine scares and laughs. Not for young kids.

Directed by Nancy Meyers · Streaming on Netflix, Peacock

Chronically underrated as a Christmas movie because people dismiss it as a generic rom-com. It isn't. The Holiday is Nancy Meyers at peak Nancy Meyers — beautiful houses, believable heartbreak, and the rare Christmas movie where the love story feels genuinely earned. Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Jack Black. The ensemble alone should have made this a classic.

Perfect for: Christmas movie nights that need something romantic, warm, and smart.

Directed by Ted Demme · Streaming on Amazon Prime

Denis Leary plays a burglar who takes a deeply dysfunctional married couple (Kevin Spacey, Judy Davis) hostage on Christmas Eve and ends up inadvertently fixing their marriage. One of the sharpest, darkest Christmas comedies ever made — genuinely funny, genuinely uncomfortable, genuinely moving. Almost completely forgotten. Should be in every Christmas rotation.

Perfect for: Adults who are tired of wholesome Christmas movies and want something with bite.

Directed by Jon Turteltaub · Streaming on Disney+, Tubi

Sandra Bullock at her absolute best as a lonely transit worker who accidentally gets mistaken for the fiancée of a comatose stranger — and falls for his brother instead. Set across Christmas and New Year's, it captures the particular loneliness and warmth of the holidays better than almost any film. Massively underappreciated.

Perfect for: Fans of 90s romantic comedies and anyone who wants a Christmas movie about loneliness that ends in warmth.

Directed by Mark Sandrich · Streaming on Peacock

This is the film that introduced "White Christmas" — Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, a song that became the best-selling single of the 20th century, and a movie almost nobody watches anymore. Holiday Inn is charming, funny, and historically essential. The fact that White Christmas (1954) eclipsed it in cultural memory doesn't make it any less great.

Perfect for: Classic film fans. A time capsule of mid-century American Christmas charm.

Directed by Clay Kaytis · Streaming on Netflix

Kurt Russell as a rock-and-roll Santa Claus who gets busted by a couple of kids, then has to race to save Christmas. The premise sounds dumb. The execution is completely delightful. Russell commits fully to a version of Santa that is simultaneously canonical and entirely new. One of the better Christmas films Netflix has produced.

Perfect for: Families with kids who want something modern and fun.

Directed by Tim Burton · Streaming on Disney+

Debated, yes — but the climax is Christmas, the snow is ice sculptures, and the loneliness at the film's heart is a specifically Christmas loneliness. Edward Scissorhands is a fairy tale about belonging, and it reaches its most devastating emotional moment at Christmas. Whether it "counts" is worth arguing about. Either way, it's worth watching.

Perfect for: Fans of Tim Burton, dark fairy tales, and Christmas movies that make you feel things.