A Castle For Christmas
Two Hollywood icons join forces for this – let’s be honest – cringey looking Christmas movie. We will, of course, be watching.
Newly released, this film follows author Sophie Brown (Brooke Shields) as she travels to Scotland. She’s hoping to buy a castle of her own, but the curmudgeonly owner Duke Myles (Cary Elwes) doesn’t want to sell to a snooty American. Constantly butting heads as she moves in and he prepares to move out… can you see where this is going?
Dash & Lily (Season 1, 8 Episodes)
On the other end, Dash & Lily is a rom-com that kind of balances between cringe and cute - like other Netflix hits To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before or The Kissing Booth. Probably because, just like those movies, this was based on a YA novel.
Lily (Midori Francis) is a shy, Christmas-loving hopeless romantic and Dash (Austin Abrams) is a cynical Grinch of sorts. Both in New York over the holidays, they find themselves trading a notebook back and forth to get to know one another in this festive miniseries.
RELATED: Best Aussie Christmas movies to stream
The Princess Switch 3: Romancing The Star
The Vanessa Hudgens Cinematic Universe continues!
If you haven’t seen the first installment of The Princess Switch, the concept is a play on the classic Prince and the Pauper tale with two lookalikes swapping lives temporarily. In this case, American baker Stacy De Novo swapped places with Lady Margaret Delacourt, Duchess of Montenaro, when Stacy travelled to Belgravia to win a prestigious baking competition. In the second film, a third character played by Vanessa Hudgens entered the mix: Margaret's evil cousin Lady Fiona.
What chaos awaits in the third installment? Well, you’ll have to tune in, but we can say that it involves theft of an important item from The Vatican. Yes, that's the direction we're taking: heists. You can watch the trailer below. Story continues after video.
Love Hard
Another new flick to catch in 2021, Love Hard has a plot that's a little harder to get behind - but a cast that's absolutely cute.
Nina Dobrev (The Vampire Diaries), Jimmy O. Yang (Silicon Valley, Crazy Rich Asians), Darren Barnett (Never Have I Ever), Harry Shum Jr (Glee), James Saito (Dash & Lily, Always Be My Maybe) and more star in the film.
Plot-wise, it's about an unlucky in love LA girl who thinks she's falling for an East Coast guy on a dating app - only to surprise him for the holidays and realise she's been catfished. Whoops?
Let It Snow
Based on the book by John Green, Let It Snow is a teen Christmas movie with a stacked cast. Kiernan Shipka (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Isabela Merced (Instant Family), Mitchell Hope (Descendants), Jacob Batalon (Spiderman) and more star in the feel-good small town flick.
When a snowstorm hits town on Christmas Eve, a group of high school seniors face highs and lows in their friendships and love lives as they descend upon the local Waffle Town for the party to end all parties. It's cheesy, sweet and snowy. What more could you want?
Holidate
Aussie hottie Luke Bracey lands another heartthrob role in Holidate, starring alongside American Horror Story star Emma Roberts (though, this performance is more aligned with her Poppy Moore days from Wild Child).
Joining forces to become platonic plus ones on New Year's Eve, Sloane (Roberts) and Jackson (Bracey) decide to become one another's holidates for special occasions and festive events. From St Patrick's Day to Halloween, they've got each other's backs. And, of course, they've agreed to be just friends. So you know where that's going.
A California Christmas: City Lights
Our favourite thing about this one, is that the actors Lauren Swickard and Josh Swickard actually met filming Roped – another cheesy film you can watch on Netflix – fell in love, got married and lived out their real life rom com fantasy. Then they filmed California Christmas and NOW they’re in a soon-to-be-released sequel. Life doesn’t get much sweeter.
One year after Callie and Joseph fell in love on her farm (which he was sent to destroy but, you know, didn't) we check in with the lovebirds. Happier than ever running their dairy farm and winery, he's called home to the big city for family obligations and their romance is derailed. We wonder if they'll work it out and save Christmas? 10/10 will tune in to find out.
The Holiday Calendar
Another cheesy Christmas rom-com? Yes! And this time starring a different Vampire Diaries alum, the loveable Kat Graham. Struggling photographer Abby (Graham) inherits an antique holiday advent calendar from her grandfather, realising it posesses magical powers to predict the future. And of course she's got a friend, Josh (Quincy Brown), who she's not exactly interested in but not not interested in. If you get us.
Father Christmas Is Back
Liz Hurley? Say no more. But if you want to know a little more, this recently released festive flick is about four feuding sisters, who get a crash course in family when their long-lost father shows up for Christmas at their posh ancestral manor. Kelsey Grammer (Frasier), John Cleese (Fawlty Towers), Nathalie Cox (Star Wars), Talulah Riley (Pride & Prejudice), Kris Marshall (Love Actually), April Bowlby (Two And A Half Men) and more.
Midnight At The Magnolia
This movie was edging closer to Hallmark than most, but we still dug it. The film follows lifelong besties Maggie (Natalie Hall) and Jack (Evan Williams), who pretend to have fallen in love in order to boost ratings on their radio show in the hopes of getting picked up for a national broadcast. Because that's going to go according to plan, Maggie and Jack.
The Knight Before Christmas
When she's not ruling her own cinematic universe as a trio of royals, Vanessa Hudgens is playing basically the same person as Brooke, a high school science teacher in Ohio. Living in 1300s England, squire Cole Christopher Frederick Lyons (Josh Whitehouse) is transported to the present day where he runs into Brooke (literally, she hits him with her car).
Assuming this weird dude has amnesia, and has not actually travelled to the future, Brooke takes Cole in and acclimatises him to modern life. With snowy scenes and festive cheer, this is basically like an even cheesier version of the Christina Applegate film Just Visiting.
Elf
You either love it or you hate it (but chances are you probably love it), Will Ferrell's Elf is certainly a modern day Christmas classic. We need not elaborate.
How The Grinch Stole Christmas
Another classic, How The Grinch Stole Christmas is essential holiday viewing. The Grinch (Jim Carrey) lives in snowy solitude just outside the festive town of Whoville. He hates the townsfolk and despises Christmas until he meets Cindy Lou (Taylor Momesn), a little girl who believes in the spirit of the season.
