The New Christmas Movies on Netflix, Reviewed

Netflix

It’s the start of the holiday season, a time for celebration, cheer, and, according to the new Christmas movies on Netflix, for ogling ripped himbos as they prance around shirtless in the snow.

The streamer has dropped all four of its 2024 holiday-themed rom-coms for adults (an animated film for kids comes out next week), and they’re decidedly hornier than years past. Sure, a good holiday flick always involves our heroine finding love, preferably with a rustic “real man” once she returns to her hometown, but this year, he’s not wearing a shirt. From Hot Frosty to The Merry Gentlemen, these small-town hunks are ready to show off their goods (in a very PG-13 way).

To celebrate this most wonderful time of the year, Glamour staff members watched all four of these soon-to-be-classics and reviewed each one of the Christmas movies on Netflix for you below. We’d say grab hot cocoa but maybe put it over ice—you’re gonna be sweating.

Meet Me Next Christmas

Release Date: 11/6

Starring: Christina Milian, Devale Ellis, and Kofi Siriboe

A.K.A.: The one that centers around Pentatonix tickets for some reason.

I don’t mean to brag but I’ve seen a lot of holiday movies. For me, they fit into two camps: those that have It, and those that don’t, and Netflix’s Meet Me Next Christmas has It.

It’s right before Christmas and our heroine, Layla (the great pop princess Christina Milian) bumps into Teddy (Devale Ellis) while stocking up on “free” soggy sandwiches at the airport lounge buffet (relatable). Layla has a BF she’s Facetiming with so she doesn’t give Teddy much thought, but she does pay attention to the adonis James (Kofi Siriboe) who sits next to her in the lounge. They don’t exchange numbers, but instead they make a promise that if the fates allow, and they both find themselves unencumbered the following Christmas, they’ll meet at the Pentatonix concert.

Cut to a year later, and Layla is feeling down after being dumped by her cheating boyfriend right before the holidays. Remembering her conversation with James, Layla decides to try and meet him at the show—but it is sold out. Desperate, she seeks the help of a concierge service and gets assigned to Teddy, who vows to help the newly single Layla score a seat.

What results is a series of pleasant vignettes as they try to bring Layla closer to reuniting with James. At one point Layla gets swindled into coughing up $800 for a fake ticket, which seems like…a bit much? It’s here we see Layla’s selflessness and Teddy’s charming relentlessness shine through, and by the time their journey lands them at Teddy’s family’s house, he quickly becomes the frontrunner for her heart over James. But who will she pick in the end?

Meet Me Next Christmas is as bubbly as the champagne they don’t drink on Hallmark, low-key campy, and completely self-aware. The perfect gift-wrapping movie, if you have 105 minutes to spare.

—Brie Schwartz, commerce director

Hot Frosty

Release Date: 11/13

Starring: Lacey Chabert, Dustin Milligan, and Katy Mixon Greer

A.K.A.: Exactly what it sounds like.

I don’t know what I can say about Hot Frosty that Elizabeth Logan didn’t already cover in her brilliant review for Glamour, other than to cosign it wholeheartedly. In these chaotic times, I’m frankly surprised something so pure and unabashedly silly was allowed to be made.

Lacey Chabert—queen of the holiday rom-com—stars as Kathy, a café owner who’s having a not-so-merry Christmas after the death of her husband. She unintentionally brings a chiseled snowman (Schitt’s Creek star Dustin Milligan) to life via a magic scarf and, you guessed it, finds love and a renewed Christmas spirit in the process thanks to his abs and sweet golden retriever-like demeanor.

But the real stars of the film, in my opinion, are all the older women in town who simply cannot hide their lust for Hot Frosty. They serve as the real reminder about the true meaning of Christmas: living life to the fullest, embracing joy, and finding a nice himbo who’s good at home-improvement projects.

—Anna Moeslein, deputy editor

The Merry Gentlemen

Release Date: 11/20

Starring: Britt Robertson, Chad Michael Murray, and Marla Sokoloff

A.K.A.: Chad Michael Murray in a Christmas-themed Magic Mike.

First things first, the question on everyone’s minds: Can Chad Michael Murray dance? The answer is...not really! However, seeing our early-2000s heartthrob grinding while shirtless is still a sight to behold, though probably not for reasons he’d find complimentary.

Like all good male stripper movies, The Merry Gentlemen is big on vibes, loose on plot. Ashley (Britt Robertson) is a big-city dancer who heads back to her small town after being fired and realizes she needs to save her parents’ struggling performing arts venue. So naturally, she recruits our man Chad (a handyman named Luke) and some other meaty locals to start an all-male dance team to raise funds to save it.

Though I respect the effort, our man CMM has little to no rhythm and is completely upstaged by the random bartender and cab driver who appear out of thin air to dance alongside him. I especially enjoyed when the cabbie started doing backflips and dropping into splits, as if that’s a normal thing for a cab driver to be able to do (Christmas magic, I guess?). Also, Chad, I beg, get some K18 for those fried ends!

My biggest gripe with this film? It’s not sexy enough. If the concept is “Magic Mike but in a small town,” the expectation is more Magic Mike, less small town. These very dehydrated, very shredded men are doing a disservice to themselves by only removing their shirts!

Between the watered-down dancing and the chaste relationship between our central characters (they barely get to first base), I’m left wondering, who is this movie for? Tweens? Because it’s certainly too PG for the horny female fan base the film was marketed to.

The saving grace: Millennials will get a kick out of the casting. In addition to Murray, Gia from Full House (Marla Sokoloff) stars as protagonist Ashley’s older sister, Marie, and Aunt Zelda from the OG Sabrina the Teenage Witch (Beth Broderick) is Ashley’s doting small-town mom.

—Sam Reed, senior news and entertainment editor

Our Little Secret

Release Date: 11/27

Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Ian Harding, and Kristin Chenoweth

A.K.A.: LiLo and Mr. Fitz from Pretty Little Liars fall into love and hijinks.

Like all good Christmas movies (Rudolph, Frosty), Our Little Secret begins with an unseen, omnipresent narrator who sets the scene. This one turns out to be main character Avery (Lindsay Lohan)’s dad, and he explains through a delightful if somewhat odd animation the love story between his daughter and childhood friend turned sweetheart Logan (Ian Harding).

The two, he explains, were meant to be until one dreadful night in 2014, when ambitious Avery dumped Logan following his ill-timed, spur of the moment proposal. We are then shown through a delightful little pop-culture montage that we are fast-forwarding to 2024, where both Avery and Logan are now spending the holidays with their respective new partners. When they arrive at the home, they are surprised to find that their sweethearts Cam (Jon Rudnitsky) and Cassie (Katie Baker) are Ciblings (see what I did there), born to literal Mother Kristen Chenoweth (whose name does not begin with a C—it’s Erica).

This is a holiday movie, so Avery and Logan decide to handle this situation in the most illogical way possible. Instead of mentioning they dated (this, Avery says, would make people think about them having S-E-X, and yes she spells it out), they pretend to be strangers in order to keep the peace with the C family. Logan agrees to help Avery win over “meanie” Erica if Avery, who does something that requires an MBA, helps him with a nebulous business proposal to help his stagnating construction career. Does this make any sense? No! Do either of the Cs have any sort of character development or personality besides being foils to our main couple? No! (Although Cam has a bit more personality than Cassie, whose entire persona consists of bouncy hair, changing Logan’s outfits, and texting). Is it completely obvious these two should ditch the Cs and get back together? Of course it is.

But if you can stop yourself from getting hung up on the obvious questions (do none of these people have Instagram?), the film is both entertaining and fun. It helps that both our queen LiLo and Harding can actually act, have charisma, and can banter with the best of them. And it’s chaste enough (no S-E-X) to watch with your friends, cousins, or mom over a glass of wine when everyone’s home. That’s holiday movie perfection.

—Stephanie McNeal, senior editor

Originally Appeared on Glamour