The Best Christmas Movies On Disney Plus

Christmas movies are a genre unto themselves, even if said genre is a tent big enough to have accommodated virtually all other genres you could name over the years. Depending on what kind of holiday entertainment you favor, your best option for Christmas could be a streamer section filled with posters of couples wearing red and green sweaters, a horror-focused service, or something else entirely. But for fans of more traditional Christmas fare, Disney+ is one of the streamers with the widest array of options — which makes a lot of sense when you think about what kind of movie Disney Studios has specialized in over the decades.

The number of Christmas-themed feature films, shorts, and specials available on Disney+ is almost too great to count. The streamer's selection includes several stone-cold classics as well as a handful of movies that probably landed their directors on the Naughty List. To help make your December picks easier, we've compiled a list of 11 Christmas movies on Disney+ that are especially noteworthy and worth your time. Of course, the definition of "Christmas movie" covers not just films that explicitly bill themselves as such, but any movie that takes place during Christmas and incorporates its spirit. Pour yourself some hot chocolate, snuggle under the blankets, and have some happy viewings!

To kick things off, we'll start with arguably the most emblematic Disney-brand Christmas film — which is to say, the defining Christmas movie starring Mickey Mouse and the gang. Although Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Minnie, and Daisy have appeared in a number of Christmas-themed features and shorts over the decades, 1999's "Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas" was when the studio really put its all into creating a platonic, note-perfect Christmas film in the Mickey Mouse universe. It's so perfect, it quickly became a staple of holiday viewing for families around the world.

A straight-to-video Walt Disney Television Animation production, "Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas" is an anthology film made up of three holiday tales. In the first, "Donald Duck: Stuck on Christmas," Huey, Dewey, and Louie (all voiced by Russi Taylor) wish for it to be Christmas every day and wind up stuck in a time loop. In the second, "A Very Goofy Christmas," Goofy (Bill Farmer) becomes determined to convince his disillusioned son Max (Shaun Fleming) that Santa Claus is real. In the third, "Mickey and Minnie's Gift of the Magi," Mickey (Wayne Allwine) and Minnie (Russi Taylor) both work hard to buy each other special Christmas gifts.

All three stories are sweet, heartwarming affairs, featuring simple yet beautiful cel animation laced with ideal Christmas cheer, good-natured cartoon humor, and touching lessons about the holiday's spirit of love and togetherness. You could scarcely come up with better family viewing for the chilly afternoon of the 25th.

The fascinating thing about Christmas films as a cultural proposition is that, even at their most orthodox and crowd-pleasing, they are not directives guiding the public's relationship to the holiday so much as reflections of it. When you stop to think about it, for instance, the story of an eight-year-old boy being threatened with violence by two grown men for 100 minutes and responding by essentially torturing them in various ways wouldn't necessarily seem all that Christmas-y on paper. And yet, we have 1990's "Home Alone," the classic Christmas slapstick comedy to end them all, and nobody is weirded out by its status as mandatory December viewing. But why would anyone be? It's always been there, as Christmas as milk and cookies.

The reason "Home Alone" endures, of course, is that it's truly hilarious and memorable viewing, and features Macaulay Culkin in one of the most charismatic child performances in Hollywood history. Directed by family matinee specialist Chris Columbus, "Home Alone" tells the story of Kevin McCallister (Culkin), a put-upon boy from the Chicago suburbs who's accidentally left behind by his family when they travel to Paris for a Christmas vacation. Torn between blissful freedom and fearful helplessness, Kevin finds himself engaging in guerilla warfare against two scary burglars (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern) who decide to raid the McCallister home. Some of the most elaborate feats of slapstick comedy in American film ensue, all bundled together by a playful yet reverential and ultimately family-affirming outlook on Christmas.

A massive box office success, 1995's "While You Were Sleeping" is one of the best Sandra Bullock movies ever, arguably representing the apogee of her run as a romcom superstar. As a matter of fact, the entire movie is narratively built on Bullock's titanic charm and personality, with a premise that requires an entire family of strangers to fall head over heels in love with her in just a few days. And given that she gets the audience to fall for her character, Lucy Eleanor Moderatz, in about five minutes, it's all incredibly believable. Movie magic, you could call it, which is just the ticket for a Christmas-set romance.

A lonely Chicago train fare token collector, Lucy is quietly smitten with daily commuter Peter Callaghan (Peter Gallagher). Her life is changed when Peter is mugged and pushed onto the tracks, and she rescues him, now comatose, leading to a misunderstanding in which she's believed to be his fiancée. While Peter is hospitalized, Lucy gets in with his big, loving family, who welcome her with open arms during Christmas and give her the sense of belonging she's always longed for. She then starts hitting it off with Peter's brother Jack (Bill Pullman), who's initially suspicious of her. That thorny premise is executed so earnestly, with such mastery of the tenets of the feel-good formula, that the movie becomes genuinely life-affirming in its convivial joy — a perfect Christmas movie about how love and camaraderie can't help flourishing, even under the unlikeliest of circumstances.

Like a lot of now-consolidated Christmas classics, 1993's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" was a pretty gutsy gamble, overcoming the odds by believing wholly and unflaggingly in itself — and thus getting the public to believe in it as well. The lush, eye-popping, utterly spectacular effort from director Henry Selick — NOT Tim Burton, mind you, though he did develop the original story and characters and stayed on as a producer — was the first true mainstream breakthrough for feature-length stop-motion animation in the United States and is arguably the film that gave the medium its most astronomical push forward. As if that formal boldness weren't enough, it was also the film that introduced the concept of dark and Gothic Christmas aesthetics to a whole generation, long before it was a year-end retail mainstay.

Then again, how could you not be influenced by such a shrewd holiday crossover? Set in Halloween Town, where various creatures gear up annually to put on a scary extravaganza on October 31, "Nightmare" tells the story of how Pumpkin King Jack Skellington (Chris Sarandon, with Danny Elfman doing the singing), having grown weary of Halloween, decides to lead the townsfolk in taking over Christmas. It's a setup that allows "Nightmare" to skirt the question of whether it's a Halloween or Christmas movie and explore the fun, the significance, and the commonalities of both holidays, having its cake and eating it as a horror-tinged animated fantasy that still ultimately delivers all the tender Christmas sentiment you could want.

One of the most underrated Christmas comedies of the past few years, the Disney+ original film "Noelle" is the kind of light, enjoyable holiday viewing that coasts largely on the comfort of familiar plot beats and the effervescence of its cast. But when you've got two stars as funny, capable, and committed as Anna Kendrick and Bill Hader in the leading roles, that's more than enough. This isn't a movie that will give you much more than what you might expect from the premise and its "snarky but still Disney" packaging, but sometimes that kind of safety is just what Christmas movie night calls for.

"Noelle" is themed around the traditional Christmas lore of Santa Claus running the North Pole alongside Mrs. Claus, overseeing preparations for the yearly gift-giving operation. But here, there's a twist: The last Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, has recently passed away, leaving his son Nick (Hader) — who very much doesn't want to be Santa Claus — to take up the red coat. Panicking just prior to the holiday, Nick flees the North Pole, leaving his younger and much more competent sister, Noelle (Kendrick), to chase him down in Phoenix, Arizona, and convince him to fulfill his familial duty.

As you might expect, things don't go as planned, but Kendrick and Hader perfectly sell their characters' simple and heartfelt arcs of self-understanding; the gags about Christmas bureaucracy are pretty funny; and Shirley MacLaine plays an elderly elf nanny. What's not to love?

A lot of Marvel films take after the personalities of their directors. "Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness" with its over-the-top Sam Raimi horror, "Thor: Ragnarok" with its Taika Waititi goofiness, Chloé Zhao and her unique pitch for "Eternals" — and "Iron Man 3" is really just a classic Shane Black action comedy that happens to star the armored Avenger. The American filmmaker, a longtime collaborator of Robert Downey Jr.'s, turns out to be a perfect fit for the personality of Tony Stark, as both men align in their fondness for cheap tricks and cheesy one-liners, so to speak.

And, like many Shane Black action comedies, "Iron Man 3" also has an undercurrent of pretty honest sentiment beneath the snarkiness and the bombastic violence, which manifests through its Christmas ambiance. Following Stark as he teams up with a boy from rural Tennessee named Harley Keener (Ty Simpkins) to take on the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), the film unfolds during the winter holiday season, setting action scenes amid Christmas decorations and overtly incorporating themes of family, solidarity, and belonging. This is especially evident through Stark's budding friendship with Harley, which leads the billionaire inventor to reflect on his place in the world and the ties that bind him to it. Black has said that he deliberately set the film during Christmas to give the massive ensemble a sense of togetherness and shared experience, a decision that helps make "Iron Man 3" one of the most touching Marvel films.

The title and poster of this 1985 Walt Disney Pictures film might have you thinking it's a pretty traditionally sweet and upbeat Christmas story, but that's not the case. "One Magic Christmas" is, in fact, one of the bleakest, saddest, most emotionally heavy films ever released under the Disney banner, and the very same goes for its place in the overall pantheon of Christmas cinema. If that sounds like a non-recommendation, take it more as a warning, or a disclaimer: This is very much not the Christmas movie you want to watch if you're looking for jolly comfort viewing. But it's still a fascinating and worthwhile Christmas movie all the same if you're up for some counterprogramming.

Mary Steenburgen stars as Ginny Grainger, a wife and mother trying to keep her family together while suffering through economic despondency. To help lift her spirits in time for Christmas, Saint Nicholas himself (Jan Rubeš) sends Gideon (Harry Dean Stanton), a guardian angel, to Ginny's side. As it turns out, Ginny is struggling with an immense amount of grief and lack of fulfillment, which, coupled with the anxiety brought on by her family's situation, is pushing her to the brink of despair.

Somehow, the film lays out the depth of Ginny's suffering without flinching and still takes her on a journey all the way toward hope, gratitude, and, of course, Christmas magic. It's a bold, bizarre tonal gamble for a Disney family film, unlike anything else the studio has made, but Steenburgen and Stanton make it work.

The '90s were a great time for "classic fantasy tropes brushing up against the drabness of real life" films, and "The Santa Clause" is one of the most iconic examples. A feature-length example of Tim Allen's ability to grab even the most absurd fantasy comedy premises by the horns and make them work, the film chronicles the process by which one unremarkable suburban dad literally becomes Santa Claus — a process that writers Leo Benvenuti and Steve Rudnick and director John Pasquin unspool with constant, dutiful attention to all the inherent comedic opportunities.

Allen's character, Scott Calvin, is a toy company marketing director and divorcee who is spending Christmas Eve with his son, Charlie (Eric Lloyd), when he hears strange noises coming from the roof. The ruckus turns out to be Santa Claus himself, whom Scott accidentally causes to fall off the roof and die. At Charlie's insistence, Scott dons Santa's suit and is whisked off by the reindeer to go around the world delivering gifts. It then turns out that Scott has inadvertently activated a legal clause that forces him to take over as the new Santa. Over the following 12 months, he goes through physical and psychological transformations, initially resisting but ultimately embracing his new calling. A lot of beloved Christmas films toy with the holiday's lore and iconography, but few take the time to grapple with the role of Santa as directly as this flick. No wonder "The Santa Clause" went from a '90s one-off to a perennial trilogy.

The concept of a Winnie the Pooh Christmas film is so perfect that it's not much of a surprise that it's been done several times: First, in 1993, with "Seasons of Giving," a direct-to-video release including a special and two episodes of "The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh;" then, in 2002, with "A Very Merry Pooh Year;" and then again in 2007 with "Super Sleuth Christmas Movie," based on the Playhouse Disney show "My Friends Tigger & Pooh." Out of all these, "A Very Merry Pooh Year" is easily the most memorable. It's the absolute right movie to put on if you want to celebrate the holidays in the Hundred Acre Wood.

"A Very Merry Pooh Year" bundles the 1991 Emmy-nominated TV special "Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too" with an all-new tale. The special, presented as a story recounted by Rabbit (Ken Sansom) within the new story, tells of the effort to retrieve a letter to Santa Claus that was mistakenly sent without Pooh's (Jim Cummings) gift request. Meanwhile, in the new story, the Hundred Acre Wood's residents make preparations to ring in the New Year.

Infused with all the warmth, wonder, and whimsy you could want from a Winnie the Pooh adventure, it's the rare example of a holiday movie that makes ideal viewing for both Christmas and New Year's Eve. Though, really, any time of the year would be a good time to spend 65 minutes with this gang.

When George Seaton's 1947 Christmas masterpiece "Miracle on 34th Street" was remade by director Les Mayfield in 1994, there was plenty of logic behind the idea. By updating Seaton's screenplay to modern times and imbuing it with a more en vogue realist sensibility, complete with details only adults would notice and overt reflections on the nature of religious faith, the film could both translate the original's crowd-pleasing strength to a newer time and emphasize its powerful message of belief by contrasting it with an even more cynical world. Nowadays, both movies feel like relics of days gone by, and both are very much worth watching and readily available on Disney+ — though the remake will probably be more accessible viewing for kids unaccustomed to the unique rhythms of Golden Age Hollywood.

Much like the original, Mayfield's "Miracle on 34th Street" is centered around a cheerful elderly man (Richard Attenborough) who gets hired by a cynical event director (Elizabeth Perkins) to play Santa Claus in a department store. He keeps insisting that he's the real Santa Claus and wins over the faith of the director's daughter (Mara Wilson, a child star who's since put Hollywood on blast). Everything ultimately leads to a court case in which the man must persuade the world that he actually is Santa. It's all immensely sincere and pretty much irresistible, a locomotive of Christmas spirit that keeps barreling through skepticism until it's all but impossible not to give in to the magic. Absolutely give it a watch on Christmas if you haven't; better yet, watch both versions.

There is an argument to be made for "The Muppet Christmas Carol" as the single greatest Christmas movie of all time, and, thankfully, it's also on Disney+. Starring a deeply committed Michael Caine in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge, and with a cast made up almost entirely of Muppets save for Scrooge and his relatives, it's also about as perfect as an adaptation of the Charles Dickens novella can get. Nothing is missed, from the quiet despondency of Scrooge's life to the sense of awestruck terror of the Ghosts of Christmas (you'll never see scarier Muppets than these) to the impassioned critique of capitalism underlying it all. It's a wonderful "A Christmas Carol" film even before you get to the fact that Kermit is Bob Cratchit.

Speaking of which, part of the wonder — and, indeed, the Christmas magic — of "The Muppet Christmas Carol" lies in seeing such complex, advanced feats of puppetry accomplished so matter-of-factly, giving the viewer no reason to believe that the Muppets aren't living actors just like Caine. The nimble, stunning showmanship of the Muppets has always been a fantastic engine for big-budget theatrical films, and "The Muppet Christmas Carol" is arguably its purest expression — a film that gets you to believe and invest yourself emotionally in a lonely old man being yanked out of his shell by talking felt animals. Its miraculousness mirrors the enormity of Dickens' theme of love sprouting out from once-barren fields. And, of course, Miss Piggy is incredible as Emily.