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Walking In A Winter Movie Wonderland: Christmas Films for Adults

Watching films is a regular Christmas tradition for many, right alongside home decorating and meeting up with family and friends for special meals and swapping presents. In these COVID-19 quarantine times, seeing a movie at home might be one of the safest celebration options.

Here is a list of 40 different holiday-related films to borrow for free from the library that span a wide variety of genres, including classic dramas, musicals, romance, action films, family melodramas, comedies and horror flicks. There are many options to fit your particular film tastes or mood, and related links are included for the films that are based on books.

Season's greetings and happy home viewing!

Classics and Musicals

It's a Wonderful Life

It's A Wonderful Life

Small town banker George Bailey reconsiders suicide with the help of his guardian angel, Clarence.

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol

This holiday morality tale by Charles Dickens follows the life and regrets of one extremely stingy businessman, Ebenezer Scrooge. The book has been adapted into many films and other stories, including a film about Dickens writing the story, The Man Who Invented Christmas.

Christmas in Connecticut

Christmas in Connecticut

A single New York food writer pretending to be a Connecticut farm wife for work suddenly falls in love with a returning World War II veteran.

Joyful Noise

A small-town Georgia church choir competes as an underdog in a national competition.

Little Women

Little Women

This classic Louisa May Alcott novel about four sisters has been turned into several films and television adaptations. It contains a very memorable New England Christmas scene that's been turned into its own children's book. The novel is also available at the library in Spanish.

Meet Me in St. Louis

Meet Me in St. Louis

Spend a year with the Smith family as they look forward to the 1904 World's Fair. One of the film's most memorable scenes is Judy Garland's performance of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas."

The Preacher's Wife

A guardian angel helps a struggling New York City pastor restore his faith and marriage. This 1996 film updates the 1947 film The Bishop's Wife.

The Shop Around the Corner

The Shop Around the Corner

Based on a 1937 Hungarian play, two feuding co-workers in a leather goods store  inadvertently fall in love during the holiday time via anonymous letters. Remakes include the 1998 film You've Got Mail and the musicals  She Loves Me and In the Good Old Summertime.

White Christmas

White Christmas

Two World War II veterans/performers and a pair of sisters put on a show to save a failing Vermont inn. Irving Berlin's popular Christmas song has also been turned into a children's picture book.

Drama and Family Dramas

Almost Christmas

Almost Christmas

The dysfunctional Meyers family consisting of a retired widower, his four adult children and other relatives holds their first Christmas celebration after the death of their wife/mother. Internal squabbling and hilarity ensue in this drama/comedy.

Black Nativity

Black Nativity

In this modern reinterpretation of the Langston Hughes play, an evicted Baltimore teen learns about the importance of family when he is sent to New York City to spend Christmas with his estranged grandparents.

Four Christmases

Four Christmases

Married couple Kate and Brad have to individually visit their four divorced parents and siblings for Christmas—all in one chaotic day.

Home for the Holidays

Home for the Holidays

Claudia, a divorced single mom who has just been fired from her job, goes home alone to celebrate Christmas with her dysfunctional family.

Joyeux Noel

Joyeux Noël

This Academy Award-nominated film dramatized the real-life temporary Christmastime truce between French, German and Scottish troops during World War I.

Love the Coopers

Love the Coopers

Four generations of the flawed Cooper family gather together under one roof for Christmas. What could possibly go wrong?

Nothing like the Holidays

Nothing Like the Holidays

Family misunderstandings are sorted out and romances are rekindled in this comedy/drama when the Rodriguez family comes together for one final Christmas.

Tangerine

Tangerine

Sin-Dee Rella, a transgender working girl who was just released from jail, roams around Hollywood on Christmas Eve in search of her cheating ex-boyfriend.

Romance

The Apartment

The Apartment

Insurance company worker Bud lets his managers use his Upper West Side apartment for romantic affairs. Complications follow when Bud falls in love his boss's ex-mistress, Fran.

The Best Man Holiday

The Best Man Holiday

A group of college friends reunite to celebrate a Christmas weekend together, reigniting rivalries and romances.

Bridget Jones's Diary

Bridget Jones's Diary

In this modern take on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Bridget Jones spends the year navigating love and self-improvement. The novel is available as a book and e-book in English and an e-book in Spanish.

Carol

Carol

Aspiring artist and holiday toy store clerk Theresa becomes romantically intrigued by elegant divorcé Carol in this film adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel, The Price of Salt.

The Holiday

The Holiday

A London newspaper columnist and Los Angeles film producer swap homes for the holidays and find new, local love interests while on vacation.

Last Christmas

Last Christmas

Kate, an aspiring singer stuck in a dead-end job as a Christmas store elf, is encouraged to improve her life by Tom, a mysterious and handsome stranger.

Love Actually

Love, Actually

Eight different couples in London sort out their complicated love lives during Christmastime.

While You Were Sleeping

While You Were Sleeping

Chicago transit worker Lucy saves a handsome commuter from being run over by a train on Christmas Day. Then she gets mistaken for being his fiancé when she visits him in a local hospital.

Surprise, Yes, It's a Christmas Movie

Batman Returns

Batman Returns

Batman spars with Catwoman and the Penguin during the winter holidays in this superhero film.  

Die Hard

Die Hard

New York Detective John McClane has to save his wife and several other Christmas party hostages who are taken prisoner by German terrorists in a Los Angeles skyscraper.

Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3

Superhero Tony Stark undergoes an emotional and philosophical transformation in this superhero reimagination of A Christmas Carol.

Jurassic World

Jurassic World

Who wouldn't want to go to a dinosaur theme park during their Christmas vacation?

L.A. Confidential

Three police officers investigate a series of unusual murders in 1950s Los Angeles. Based on the noir novel by James Ellroy, available as a part of the L.A. Quartet and translated in Spanish

The Nightmare Before Christmas

The Nightmare Before Christmas 

Halloween "Pumpkin King" Jack Skellington attempts to take over Christmas in this dark, musical stop-animation film. A children's picture book version is available.

Rent

Rent

Eight East Village friends experience love and loss over the course of a year in this 2005 film adaptation of the award-winning 1996 Broadway musical, which, in turns, updates Giacomo Puccini's 1895 opera, La Boheme.  

Sleepless in Seattle

Sleepless in Seattle

Baltimore reporter Annie falls in love with Seattle architect Sam while listening to his voice on a talk radio show during Christmas. Will they ever meet in person?

Comedy and Horror Films

A Bad Moms Christmas

A Bad Moms Christmas

Three overworked, underappreciated young mothers have their holiday plans derailed when their own mothers unexpectedly visit town.  

Black Christmas

Black Christmas

A group of college sorority sisters are murdered one-by-one just before the Christmas break in this 2019 slasher film remake.

Office Christmas Party

Office Christmas Party

A lot of bad behavior happens at this Chicago corporate Christmas party.

Krampus

Krampus

Instead of a visit from Santa Claus, the Engel family is haunted by the demonic Krampus during the holidays. This horror tale spawned three graphic novels and an  e-audio book.

The Night Before

The Night Before

Three New York City friends have one last holiday hurrah in this raunchy adult comedy.

Trading Places

A Wall Street commodities trader and a con artist swap lives as part of a bet in this 1983 adult comedy.

A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas

A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas

Former best friends Harold and Kumar are reunited and go on a wild adventure when they try to find a replacement Christmas tree for the one they accidentally burn down.

Other Christmas reading recommendations and holiday delights: