Every holiday season, all the classic seasonal movies you’ve been watching your entire life reappear after their year-long hiatus. From Freeform’s annual 25 Days of Christmas to “Holiday” categories on your favorite streaming platforms, there are plenty of movies to cozy up with. Every platform has its own catalog of holiday favorites, from movies to seasonal episodes of TV series. Some platforms even have original holiday movies and often release new ones each year, like this year’s Falling for Christmas, starring Lindsay Lohan and Chord Overstreet on Netflix.

Hulu is also into the original holiday movie game, with entries like the star-studded Happiest Season that premiered in 2020. Hulu also has several other holiday classics like Jingle All the Way, Elf, and A Christmas Carol. If you’re looking for some holiday options to stream on Hulu, here are seven good ones.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

7 The Nutcracker (1993)

     Warner Bros. Pictures

Almost everyone knows the story of The Nutcracker. From ballets to movies, the story has been retold and re-imagined a million different ways over the years. This version from 1993 on Hulu stars Macaulay Culkin as the Nutcracker and also features performances from the New York City Ballet. It tells the traditional story of a fantasy world where toys come to life and the Nutcracker must save a young girl from the dreaded Mouse King. It’s a fun, fantastical story that is a must-see each holiday season.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

To be fair, The Nutcracker is best enjoyed live in the theatre by your local ballet, or by a traveling show. However, if you’re not able to make it to a live performance watching a movie version will certainly suffice. This isn’t the best iteration of the story, however; it’s still fairly good, and the costumes, choreography, and overall design is so enchanting it’s still worth a watch.

6 A Merry Friggin’ Christmas (2014)

     Phase 4 Films

A Merry Friggin’ Christmas is a 2014 holiday comedy about Boyd (Joel McHale) a guy who is spending Christmas with his estranged, misfit family. But then Boyd realizes he forgot all of his son’s gifts back home and sets out with his father (Robin Williams) to make the eight-hour round-trip to get the gifts under the tree before Christmas morning. The movie premiered in November of 2014, three months after Williams died, and was dedicated to his memory.

A Merry Friggin’ Christmas is your typical holiday movie about a dysfunctional family trying to reconnect around the holidays and overcome their past pains and traumas to reach some kind of heart-warming resolution. While it’s not the funniest holiday movie out there, it’s still a comedy with a few decent laughs featuring great performances from McHale, Williams, and Clark Duke (Hot Tub Time Machine). Christmas movies really aren’t supposed to be groundbreaking blockbusters with deep, complex plots. So if you can go into this movie just looking for something seasonal and fun, it’s really a good watch and may even make it onto your yearly holiday watch list.

5 Happiest Season (2020)

     TriStar Pictures

Until just recently, inclusivity is something that has really lacked in holiday movies. Happiest Season, however, set out to change that. Premiering on Hulu in 2020, it’s about a woman (Kristen Stewart) who is struggling to come out to her conservative parents and tensions rise when her girlfriend joins her while visiting her parents for the holidays. It’s a sweet romantic comedy for the holidays about acceptance, love, family, and being your authentic self. Plus, alongside Stewart, it features a stellar cast including Dan Levy, Aubrey Plaza, Alison Brie, Victor Garber, Mary Steenburgen and Mackenzie Davis.

It’s a sweet movie that finally tells an LGBTQ+-centric holiday story that rom-coms have typically ignored for years and years. That said, it’s obviously still a cliché Christmas movie — they’re all that way. But despite that, Happiest Season is still excellent, and has received generally positive reviews from both critics and audience members. It also received a GLAAD Media Award in 2021 for Outstanding Film-Wide Release.

4 The Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Special (2020)

If you’re a fan of drag, high camp and the Rupaul’s Drag Race franchise, you’ll like The Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Special. Jinkx Monsoon and Ben DeLa Creme are the unofficial “queens of Christmas” and deliver a bright, fun, campy holiday romp complete with great performances, laughs and gorgeous costumes. When you pull back the curtain of fun that surrounds the special, there’s a really poignant message about being able to create your own holiday traditions and emphasizing that family is who you choose.

Jinkx and DeLa complement each other perfectly and are so much fun to watch. The special is full of crude humor and all the dazzling elements typical of most other drag shows and specials, but the Jinkx and DeLa flair can be spotted from a mile away, making it a unique watch. If you’re looking for something that’s just loads of fun and is guaranteed to make you giggle, The Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Special is a must.

3 The Holiday (2006)

     Sony Pictures Releasing

Jack Black in a holiday rom-com might sound crazy, but The Holiday was actually a great role for him. Premiering in 2006, The Holiday is about two women (Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz) who arrange a house swap to get out of their town and try to escape heartbreak during the holidays. One is in LA; the other is in London. But of course, during their swap each woman meets a local guy (Black, Jude Law) and falls in love.

Is it cliché and predictable? Sure. But The Holiday is a really great movie. It’s sweet and fun and actually funny at points — mainly thanks to Black. It’s a warm, fluffy holiday movie that you could honestly enjoy any time of year, but watching it during the season makes it that much more special. There’s not much that differentiates The Holiday from any other traditional rom-com, except maybe the plot is a little more unique. But even still, it’s worthy of being on your yearly watchlist every year, especially if you’re a hopeless romantic looking for something that’ll make you smile.

2 Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)

     Universal Pictures

Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas is a holiday classic. From the book to the song to the variety of movies, it’s a well-known, well-loved story that makes its rounds every single year. Perhaps the most well-known version, aside from the animated classic, is the 2000 live action movie starring Jim Carrey as the Grinch. Visually, the movie is very impressive. From the set design to the costumes to Carrey’s transformation into the Grinch, it’s all incredible. It’s also well-written. It stays true to the original story and showcases a lot of the scenes and lines people were familiar with, but also gives them a new twist. This version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas is genuinely funny and is one of those holiday family movies that are actually fun for the whole family, not just the kids.

Carrey as the Grinch is obviously the star of the show and really carries the entire movie, but that’s not to say that the other performances like Taylor Momsen (Gossip Girl) as Cindy Lou Who and Christine Baranski (Mamma Mia!) as Martha May Whovier among others aren’t also fantastic. At this point, you’ve likely seen How the Grinch Stole Christmas a million times. But it’s just that good, and odds are you’re bound to watch it again this holiday season.

1 National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)

     Warner Bros.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is one of the best holiday classics, hands down. It has humor, it has heart, and it has a talented, powerhouse cast featuring performances by Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Juliette Lewis and Johnny Galecki. It follows the wacky Griswold family as they spend their Christmas vacation at home and host the holidays with their relatives and — in typical National Lampoon fashion — mayhem ensues.

Christmas Vacation is hilarious and really holds up over the years since its release in 1989. There are so many iconic scenes like the Christmas lights not working, to Cousin Eddie rolling up in his RV and the drama surrounding Clark’s Christmas bonus. It could be argued that Christmas Vacation is the perfect holiday comedy. Balancing humor and heart, it doesn’t feel like any other holiday comedy out there, and even today, there are few that compare. Like How the Grinch Stole Christmas, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation probably plays in your home every holiday season and likely will for years to come.