Which 2024 Netflix Christmas Comedy Is Right For Me?

“I want to watch something from an actual comedy legend”

Comedy fans of a certain age will remember Fear of A Black Hat, a feature mockumentary about fictional hip-hop act NWH, and a famously assured début from writer-director Rusty Cundieff (who also co-stars as Ice Cold). Cundieff went on to write, direct and co-star in the romcom Sprung, opposite Tisha Campbell; and to put his stamp on TV comedies from Black Jesus to Human Giant. His latest, Meet Me Next Christmas, may not have much in common with his edgier early work — it’s about Layla (Christina Milian) trying to pull a Serendipity at a Pentatonix Christmas Eve show — but Cundieff does give himself a cameo as a mime busking on the streets of New York.

“I want to watch something from an actual comedy legend that might entertain small children”

More than 20 years after its release, Love Actually is still achieving something unimaginable: generating Takes in the Discourse. And while creating a work that polarizing might cause some writers to swear off Christmas forever, Richard Curtis (who also directed Love Actually) has returned this year with That Christmas. An animated feature set in the tiny English town of Wellington-on-Sea, it features a number of Curtis signatures: a huge cast of quirky characters, a wedding, Bill Nighy (voicing Lighthouse Bill) and actual footage of Love Actually. 

Will this entertain small children? Debatable, if a friend’s child’s very accurate and fair summary is anything to go by: “It’s kinda hard to explain.”

“I want to see Lindsay Lohan”

Oh, you’re the one. Just kidding! Maybe you were really charmed by her 2022 Netflix movie Falling for Christmas? If so, good news: Our Little Secret is a lot more competent. This time, Lohan plays Avery, a very busy businesswoman who makes business proposals. (What is her job? Unclear.) Ten years ago, she turned down a marriage proposal from her high school sweetheart Logan (Ian Harding) because it was intended to keep her in their Atlanta exurb instead of pursuing her dream job (doing what? Unclear) in London. She and Logan are no longer in contact, which is why it’s inconvenient when she goes home with her boyfriend Cameron (Jon Rudnitsky) and discovers that his sister Cassie (Katie Baker) is there with HER boyfriend: Logan!!! Instead of just saying they already know each other — because Avery is worried that everyone will be obsessed about the thought of her and Logan having slept together two-and-a-half presidential administrations ago — she makes him agree to keep it their Little Secret, giving the movie a reason to exist, however flimsy. 

Basically, it’s an inside-out Anyone But You without the budget to have shot in Australia with any real movie stars from this century. Lohan looks great, though!

“I want to see male nudity and a former Lindsay Lohan co-star”

Great news for you: This applies to not one but two of this year’s new movies! First up was Hot Frosty, in which Mean Girls alumna Lacey Chabert — of “trying to make ‘fetch’ happen” fame — plays small-town diner owner/widow Kathy. On her way home one night, she impulsively places a red scarf around the neck of a snow sculpture in the form of a shredded man. Once she’s gone, the sculpture comes to life in the form of ex-Schitt’s Creek star Dustin Milligan and briefly gambols around town (the long scarf remaining decorously tacked to his junk) before smashing through the window of a secondhand clothing store and stealing the jumpsuit whose label gives him his name: Jack. Since Jack must guard against overheating lest he risk fatally melting, he spends a lot of time stripped to the waist, even outside, and all signs point to Milligan’s having stayed ready for this role.

But wait: there’s more! One week after Hot Frosty, Netflix released The Merry Gentlemen. Britt Robertson stars as Ashley, a Jingle Belle — definitely NOT a Rockette! — who gets fired due to her advanced age (Robertson is 34, so that tracks) and returns to her hometown to discover that her parents’ small music venue is in five-figures’ worth of debt. Having fortuitously met their handyman Luke (Freaky Friday star Chad Michael Murray) on her way in, Ashley decides the solution is for The Rhythm Room to put on a sexy male dance revue featuring Luke and the two other buffest men in the community. Since Netflix holiday movies are only about one notch hornier than Hallmark’s, we don’t really get more than naked torsos and one close-up of a butt in full-coverage briefs — but that’s more ass meat than you’re probably ever going to see up close from our friends at Crown Media.

“I love a cappella music, but I want it showcased by people who kind of hate it”

Pentatonix is the five-person a cappella group that originally came to prominence after winning Season Three of the NBC reality competition The Sing-Off in 2011, and Meet Me Next Christmas is a barely disguised infomercial for any and all future Christmas shows they may perform. Even when you know this, as I did, you might still be surprised at how many times we return from the movie’s leads to scenes of the Pentatonix members hanging out before their show, tracking their social media for the progress Layla and her personal concierge Teddy (Devale Ellis) are making running down a ticket for Layla to attend the show and meet James (Kofi Siriboe), the hot guy she met by chance in an airport lounge last Christmas. (Pentatonix would love to help but they’ve already given away all their own comps!!!) 

The funniest part of the movie is that all the members of the group are portrayed irritating one another with their personality quirks — no, Scott Hoying, no one wants to hear what you learned from Brené Brown’s book! — and that their manager Becca (Nikki Duval) can’t stand any of them and is particularly annoyed whenever they sing. The movie didn’t need to give us an audience surrogate like Becca, but I’m glad it did: If Pentatonix is even 1 percent as insufferable as they’re portrayed, it’s amazing that they haven’t all murder-suicided each other by now.

“I want a rugged hunk, but he better be COIFFED”

I don’t know much, but I know the top line on The Merry Gentlemen’s production budget was hair spray.

“I want to see time pass in a way that centers Netflix as a cultural force”

I’m not close to the first commentator to note that the montage Our Little Secret uses to indicate the passage of time from Logan’s failed proposal to the present day is absolutely bananas. But you don’t have to take everyone’s word for it: here it is, thanks to Twitter user @michaelcollado.

It’s not that surprising that the events were selected to avoid political references that would seem unnecessarily divisive: yes to gay marriage; no to COVID, other than a shot of Bernie Sanders at Biden’s inauguration in his mask and mittens (not that we see either Biden or his predecessor); someone probably wishes they could cut out Elon Musk unveiling the Cybertruck! I guess it’s also not surprising that Netflix felt it needed to showcase not one but three Netflix original TV series: Stranger Things, Bridgerton and Squid Game. It is craven, though!

“I want to see Santa Claus endorsing A.I.”

Speaking of elements someone may have wished they could edit: That Christmas closes on Santa Claus (Brian Cox) making his first Christmas run in a self-driving sleigh, with wise-cracking reindeer Dasher (Guz Khan) riding shotgun. Granted, there aren’t as many pedestrians in the sky for such a vehicle to drag for several blocks, but still: kind of a bummer that Santa can’t forego dubious and potentially dangerous labor-saving instruments by being, you know, magic.