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Best Disney Plus Christmas movies and shows: get festive with Disney+

Disney+ Christmas classics, revealed

Best Disney Plus Christmas movies and shows: get festive with Disney+
Marc Chacksfield
14 December 2023

Disney Plus is the most family-friendly of the streaming services. And what goes better together than family and Christmas?

However, after rifling through all those Disney animated classics and Pixar movies in search of festive fun, we’re happy to tell you Disney Plus’s best Christmas movies are more diverse than you might imagine.

Sure, Disney favourites like Mickey Mouse and Frozen’s Olaf make cameos in our list below. But our favourites are movies you wouldn’t necessarily immediately link to Disney.

How about Die Hard? It’s the source of one of the most tedious Christmas arguments — whether it’s a Christmas movie or not — but either way it’s a cracker of a watch. Disney Plus is also the home of the Muppets, a cornerstone of Christmas content.

Our current number one reader’s choice vote is also an all-time classic. Home Alone can be found in the critics’ choice lists of just about all the top Christmas movie lists we’ve seen. Including our own. The sequels are available on Disney Plus too, but digging into the later instalments like Home Sweet Home Alone (2021) and Home Along: The Holiday Heist (2012) ought to come with a health warning.

We’ve opted for a mix of TV shows and films in our list below, and have brought in all facets of the Disney experience. We have a bit of Marvel, a touch of Star Wars — and no, not the infamous Star Wars Holiday special from 1978. As terrible it is, we’re a little sad it’s not actually available on Disney Plus.

Take your pick from the selection box below, get voting if you have a favourite. And if we’ve missed anything out, then let us know in the comment box below.

Best Disney Plus Christmas movies and shows

KEVIN! The original and the best Home Alone is a must-see for Christmas. Following the exploits of Kevin McCalister (Macaulay Culkin, an unknown actor who you probably haven't’ heard of) who makes his family disappear, by not waking up for a flight and his family accidentally going without him. While he’s - looks to camera - home alone, he does battle with a pair of hapless thieves, played by the dude who did the voiceover for The Wonder Years and Joe ‘Like I’m a Clown?’ Pesci.

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Best Disney Plus Christmas movies and shows

2. The Muppet Christmas Carol

Watch now on Disney Plus

“Light the lamp, not the rat, light the lamp!” Most Muppets movies are fun, but The Muppet Christmas Carol is a stunning achievement and gold-standard when it comes to Christmas watching. Michael Caine is perfect as Scrooged and has the look of a prestigious actor wondering what the hell he’s doing with a bunch of puppets throughout. But these are no puppets, but controlled by the deft hand(s) of the Jim Henson Company and because of this, the movie is an absolute wonder.

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The ultimate non-Christmas Christmas movie, Die Hard is a firm favourite at this time of year. The movie follows the story of off-duty New York cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) who gets caught up in an LA skyscraper during a heist orchestrated by the (now infamous) Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman). It's a fun one to watch with the whole family, particularly if you know the quotes. "Don't shoot the glass!

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Best Disney Plus Christmas movies and shows

4. The Nightmare Before Christmas

Watch on Disney Plus now

Director Henry Selick did a wonderful job with The Nightmare Before Christmas, creating a stop-motion fantasy that’s now rightly seen as a classic. Taking the story and characters from Tim Burton and breathing life into their cold, dead bones he masterfully showcases a tale about Jack Skellington, the master of Halloween Town who becomes besotted with Christmas.

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Best Disney Plus Christmas movies and shows

5. The Santa Clause

Watch now on Disney Plus

Santa Clause, geddit? That small pun - where the person who injures Santa Claus has to take his place - spawned a number of sequels but it’s the original we like. Yes, the real Tim Allen is infuriating with his politics but he’s great here as the Everyman whose job it is to make sure Christmas runs on time. Unsurprisingly, the director of the movie helmed Alan through many a series of Home Improvement. *Enter Tim The Toolman Taylor Grunt Sound*.

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It was a toss up between this festive Marvel adventure or Iron Man 3, which is also based around the holiday season. Hawkeye won out, mainly because of the massive Christmas tree that becomes integral to the plot in the latter episodes. If you haven’t seen this Marvel-ous show yet, then watching it over the festive season is an absolute must.

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Best Disney Plus Christmas movies and shows

7. The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special

Stream now on Disney Plus

It is always great to get time with The Guardians and here we are given a lovely slice of holiday warmth, thanks to a Marvel story that not only interlocks with the movies but also adds Kevin Bacon into the mix. In fact, the Footloose actor is central to the plot as he is the Christmas present Mantis and Drax give Peter Quill to cheer him up.

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Best Disney Plus Christmas movies and shows

8. Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas

Watch now on Disney Plus

If you are after a short, sweet heartwarming tale then this is for you. It’s three short movies laced into a Christmas cracker of a movie, all threaded together by the dulcet tones of Kelsey Grammer. Given Disney seems to have side-lined Mickey for other things, it’s great to see the character have a lot of fun here.

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9. A Christmas Carol

Watch now on Disney Plus

It's a little bit darker than we were expecting but Jim Carrey nails it as Scrooge in this animated adaptation of A Christmas Carole. Robert Zemeckis does his mo-cap best with the animation and while it was originally meant to be seen in 3D, it's fantastic to watch in plain-old 2D.

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Best Disney Plus Christmas movies and shows

10. A Muppets Christmas… Letter To Santa

Stream now on Disney Plus

Don’t go into this one expecting Muppets Christmas Carol levels of brilliance, but this 2008 one-off show is a lot of fun, with The Muppets celebrating the festive season with a host of US celebrities. They include: Whoopi Goldberg, Richard Griffiths and Nathan Lane. There is a plot: Gonzo screws up sending letters to Santa so the crew have to go to the North Pole to deliver them but it’s more just to set up the myriad cameos.

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Best Disney Plus Christmas movies and shows

11. The Simpsons: Marge Be Not Proud (S7, E11)

Watch now on Disney Plus

The Simpsons, in its prime, made the best TV specials. While it’s best known for its TreeHouse of Horror Halloween episodes, its Christmas ones are well worth a watch, too. There are loads on Disney Plus but our pick is Marge Be Not Proud, as it showcases the relationship between Bart and his mom so well. The premise is Bart gets caught trying to steal a videogame but there is so much fun, warmth and tears throughout that it’s Simpsons at its best.

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Best Disney Plus Christmas movies and shows

12. Pluto’s Christmas Tree

Stream now on Disney Plus

This 1953 classic is a real old-school gem. Pluto and Mickey go searching for the perfect Christmas tree. They find one, cut in down only for it to be the home for Chip’n’Dale. It’s only 7 minutes long, but there is a huge amount of warmth in this festive animated short.

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Best Disney Plus Christmas movies and shows

13. LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special

Watch now on Disney Plus

We were hoping that this would be more of a pastiche of the original Star Wars Holiday Special but it’s entirely its own thing, and it’s a lovely ode to all nine movies in The Skywalker Saga. While key players’ voices are missing, this is still a huge amount of fun and it even makes the whole Rise of the Skywalker gene twist make, well, sense.

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Best Disney Plus Christmas movies and shows

14. Once Upon A Snowman

Stream now on Disney Plus

Olaf is the best thing about Frozen so it was fun to see him get his own spin-off in 2020. This short sees Olaf (Josh Gad) weaved into the first movie beautifully as he tries to figure quite why he is now a living, breathing snowman.

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One of the newer movies on this list and, if we’re honest, if it wasn’t for the fact it stars Bill Hader, Shirley MacLaine and Anna Kendrick it probably wouldn’t be on this list but they brilliantly elevate the story of Santa's daughter who should be taking over from the big guy but doesn’t feel up to the task.

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All image credits: Disney Plus