As part of my annual Christmas festivities, I love to watch as many Christmas-themed movies as possible. These include many holiday classics often seen on Freeform such as The Polar Express, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Elf.

This year, I turned to one of America’s most beloved platforms for streaming movies and shows, Netflix, in the hunt for new, never seen before Christmas content. I was surprised by the sheer amount of Christmas movies I never knew existed.

I decided to choose five of the least juvenile movies and watch them to determine which were my most and least favorite. These include Christmas Inheritance, The Princess Switch, The Christmas Chronicles, The Grinch (2018)” and Jingle Jangle.

My least favorite movie, The Grinch (2018) fell short of my expectations. While the color and animation was great, the characters and plot do not come close in comparison with Jim Carrey’s live action How the Grinch stole Christmas.

In self exile, a Who known simply as “The Grinch,” lives atop Mount Crumpit with boiling rage towards Christmas and with only his loyal dog, Max, for company. The Grinch, dreading the annual return of the holiday, cooks up a malicious scheme to steal Christmas from the happy-go-lucky Whos living down in Whoville. At least, that’s how Jim Carrey’s version was.

“Jim Carrey’s version will always be my favorite, regardless if there is a better one,” said sophomore Reiley Midkiff. “It [The Grinch 2018] was good for what it was, but it wasn’t the Jim Carrey version.”

The 2018 version of the movie contains merely a grumpy green character with abandonment issues. There is no malice or sassiness in this new Grinch, therefore the character is unfulfilling to the audience. Some of the live-action Grinch movie’s vital characters do not even exist in this movie, including the mayor and Mary Lou Who.

This movie did not live up to the hype from the trailers and honestly disappointed me. I would not watch it again, and I give The Grinch a 4/10.

My second- to least favorite movie would have to be The Princess Switch. This movie is a great example of a classic Hallmark movie where the girl meets the guy and they fall in love, happily ever after, the end. 

In The Princess Switch, a talented baker and a rich duchess, fated to wed a prince, cross paths and realize they are each other’s doppelganger. Having been in the spotlight all her life, the Duchess Margaret of Montenaro (Vanessa Hudgens) begs Stacey De Novo (Vanessa Hudgens), the baker, to swap places with her for two days, for the duchess had always wanted to experience life as a “normal girl.” After some convincing, Stacey agrees, but things get complicated when they begin falling for the men in each other’s lives.

The Princess Switch was a decent movie, but I eventually got bored of the film. There was not much character development, and I would rather watch a movie that is more realistic. People do not fall in love with each other after two days. The message was also kind of corny, following your heart before your duty. I would give The Princess Switch a 6/10.

In third place is the movie/musical Jingle Jangle. I was not expecting this movie to be a musical, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

As an accomplished inventor and toymaker, Jeronicus Jangle (Forest Whitaker) has the world at his fingertips until he is suddenly betrayed by one of the people closest to him. Losing his inventions, family, creativity and his self confidence, 30 years go by and he is at risk of losing the rest of the little he has left. With the help of his bright granddaughter, Jangle learns the true meaning of family, love and believing in oneself.

Though Jingle Jangle had some boring parts, the music was very lovely, and the choreography was entertaining. The characters were diverse in age, gender and ethnicity. I quite enjoyed watching this movie, and I give it a 7/10.

The movie Christmas Inheritance is my second favorite, even though it is similar to the many, many Hallmark movies out there. 

Before Ellen Langford (Eliza Taylor) can inherit her father’s business, she has to prove that she is more than the shallow party girl everyone thinks she is. To do so, her father sends her back incognito to their small hometown only a few days before Christmas to her uncle’s inn. When the unexpected happens and Ellen has to stay longer than she thought, she befriends the inn’s manager and learns the value of hard work and responsibility. 

While this movie was pretty cookie-cutter, I quite enjoyed seeing some familiar faces including Eliza Taylor (Ellen Langford) from The 100 and Jake Lacey (Jake Collins) from season nine of NBC’s The Office. I have also been a fan of watching Hallmark movies for fun. The setting, music and decorations were beautiful, and there’s even a small twist at the end. 

I give Christmas Inheritance a 7/10.

The movie that I enjoyed the most out of these five has to be The Christmas Chronicles. Out of the many movies I’ve seen with Santa in them, this movie has one of my favorites.

The plot begins when two siblings hatch a seemingly harmless plan to record Santa in action which unintentionally turns disastrous. After causing his sleigh to crash, Teddy (Jesse Gervasi) and Kate (Darby Camp) Pierce must race against the clock to help Santa round up his reindeer, locate his bag of presents and save Christmas while working out the issues between themselves and their past.

This movie is pretty entertaining even for older kids, other than a few stray silly parts. Many who watch the movie can relate to both Teddy and Kate at the same time. The Santa in this movie, played by none other than Kurt Russell, is my favorite character bringing much humor and satire to the movie.

There’s also a new The Christmas Chronicles 2 out this winter; however, I did not enjoy that one as much as the first one. Watching this movie has become part of our tradition for my mom and I, and it has been added to our list of movies to watch each Christmas season. I give my favorite, The Christmas Chronicles, an 8.5/10.

If watching Netflix Christmas movies is an activity you enjoy, then I highly recommend you check out my top three favorite movies listed above. If not, you can’t go wrong with the classics, but either way, watching beloved Christmas movies will surely get the whole family into the spirit of Christmas.