The cosiest, cheesiest TV movie treats to enjoy this Christmas

Looking for a corny but comforting watch this festive season? Tara Ward has you covered.

Christmas really is the most wonderful time of the year, especially if you’re Brooke Shields pashing the bloke from The Princess Bride in a Scottish castle you just bought together. It’s the perfect time to plonk yourself in front of the TV and rest your brain with a sickly, sentimental rom-com like A Castle for Christmas, as you savour these schmaltzy Christmas treats wrapped up at a streaming service near you.

We’ve found 10 of the cheesiest Christmas movies to soothe you and move you this festive season, because you deserve it. You are the Brooke Shields of your own castle. Find yourself a Scottish duke this Christmas, and get busy.

A Castle for Christmas (Netflix)

Cheese factor: 🧀🧀🧀🧀🧀

Show your love with a rug this Christmas (Photo: Netflix)

When I visited Scotland, I saw an old woman pissing in the street while her drunk friend sang ‘Is This the Way to Amarillo?’ at the top of his voice with a road cone on his head. I did not see a castle named Dun Dunbar and I did not fall in love with a handsome yet stubborn duke, and after watching A Castle For Christmas, I want my 2005 group tour of Scotland money back.

If only I had been Brooke Shields pretending to be best-selling author Sophie Brown, who flees to Scotland to buy a castle, even though the owner (The Princess Bride’s Cary Elwes) refuses to sell it to a foreigner. Luckily, Sophie has more charm than a hairy coo wearing tartan pyjamas, and she won’t stop until she’s got her shiny American hands on that land. This movie has more Scottish stereotypes than you can shake your sporran at. I hate myself for enjoying this so much.

Ted Lasso: The Missing Christmas Moustache (Apple TV+)

Cheese factor: 🧀🧀🧀

You know it’s been a long year when you’re stoked to see a four minute episode of Ted Lasso made out of clay figures, but that’s 2021 for you. This animated special sees Ted inexplicably lose his moustache, but will he find it before Christmas or live the rest of his life with Roy Kent’s eyebrows glued to his top lip? Those eyebrows are the gift that keeps on giving.

Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star (Netflix)

Cheese level: 🧀🧀🧀🧀🧀

Vanessa Hudgens, Vanessa Hudgens and Vanessa Hudgens in The Princess Switch 3 (Photo: Netflix)

The third Princess Switch movie is three times as bonkers as its prequels, with Vanessa Hudgens playing all three main characters: Princess Stacy DeNovo, Queen Margaret Delacourt of Montenaro, and Lady Fiona Pembroke. When one of these women inevitably gets kidnapped or locked in a vault, another woman will impersonate them, and then that person will also get kidnapped, and the cycle continues. My kids watch this relentlessly. I hear Lady Margaret’s accent in my sleep. Help me.

A Kiwi Christmas (TVNZ OnDemand, from Christmas Day)

Cheese factor: 🧀🧀

The guy in red looks familiar (Photo: TVNZ)

Fed up with the materialist bullshit of Christmas, Santa hoons it over to New Zealand for a relaxing summer holiday. When two kids work out who the bearded bloke really is, they must return Santa to the North Pole before the big day. A wee charmer of a family film, and not a snowflake in sight.

A Christmas Melody (Neon)

Cheese factor: 🧀🧀🧀🧀🧀

All I want for Christmas is you (Photo: Neon)

Not only does Mariah Carey star in this film, but she sings and bloody well directs it. Her directorial debut is about “the gift of music that transports people back to another time and place where they find their truest feelings”, and Carey plays the role she was born for: the president of her daughter’s school PTA. A true Christmas gift.

Gavin and Stacey Christmas Special (TVNZ OnDemand)

Cheese factor: 🧀

Have yourself a Gavin and Stacy Christmas (Photo: TVNZ)

Ten years after the iconic British comedy series ended, the cast of Gavin and Stacey reunited in 2019 for a one-off Christmas special. It’s not technically a movie, but who cares? Certainly not Uncle Bryn, who’s busy cooking Christmas dinner for 13 people, and definitely not Pam, who’s hiding her soft towels in her suitcase. A delight from start to finish if you’re a Gavin and Stacey fan, confusing and slightly annoying if you’re not.

Love Hard (Netflix)

Cheese factor:🧀🧀🧀🧀

Love Hard, love a warm jacket (Photo: Netflix)

Natalie is an unlucky-in-love writer who travels to New York to surprise her online boyfriend for Christmas. When Natalie discovers she’s been catfished, the culprit Josh promises to set her up with the guy she fell for online as long as she promises to be Josh’s girlfriend for the holidays. This is going straight to Cheesetown, no complaints here.

Single All The Way (Netflix)

Cheese factor: 🧀🧀🧀🧀

Famous faces abound in this rom-com that sees one man take his best friend home for Christmas to pretend they’re in a relationship, so his family will stop setting him up on blind dates. Michael Urie (Ugly Betty, Younger) stars as Peter, who isn’t sure if he loves his BFF Nick, while Kathy Najimy, Jennifer Robertson (Schitt’s Creek), and Jennifer Coolidge steal their scenes as members of his wacky family.

The Christmas Apprentice (ThreeNow)

Cheese factor 🧀🧀🧀🧀🧀

I hoped this would feature Mike Pero and his Christmassy finger, but sadly, it’s a Hallmark movie about a woman who moves to small town America and learns an important life lesson. Does it involve sticking Roy Kent’s eyebrows to her top lip? We live in hope.

Funniest Pets Ever at Christmas (TVNZ OnDemand)