25 New Holiday Movies and Series to Watch in 2026

Your 2026 holiday watchlist is about to get crowded, and not just with mistletoe romances. This season brings a dead boss in a Santa suit, a gospel-powered Tyler Perry production, Brandy planning a Christmas wedding and Tia Mowry navigating love after loss in Lisbon. Rolling out from mid-October through December across Hallmark, STARZ, Prime Video, Netflix, The Roku Channel, Lifetime, OWN, AspireTV and UPtv, these projects offer plenty of reasons to stay home. The biggest surprise? Some of the most intriguing stories venture well beyond the usual small-town Christmas formula.

The Holiday Romances Bringing Complications

Second chances and inconvenient attractions remain holiday staples. This year, though, the road to romance winds through broken engagements, fake relationships and even a potentially life-changing business negotiation.

Ayesha Curry Takes the Romantic Lead

Ayesha Curry makes her feature-film leading debut as dating expert Chelsey Banks. Her professional expertise hasn’t stopped her from getting dumped every holiday season. Reconnecting with her high school boyfriend raises an irresistible possibility: maybe her romantic bad luck has been pointing her toward her first love. Matthew Daddario, Dennis Andres and Arlene Duncan also star.

A Christmas Eve Connection Gets Another Chance

Karen Obilom and Derrick A. King play photographer Serena Green and musician-teacher Jarrod Hardly, who reconnect five years after an unforgettable Christmas Eve in Washington, D.C. The timing is terrible. Serena is coming off a broken engagement, while Jarrod is preparing to propose to someone else. Directed by Chazitear, the D.C.-filmed romance won the 2024 ESSENCE Film Festival Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature.

Football Becomes an Unexpected Matchmaker

One romance follows a reporter profiling a Chicago Bears superfan who’s approaching her 500th game. Then the reporter falls for the fan’s grandson. Lyndsy Fonseca, Robert Buckley and Marsha Mason lead a cast featuring football-world cameos. In another story, Taylor Cole and Charles Michael Davis star in a fake-dating romance. A woman recruits a former football player for her family’s holiday flag football rivalry.

Holiday Chemistry Meets Real Responsibilities

Lindura and Brendan Morgan play an accountant and substitute teacher brought together through a holiday scrapbook for her nephew, whose mother is deployed with the military. Another romance pairs rookie firefighter Dani Ramos with Sasha, a photographer whose firefighter-calendar fundraiser sparks something personal. Kyana Teresa and Holly Deveaux star, but professional uncertainty threatens their connection.

Familiar Faces Return With Unfinished Business

A happy ending doesn’t always mean the story is over. Several returning characters find that weddings, businesses and amateur detective work can bring fresh holiday headaches.

Brandy Has a Wedding to Plan

The sequel to Christmas Everyday follows Chicago designer Fancy Ballantine as she juggles her boutique’s future and her dream Christmas wedding to Jaylen. Business pressure and a reformed ex complicate things, especially when Fancy starts shutting out her fiancé. Brandy Norwood returns alongside Robert C. Riley, Debbi Morgan and Sy’Rai Smith.

OWN Delivers Its First Holiday Sequel

Amber Stevens West and Corbin Reid return as childhood friends and business partners Chastity and April. Their company, H-Town Events, faces competition when the mayor brings in Largesse Productions, a national firm run by the formidable Tate. Jenifer Lewis and Tommy Miles also star as the friends fight to protect their business and the town’s Christmas Spectacular.

Christmas Mysteries Keep the Suspects Coming

Sarah Drew and Peter Mooney reunite as Emily Lane and Detective Sam Wilner for three new mysteries. Holly Robinson Peete and Catherine Bell guest-star. Meanwhile, the sequel to A Christmas Murder Mystery brings amateur sleuth Vera Vexley to a holiday cookie competition, where a celebrity baker turns up unconscious. Vivica A. Fox stars in the follow-up, written and directed by Peter Sullivan.

Faith, Family and a Holiday Reality Check

Not every seasonal story needs a romantic misunderstanding to drive it. These projects put forgiveness, spiritual resilience and family priorities at the heart of the celebration.

Tyler Perry Assembles a Gospel Powerhouse

Written and directed by Tyler Perry, this faith-centered drama follows Pastor Isaac Jefferson as he struggles to save his inherited church, his marriage and his faith. Durrell Tank Babbs and Fantasia Barrino Taylor lead a remarkable ensemble that includes CeCe Winans, Shirley Caesar, Yolanda Adams, Fred Hammond and The Clark Sisters. Kirk Franklin serves as music producer.

Two Families Confront What Really Matters

In one drama, Bishop Malone honors his late wife’s wish by inviting Eugene, a father rebuilding his life after prison, and his family to the Malones’ holiday getaway. Old wounds make forgiveness anything but simple. Another story stars Tobias Truvillion, Teresa Celeste and Karlie Redd as an affluent family whose sudden financial collapse forces them to rethink what wealth means.

The Christmas Picks That Break the Formula

Prefer holiday entertainment with danger, magic or a little emotional turbulence? This batch offers alternatives to the standard meet-cute, while keeping the seasonal setting.

A Dead Boss Creates a Very Bad Christmas

Brely Evans, Trina Braxton and Towanda Braxton headline a dark comedy about payday-loan employees whose boss turns up dead in a Santa suit. They’ve spent years joking about getting rid of him, so now they look suspicious. Their solution is spectacularly unwise: hide the body and keep the store open for its biggest holiday sale.

Curses and Christmas Spirits Raise the Stakes

Heather Hemmens and Mark Ghanimé star in a magical scramble involving a cursed gift exchange and an antique snowflake that must be recovered before Christmas Day. In another fantasy-tinged story, Chantel Riley plays an ambitious toy executive facing a corporate takeover. Christmas spirits and Brendan Morgan’s toy designer help her rethink her priorities.

Tia Mowry Finds an Emotionally Complicated Romance

Mowry plays Jade, a grieving widow who travels to Lisbon to meet the recipient of her late husband’s heart. Instead, she falls for his brother Alex, played by Henderson Wade. It’s a delicate setup for exploring grief, renewed connection and the guilt that can come with loving again.

Community, Creativity and Businesses Worth Saving

Some of this lineup’s strongest hooks involve people protecting something bigger than themselves. Threatened gathering places, family legacies and creative dreams give these holiday stories their emotional stakes.

Corinne Foxx and Debbie Allen Bring the Tap Shoes

Corinne Foxx stars as Jeni Walker, a New York theater producer whose career has stalled. She returns to Memphis and finds her childhood community theater facing closure. A holiday tap showcase could save it, if she can confront an old injury and her fear of performing. Debbie Allen joins Chloé and Maud Arnold, who created and choreographed the film, alongside D Smoke and Obba Babatundé.

Homecomings Come With Tough Decisions

Kimberly Patterson plays a heartbroken content creator who returns to Jamaica. Saving her family’s spice business leads to negotiations, and romance, with Nick Creegan’s investor. In another homecoming story, Asia’h Epperson stars as an attorney who discovers that her own firm plans to demolish the community center where she teaches girls to dance.

Rivalries, Reporting and One Chaotic Gala

Tamera Mowry-Housley and Kristoffer Polaha face off in a 12-day contest over an inherited Christmas bar buried in debt. Juliah Cheree Taylor plays a journalist sent to cover a holiday resort, where her assignment turns romantic. Vivica A. Fox and Jackée Harry are also in the cast.

Mishael Morgan and B.J. Britt team up at a chaotic Christmas gala, playing a music historian and an attorney in search of different pieces of the past.

The takeaway: Make room for more than your usual holiday favorites. Between gospel legends, tap showcases, returning characters and one disastrous Santa-suit discovery, there are plenty of fresh reasons to press play.