Christmas 2025: From A Merry Little Ex-Mas to Merv, 10 new rom-com movies you need to stream this holiday season

Nillohit Bagchi | Dec 25, 2025, 08:23 IST

Image credit : Prime Video | Christmas 2025 has rolled in with a bumper crop of romantic comedies that feel like a warm hug in a cold room

A festive slate brimming with identity swaps, bruised hearts, inheritance pressure, depressed dogs, cabin confessions, accidental crimes, and royal escapes. The pacing varies, but the tropes hit clean. The settings do the emotional labour, the stakes feel human, and the romance stays sincere enough to carry the season.

Christmas 2025 has rolled in with a bumper crop of romantic comedies that feel like a warm hug in a cold room. This season’s rom-com slate is stacked with stories that mix love, chaos, travel, old wounds, new sparks and plenty of festive mischief. Studios and streamers have leaned into what works: fake couples who act too real, rivals who flirt harder than they fight, royals running from protocol into snowfall, and side characters that deserve fan clubs of their own.

These films are built to make you laugh, cringe, gasp and maybe text someone you miss. They’re silly, sharp, glossy in parts, rough in others, and very human in the feelings they tap into. If you like holiday romances that don’t take themselves too seriously, this season might just be your sweet spot.

1. A Merry Little Ex-Mas

Image credit : Netflix | In this movie, Divorced parents Kate and Everett want one peaceful Christmas for the kids but things drastically change

Where to watch: Netflix

Divorced parents Kate and Everett want one peaceful Christmas for the kids. That lasts until his new girlfriend arrives, all glossy hair and quiet power moves. Kate finds a younger date to even the score, but the story isn’t about winning, it’s about remembering what they once had. Awkward, funny, and oddly sweet, it asks if old sparks ever fully die, especially when Christmas lights make everything look better.

2. My Secret Santa

Where to watch: Netflix

Kate takes a ski-resort job as Santa to fund her daughter’s snowboard lessons. The disguise is convincing enough to make the manager treat her like a colleague and confidant, and soon, a crush. He falls for her without knowing she’s the same woman he’s been bumping into all week in normal clothes. It’s a cosy identity romance where snowboards, gloves, and awkward fake beards carry more chemistry than expected.

3. Joy to the World

Where to watch: Hulu, Disney+, JioHotstar

A lifestyle host sells “perfect family life” on TV but is actually single and overwhelmed. To save her brand during a Christmas special, she asks a friend to pose as her husband. The cameras buy it instantly, but so does her heart. The story shifts from reputation repair to real feelings sneaking in at the worst possible time. Sharp, emotional, and self-aware, it shows fake love can get messy fast.

4. Champagne Problems

Where to watch: Netflix

A driven exec is sent to France to acquire a champagne house. She meets a charming heir who represents everything she’s meant to buy out. The romance brews between snow, boardroom tension, inheritance pressure, and unexpected moral knots. It’s a slow-burn enemies-to-lovers tale where bubbly drinks, corporate dilemmas, and unspoken attraction replace shouting matches. The setting is soft. The stakes are sharp.

5. Merv

Image credit : Prime Video | A separated couple reunites for their depressed dog, Merv

Where to watch: Prime Video

A separated couple reunites for their depressed dog, Merv. Their snowy road trip begins as pet co-parenting but turns into a quiet audit of their own fading marriage. Merv becomes the silent therapist in the backseat. The humans stumble through holiday cabins, vet visits, and emotional detours. It’s cosy, sad, silly, and soft in all the right places. Sometimes the dog carries the plot better than the people.

6. Jingle Bell Heist

Where to watch: Netflix

Two retail employees decide to rob their greedy boss on Christmas Eve. When they accidentally bump into each other mid-crime, they join forces. What follows is a 32-second-energy meet-cute stretched into a night of terrible plans, last-minute lock-picks, close calls, and unexpected charm. It’s not about the money. It’s about teamwork, betrayal, and falling in love while doing something wildly stupid.

7. Finding Joy

Where to watch: Prime Video

A fashion designer gets stranded in a cabin with a stranger after a snowstorm derails her plans. Their initial awkwardness melts into candle-lit conversations about dreams, failed timing, and quiet vulnerability. The storm forces them to slow down. The cabin forces honesty. The film feels like an emotional quarantine zone for bruised hearts. Snowfall, hot soup, and coincidence do the narrative labour.

8. Christmas Karma

Image credit : Apple TV | A musical retelling of a Scrooge-type character learning love

Where to watch: Apple TV+, theatres

A musical retelling of a Scrooge-type character learning love, grief, and redemption through songs and ghost-led emotional audits. The setting is London, cold, crowded, shiny, and loud, but the story is quiet in its moral questions. The film asks if transformation sticks when guilt meets grief, or if closure is a hollow victory. It’s cosy crime through carols and moral loops.

9. A Very Jonas Christmas

Where to watch: Disney+

The Jonas brothers play fictional versions of themselves trying to get home for a Christmas concert. Travel chaos, missed flights, sibling banter, and romantic subplots stack like open tabs on a laptop. The concert isn’t the real climax. The airport, family calls, and tiny heartbreaks are. It’s a celebrity holiday film that treats fame like a costume and love like the plot twist.

10. A Royal Montana Christmas

Where to watch: Hallmark Channel, Peacock

Princess Victoria escapes royal duties to a quiet Montana ranch town she once visited as a child. There she meets a guide who has no clue she owns a crown. Horses handle transport. Snow handles therapy. The romance grows slowly, with ranch wood doing emotional labour over protocol, politics, and polished optics. It’s grounded, warm, and low-key in all the ways big fame can’t fake.

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Nillohit Bagchi