A Complete Guide to Lesbian Christmas Movies

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Dec 11, 2022

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There are many things to love about the holiday season (if you happen to be a Christmas lover like myself), and one of them is the seemingly endless supply of Christmas movies. There are the classics, like It’s A Wonderful Life and White Christmas, but there’s also the yearly deluge of cheesy Netflix and Hallmark movies that all have essentially the same plot. Unfortunately for us, very few of these offerings involve lesbians in any way.

The idea that lesbians also belong in Christmas movies has gotten slightly more popular over the last couple of years, with both Lifetime and Hallmark recently releasing their first Christmas movies with lesbians in them. Still, the list of movies that could be categorized as “lesbian Christmas movies” remains very short.

Since I know I’m not the only one wishing Christmas movies were gayer, I decided to create a handy guide to all the lesbian Christmas movies out there. My definition of a lesbian Christmas movie is any Christmas film that has a lesbian main character (secondary characters don’t count). I’ve also opted not to include Carol on this list even though it is my preferred Christmas movie because it kind of blows the competition out of the water and it wouldn’t be fair to rate the other films alongside it. I’m also not including Rent here, even though I do consider it a Christmas movie.

My very convoluted rating system is as follows: an overall rating for the film as a whole, the production value rating (i.e. how it looks/how well the budget is used), the cringe rating (a higher rating is worse in this case, at least in my opinion), the chemistry rating, the holiday cheer rating, and a lesbian focus rating (how central the lesbians are to the overall plot of the film). I hope you are able to follow all of that. Obviously, these ratings are entirely objective, and you have every right to disagree with me wholeheartedly, but I hope you’ll at least appreciate my desire to constructively spread holiday cheer. Happy holigays!

Last ExMas (2024), dir. Sarah Rotella

We Got High and Watched New Indie Queer Christmas Movie "Last Exmas" | Autostraddle

2024 saw the release of Last ExMas, a movie from The Unsolicited Project filmmakers Sarah Rotella and Adrianna DiLonardo. The film follows two exes, Maggie (Elena Milo) and Julianne (Shaeane Jimenez), who used to date in high school but haven’t seen each other in ten years. They reunite when they’re both home for Christmas, Julianne now a successful chef and Maggie a struggling actor. They’re still pissed at each other because of the events of a decade ago, but a series of unforeseen events bring them closer together.

I’ll be honest – Last ExMas is not one of the best films of this bunch. None of the characters are particularly likeable, and there is one supporting character who is so zany she’s nearly impossible to watch. The lead actors give it their all, but are we really rooting for this couple? Maybe not. There are plenty of hijinks to be had here, but your enjoyment of them is dependent on how charitable you’re feeling towards a goofy script, or maybe how many edibles you’ve taken.

Friends & Family Christmas (2023), dir. Anne Wheeler

Credit: ©2023 Hallmark. Media/Photographer: Allister Foster

Friends & Family Christmas is Ali Liebert’s second lesbian Hallmark Christmas movie, and what a blessing she is to the genre. While she had to share the spotlight with straight people in her previous film, this one goes full lesbian. Liebert plays Amelia, a workaholic lawyer still reeling from her breakup last Christmas. Humberly González plays Dani, a photographer who neglects to go home for Christmas in favor of working in The City. Their fathers are old buddies and try to set them up together. Neither are happy about the situation, but they decide to play along in order to get their parents off their backs. They start to develop feelings for each other along the way, but a series of miscommunications leads to Christmas heartbreak. Will they get their happy-ever-after? (Yes, the answer is obviously yes.)

Liebert is the perfect lesbian Hallmark heartthrob – she has just the right sort of dorky charm and kills in the ‘uptight but genuinely lovable woman’ role. There are several references to Carol in this film, which is low-hanging fruit but ultimately pretty cute. The cheesy Hallmark dialogue and low-budget sets are hilarious(ly bad), but it’s quite watchable and very sweet. Ali Liebert 4ever.

Christmas At The Ranch (2021), dir. Christin Baker

Christmas On The Ranch is a movie from Tello Films, a production company that focuses on LGBTQ women’s content. The company’s founder, Christin Baker, also directed the film, among several others for Tello. The movie follows Haley (Laur Allen), a young woman who lives in San Francisco and works in marketing. She is called back to Tennessee by her brother and grandma – who raised her following the death of her parents – when she learns the family ranch is in trouble. While trying to work out if the ranch can be saved, Haley meets the dashing but combative ranch hand, Kate (Amanda Righetti, who you may know from The Mentalist).

Kate spends her days talking to horses and wishing she had a girlfriend, while Haley’s last date in the city was a disaster. When they meet by chance on a dating app, sparks immediately fly, but things turn sour when they discover each other’s real identities. (Before their first date, Kate realizes she doesn’t have any makeup on her so she tries to put eyeliner on using…matches?) But, not to worry, they’re brought back together by an all-time classic plot – the “there’s only one bed” trope. Together, they just might have it in them to save the ranch and also fall in love in the process.

The production value here certainly isn’t the best – too much ADR! – but the central couple is cute. A Christmas movie starring a hot lesbian cowgirl is certainly something we’ve been missing as a culture. Haley is a pretty annoying character at times, but it tends to be the case in rom-coms like this that one of the characters is kind of an asshole. This one goes out to all the gay horse girls.

A Christmas in New York (2017), dir. Nathan Ives

Watch Christmas in New York, A | Prime Video

This movie is really bad! I wouldn’t recommend it. (Though I do thank one of my readers for suggesting I add it to the list, if only for accuracy’s sake.) Modeled after Love, Actually, the film follows six different characters/couples spending the evening in a New York City hotel. I’m not going to tell you about the straight characters because they are irrelevant and really boring.

The lesbians are played by Tracie Thoms and Jasika Nicole, which is the only good thing about this movie. Their storyline is that Jasika Nicole wants to have a baby but Tracie Thoms is being weird and dismissive about it. They are terrible at communicating and need to go to therapy but Tracie eventually reveals why she’s being so avoidant (trauma).

The production value is abysmal! The colors are so washed out and none of the shots are nice to look at. Frankly, the lesbian segments are not any more interesting than the rest of the film, which has no color (literally and figuratively).

The Christmas Lottery (2020), dir. Tamika Miller

The Christmas Lottery is a BET original film that follows a Houston family who reunite over Christmas. The family patriarch, Gerald (Reginald VelJohnson) invites his semi-estranged daughters home for the holidays after he wins the lottery. When his wife, who has dementia, loses the ticket, the squabbling sisters must work together to retrieve it.

The eldest sister, Deidre (Asia'h Epperson), has stayed home to help her father run the cafe and help care for her mother and is resentful of her younger sisters for leaving her alone with the responsibility. Deidre is also a lesbian and has an adorable wife, Belinda (Phyli'cia Lloyd), who bakes delicious cakes and is estranged from her homophobic family. The middle sister, Nicole (Brave Williams), is a high-flying girlboss who’s obsessed with work, and the youngest, Tammy, is a struggling musician who is always borrowing money from everyone. (Tammy happens to be played by Real Housewives of Potomac star Candiace Dillard Bassett.)

I wasn’t expecting to like this one as much as I did, and while it was very silly, what saved it was the chemistry between the three sisters. Some of it was legitimately funny, such as the scene where their dad forces them to duke it out in sumo suits when they won’t stop arguing. The lesbian big sister was a bit of a Debbie-downer – as is often the case with the characters who stay behind in Christmas movies – but I loved her relationship with her sweet wife. My favorite character was actually Nicole, the middle sister, who turns out to be less of a hard-ass than she pretends to be. It’s one of the only films in this crossover genre to feature an all-black or POC cast, which is definitely a bonus. There is also a Traci Braxton cameo at the end.

City Of Trees (2019), dir. Alexandra Swarens

City of Trees is a low-budget lesbian film that succeeds primarily because of the chemistry of the lead characters. Director Alexandra Swarens plays Ainsley, a 28-year-old who has returned to her hometown for the first time in seven years. While there, she reconnects with Sophie (Olivia Buckle), a former cheerleader who she went to high school with. Olivia is passionate about saving the trees and helps Ainsley’s mom with her plants when it gets too cold out.

The film begins very suddenly and it’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on at first. It’s never really explained why Ainsley hasn’t been home for seven years or why she’s so traumatized by high school, which makes her come off as pretty rude at first. Luckily, Swarens and Buckle do have good chemistry, and their relationship is what makes the film worth watching at all. Their interactions are often fairly awkward, but that does have the benefit of making them feel like actual people trying to navigate a relationship. Plus, there’s an actual sex scene in the movie, which is very rare for Christmas movies of any sort. (This one’s for the horny tree lesbians.)

The low budget is extremely apparent – there’s a scene where they’re walking at night and you can hardly see them – but it’s not unwatchable. If you like Swaren’s work, she seems to be the primary filmmaker working with Violet Wave Productions, and she’s also the creator of a lesbian web series called LA Web Series, which you can watch on YouTube.

The Happiest Season (2020), dir. Clea Duvall

Clea Duvall’s 2020 film The Happiest Season is by far the biggest-budget lesbian Christmas movie ever made, and that’s certainly something we can celebrate. Unfortunately, I don’t think the movie is very good. Kristen Stewart plays Abby, a hot lesbian who’s planning on proposing to her girlfriend over Christmas. Unfortunately for Abby, her girlfriend, Harper (Mackenzie Davis) hasn’t come out to her parents yet and is planning on introducing Abby as her "roommate," something she reveals to Abby on the way to go see them.

This movie clearly follows the rom-com formula of one of the two main characters being an asshole or a mild psychopath, and in this case, it’s pretty difficult to swallow. Stewart and Davis’ lack of chemistry / a solid foundation for a relationship becomes even more apparent with the arrival of Riley, played deliciously by Aubrey Plaza, who counsels Abby about her situation but sadly doesn’t date her.

There are some mildly entertaining side characters – Dan Levy is always a delight, and Mary Steenburgen and Victor Garber are great rom-com parents – but it’s hard to really get into a film when you’re not rooting for the main couple. I know there are many of you out there who really like this movie and I won’t yuck your yum, but it’s a no from me, dawg.

A Holiday I Do (2023), dir. Paul Schneider, Alicia Schnieder

A Holiday I Do is one of four Tello films on this list, and one of two about lesbian horse girls. Jane (Lindsay Hicks) is a divorced mom helping her mother run the family farm. Sue (Rivkah Reyes) is a wedding planner planning Jane’s ex’s wedding to his new wife. (They’re still friends! She’s just gay.) Sue is supposed to be cool and sophisticated, which is illustrated by the fact that she has a job and does yoga. Jane is a bit of a hot mess but in an endearing way.

Sparks immediately fly between Sue and Jane, but there are numerous subplots that get in the way of them getting together. Jane keeps hanging out with her cheerful neighbors! Her mom is about to lose the farm! The wedding venue got canceled last minute! Jane’s ex and his fianceé get trapped at the airport!

The film is shot very poorly, though some of the green screens – like the one used during a sledding sequence – are unintentionally hilarious. The characters primarily speak in truisms like they are all secretly Santa Claus or something. There is not enough kissing or gay shenanigans because of the aforementioned subplots, but it’s kind of bad in a funny way, I guess.

Every Time A Bell Rings (2021), dir. Maclain Nelson

I’m pretty sure Every Time A Bell Rings is the first Hallmark Christmas movie to feature a lesbian main character, which is a cheerful piece of news in and of itself. The movie is also very sweet, and I would actually recommend it if you can handle cheesy Hallmark movies. The lesbian character in question is Nora, and she’s played by the iconic actress Ali Liebert, who famously realized she was gay after playing a lesbian in the underrated Canadian show Bomb Girls.

Once again, Every Time A Bell Rings follows three sisters who are reunited over the holidays. Nora has stayed in their hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, and is struggling to start a business, Emily (Runaways actress Brittany Ishibashi) is a work-obsessed businesswoman thinking about starting a family, and Charlotte (Erin Cahill) is busy traveling the world with the Peace Corps. They rekindle their bond when they discover their dearly departed father has created one last Christmas scavenger hunt for them to complete.

Every Time A Bell Rings is mostly a sweet story of sisterly love, but there’s also a lesbian romance that’s equally adorable. It’s also not a coming-out story, and there is seemingly no homophobia in small-town Mississippi. (This movie also made me want to visit Natchez, Mississippi, oddly enough.) Each sister gets one kiss total – no tongue, of course – including the one who is literally married, which I appreciated because I love #Equality. This one is for the Ali Liebert stans.

Let It Snow (2019), dir. Luke Snellin

Let It Snow is an ensemble film based on the novel of the same name by Maureen Johnson, John Green, and Lauren Myracle. The film follows several different plotlines that I’m not going to describe to you because we’re only here for the lesbians. Our lesbian is Dorrie, played by Yellowjackets’ Liv Hewson. Dorrie works at the local Waffle Town and is trying to be there for her best friend, Addie (Odeya Rush), who is having boyfriend troubles, while also dealing with her own romantic woes.

Dorrie recently hooked up with Kerry (Anna Akana, who has no business playing a teenager), a cheerleader at her school. When Kerry shows up at Waffle Town with her friends, she completely ignores Dorrie and pretends she doesn’t know her. They make up in the end, but Dorrie deserves better! I also wanted Dorrie to get with her best friend Addie, because they were really sweet together.

The lesbians in this movie were cute (even though Kerry treated Dorrie poorly) but in my opinion, the star of the film is Joan Cusak, who plays an eccentric character known only as “Tin Foil Woman” (very Lynchian). She drives around town in a van dressed in tin foil because of radio waves, or something, and offers Addie some sage advice. I do think Joan Cusak should have been nominated for an Oscar for this role.

Looking for Her (2022), dir. Alexandra Swarens

Looking for Her is another Christmas offering from writer/director/actor Alexandra Swarens. The plot follows a classic romance/fanfic storyline: a busy, avoidant woman, Taylor (Olivia Buckle), hires an actor, Olive (Swarens), to pretend to be her girlfriend for the holidays. The reason Taylor carries on this charade doesn’t quite make sense – her parents used to be homophobic but now they’re not and she doesn’t feel like telling them she’s broken up with her girlfriend, who they’d never met, or something – but a certain amount of illogicality is to be expected from films of this sort.

As for the romance between Taylor and Olive, there are some sparks, at least. While Taylor is worried about the implications of her deception, Olive is simply happy to be spending Christmas with a family of any sort, and she quickly charms Taylor’s parents. They bond over hot chocolate and childhood nicknames, and soon find themselves falling for each other for real. Swarens is especially charming in the role, and it’s easy to root for the two women as a couple.

The overused, jazzy piano score is somewhat grating – it’s low budget, I get it! – and the world around the two characters isn’t especially well-drawn. But, there’s enough sapphic sweetness here that these flaws aren’t total movie-ruiners.

Merry & Gay (2022), dir. Christin Baker

Merry & Gay treads well-worn Christmas movie territory. Dia Frampton (of Meg & Dia fame) plays Becca, a “Broadway star” (I’ll believe it when I see it) who – you guessed it – hasn’t been home for Christmas in years. When she returns to her small town, she reunites with her high school sweetheart, Sam (Andi René Christensen), who stayed behind and now runs a bar. Sam is still upset with Becca for leaving and Becca doesn’t understand what’s wrong, and they’re forced to confront their issues when they find themselves working on the town variety show together.

The movie is unhinged, but also a little bit boring, unfortunately. It starts with a song from the musical Becca is starring in, which is apparently about a group of people who love coffee. The song is called “Coffee Is Our Friend,” I think. Becca then closes out her final performance of the show by singing her original Christmas song, which is called “Merry & Gay.” (She says this with a straight face, of course.)

Sam and Becca’s mothers are self-professed meddling moms who are on a mission to get Becca and Sam back together, and they enlist the help of the local sassy gay who reads slam poetry at open mic night. Sam – who is the first non-binary lead in a Christmas movie, apparently – is kind of a curmudgeon, which doesn’t make the central relationship feel that inspired. The highlight of the film is the appearance of Dolly Parton’s sister, Stella Parton, who sounds exactly like Dolly. There is also a scene where someone juggles at the variety show and it’s so obviously CGI that I laughed out loud.

A New York Christmas Wedding (2020), dir. Otoja Abit

A New York Christmas Wedding is one of the worst films I have ever seen, and I would not recommend watching it unless you want to be gobsmacked by something so absurd you may never recover. As such, I am going to spoil the movie for you, so if you don’t want to know what happens, skip this one. The film follows Jennifer (Nia Fairweather), a woman who is about to marry her rich fiancee (director Otoja Abit.) She is then visited by a gay guardian angel, Azrael (Cooper Koch). Jennifer then finds herself transported to another timeline where she wakes up engaged to her childhood best friend, Gabby (Adriana DeMeo), who died years prior in the original timeline. Jennifer’s dad is also still alive in this timeline, for some reason.

Jennifer doesn’t remember her whole life, which doesn’t seem to bother anyone, and things only get weirder from here. They go to a Catholic priest played by none other than Mr. Big (Chris Noth) and try to get his blessing to marry them, or something. He then gives a speech to the congregation saying “love is love” and gives the lesbians communion. None of this makes any sense.

The kicker of the film is absolutely unhinged. (Again, major spoilers ahead.) The swishy angel Azrael tells Jennifer that he is actually the grown-up dead baby that Abby had as an 18-year-old. In the original timeline, Gabby had a stillborn and then committed suicide, and Azrael (whose last name is Gabison, aka “Gabby’s son”) is that stillborn who somehow grew up in heaven and became a guardian angel. Azrael lets Jennifer time travel back to when she was 18 to fix things with Gabby, which means she never got pregnant and never died, but somehow they have an ornament of Azrael (who was never born?) that they hang on the tree. I just started sweating while revisiting the plot of this film. Please don’t watch it!

Season of Love (2019), dir. Christin Baker

Season of Love is one of three Christin Baker films on this list, because she is the queen of low-budget lesbian Christmas films. (She also made one about New Year’s.) Season of Love is an ensemble film starring a host of familiar faces: Wynonna Earp’s Dominique Provost-Chalkley, Jessica Clark (if you know, you know), Emily Goss (who starred in Snapshots), and Laur Allen (the star of Christmas At The Ranch).

Clark plays Lou, who falls in love with her beautiful neighbor (Sandra Mae Frank) and makes a fool of herself trying to learn sign language. Provost-Chalkley plays a musician struggling to take care of her ailing mother alongside her girlfriend (Janelle Marie Rodriguez). Allen plays Mardou, who finds herself falling for her brother’s ex-fiancee, Iris (Goss).

There are plenty of cringe-worthy moments throughout and the writing isn’t the best, but there are enough talented actors involved that there’s at least something here worth watching. Allen and Goss’s characters have by far the best narrative, and the film probably could have worked with just their storyline. Emily Goss is a star! It aims to be a sort of lesbian Love, Actually, and it doesn’t totally fail at that goal despite the relatively minuscule budget. There’s some cheer to be had here.

Under The Christmas Tree (2021), dir. Lisa Rose Snow

Lifetime’s Under The Christmas Tree was marketed as the first lesbian Lifetime Christmas movie, and it does in fact deliver on that premise. The film follows Alma (Elise Bauman, who you may know from Carmilla), a young woman who’s recently taken charge of running her family’s Christmas goods business. Alma meets Charlie (Tattiawna Jones), a so-called “tree whisperer” who has been sent to Camden, Maine to find the perfect tree for the official Maine tree lighting ceremony. Charlie finds the perfect tree, but it happens to be in Alma’s backyard, and she is vehemently against cutting it down.

This is a Christmas movie, so Alma and Charlie obviously reconcile their differences over holiday-themed activities such as a gingerbread house-building competition. They are also helped along by Alma’s fairy godmother of sorts, a local baker named Maria, played by Ricki Lake (who is rather hilariously featured on the film’s poster.)

Under The Christmas Tree is a classic Lifetime holiday movie in every way, except for the lesbians. The plot and dialogue are silly, but Carmilla fans are likely to appreciate Bauman playing a Laura Hollis-like character in this cheerful Christmas setting. (Alma’s dad is also played by Enrico Colantoni, which only adds to the Carmilla connection.) This is the kind of movie that has people saying “lesbians deserve cheesy Christmas movies too!!!” which tells you a lot about the state of holiday films today. Under The Christmas Tree also features a group of chickens named after classic Hollywood stars, if that moves you one way or the other.

We Need A Little Christmas (2020), dir. Onyx Keesha, Noble Julz

We Need A Little Christmas is by far the lowest-budget movie on here, and for that reason (and perhaps a few others) it’s pretty difficult to get through. The movie follows a group of friends living in Atlanta who drive up to a cabin for Christmas. Two of the friends are married with kids, and the others are single. One of the women is struggling because her partner died two years previously, and there’s a lot of tension around that topic. Basically, they spend their time at the cabin working on their issues while the matriarch of the clan preaches about God’s Plan.

The acting in this is not great, and neither is the sound quality, which makes it hard to hear some of the lines. The one thing the movie has going for it is that it’s a Christmas movie about a group of black lesbians, which makes it, as far as I can tell, the only film of this sort to ever exist. In other circumstances, I would have enjoyed watching a group of friends like this go about their holiday rituals, but the production value here makes this one a hard sell. It’s only an hour long though, so if you’re dying to see something like this, it’s not a huge waste of time.

Honorable mentions:

The Holiday Club (2024), another film by Alexandra Swarens that takes place across all the holidays in a year.

Christmas is Cancelled (2021), which features a queer bff.

Christmas With the Darlings (2020), another Hallmark movie that features a lesbian BFF.

Friendsgiving (2020), a queer Thanksgiving Netflix movie that features Wanda Sykes, Margaret Cho, and Fortune Feimster.

Ghosting: The Spirit of Christmas (2019), in which Aisha Dee plays a (straight) ghost and there is a lesbian subplot.

I Hate New Year’s (2020), another movie from Tello Films and Christin Baker that also stars Dia Frampton in a lead role.

Lez Bomb (2018), a lesbian Thanksgiving movie that I will probably never watch because of its high cringe levels.

Silent Night (2021), a Christmas horror/comedy that features a pair of girlfriends.

An Unexpected Christmas (2021), a Hallmark movie that features a lesbian single mom character.

What’s Cooking (2000), a cross-cultural Thanksgiving film from Bend It Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha. The most important thing about this movie is that Julianna Margulies and Kyra Sedgwick play a lesbian couple in it. The film itself is mediocre but I do feel that more people should know about this fact.

You Make It Feel Like Christmas (2021), a Lifetime movie with a small lesbian subplot.