The Best Holiday Movies and TV Shows on Free Services

What it's about: The Machinist is the story of Trevor Reznik, a lathe-operator who is dying of insomnia. In a machine shop, occupational hazards are bad enough under normal circumstances; yet for Trevor the risks are compounded by fatigue. Trevor has lost the ability to sleep. This is no ordinary insomnia...

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix & Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: We meet Jesse and Celine nine years on in Greece. Almost two decades have passed since their first meeting on that train bound for Vienna.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Sony Crackle), stream on a subscription service (Sundance Now) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: One Christmas Eve three people, a middle-aged alcoholic named Gin, a former drag queen Hana and a dependent runaway girl Miyuki, discover an abandoned newborn while looking through the garbage.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Sony Crackle).

What it's about: A miserable conman and his partner pose as Santa and his Little Helper to rob department stores on Christmas Eve. But they run into problems when the conman befriends a troubled kid, and the security boss discovers the plot.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Vudu) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: A myriad of outrageous calamities befall an eccentric English clan with more than a few skeletons in its closets, when its patriarch dies an unexpected death. Soon, every complication imaginable—including the wrong corpse in the coffin, the accidental consumption of hallucinogenic drugs and the disclosure of the deceased's closeted homosexuality—befall the grief-stricken mourners.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Showtime), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime & Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: For Norman and Ethel Thayer, this summer on golden pond is filled with conflict and resolution. When their daughter Chelsea arrives, the family is forced to renew the bonds of love and overcome the generational friction that has existed for years. Norman must find his way through his anger and fear of growing old, while Chelsea struggles to rebuild their relationship. Ethel's consistent support of her "Knight in shining armor" is inspirational in its simplicity. This is a movie to ponder and always keep in your heart.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix & Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Two women, one from the United States and one from the United Kingdom, swap homes at Christmastime after bad breakups with their boyfriends. Each woman finds romance with a local man but realizes that the imminent return home may end the relationship.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Sony Crackle) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: A young boy makes a snowman one Christmas Eve, which comes to life at midnight and takes the boy on a magical adventure to the North Pole to meet Santa Claus.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: A couple's marital troubles are put on hold while they host an unhappy reunion of former college pals gathered for the funeral of one of their own, a suicide victim named Alex. As the weekend unfolds, the friends catch up with each other, play the music of their youth, reminisce, smoke marijuana, and pair off with each other.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Sony Crackle), stream on a subscription service (CBS All Access) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: An acclaimed writer, his ex-wife, and their teenaged children come to terms with the complexities of love in all its forms over the course of one tumultuous year.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix, Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: A sorority house is terrorized by a stranger who makes frightening phone calls and then murders the sorority sisters during Christmas break.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix, Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a subscription service (Shout Factory TV, Shudder & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: Quirky and rebellious April Burns lives with her boyfriend in a low-rent New York City apartment miles away from her emotionally distant family. But when she discovers that her mother has a fatal form of breast cancer, she invites the clan to her place for Thanksgiving. While her father struggles to drive her family into the city, April -- an inexperienced cook -- runs into kitchen trouble and must ask a neighbor for help.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Ollie Dee and Stanley Dum try to borrow money from their employer, the toymaker, to pay off the mortgage on Mother Peep's shoe and keep it and Little Bo Peep from the clutches of the evil Barnaby. When that fails, they trick Barnaby into marrying Stanley Dum instead of Bo Peep. Enraged, Barnaby unleashes the bogeymen from their caverns to destroy Toyland.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Various citizens of Toronto anxiously await the end of the world, which is occurring at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a subscription service (Mubi) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Christmas Eve. On his way to his in-laws with his family, Frank Harrington decides to try a shortcut, for the first time in 20 years. It turns out to be the biggest mistake of his life.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: A depressed man moves back in with his parents following a recent heartbreak and finds himself with two women.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a subscription service (Sundance Now) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Film archivist David and his wife are perfectly happy or so he believes. When a looming secret shatters their marriage at the same time as a turn-of-the-century film reel he is studying reveals their house to be the site of a 1902 multiple-murder, David begins to unravel, and the house’s eerie history threatens to repeat itself. Dripping with tension and chilling to the core, this visceral Irish ghost story is a visually arresting and genuinely shocking journey into the darkness within.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Hulu, Shudder & 1 other) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: After losing her job, making out with her soon to be ex-boss, and finding out that her daughter plans to spend Thanksgiving with her boyfriend, Claudia Larson has to face spending the holiday with her family. She wonders if she can survive their crazy antics.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: After an extremely regrettable one night stand, two strangers wake up to find themselves snowed in after sleeping through a blizzard that put all of Manhattan on ice. They're now trapped together in a tiny apartment, forced to get to know each other way more than any one night stand should.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Young filmmakers trying to hawk a movie titled "Bradykillers" about a serial killer who goes after victims Marcia, Jan, and Cindy meet their screen idol, William Shatner. The two young men, who idolize him and in their fantasies have seen him as a shadowy fairy godfather figure, are alarmed at the reality of the middle-aged non-Captain Kirk man that they meet.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: Two street-wise Chicago cops have to shake off some rust after returning from a Key West vacation to pursue a drug dealer that nearly killed them in the past.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Hulu), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 2 others).

What it's about: A man and woman meet and try to have a romantic affair, despite their personal problems and the interference of their disapproving friends.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Sony Crackle), stream on a subscription service (CBS All Access) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Angel City trooper Jack Deth is sent back in time from 2247 to 1985 L.A. to inhabit the body of his ancestor. Deth's assignment is to find his archenemy, Whistler, who turns people into zombies, before the fiend is able to kill all the ancestors of the future's governing council.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 2 others).

What it's about: While conducting a seance during a Halloween party, high-school seniors unlock the demon that remains locked in the crematorium.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix, Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Four friends lose themselves in a carefree South-East Asian holiday. Only three come back. Dave and Alice return home to their young family desperate for answers about Jeremy's mysterious disappearance. When Alice's sister Steph returns not long after, a nasty secret is revealed about the night her boyfriend went missing. But it is only the first of many. Who amongst them knows what happened on that fateful night when they were dancing under a full moon in Cambodia?

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $0.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: A group of young people leaves a disco and bumps into a shepherd who is ready to spend his night worshipping Satan.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix) & stream on a subscription service (Kanopy).

What it's about: The multi-platinum selling comedian performs his first holiday-themed stand-up special with his friends.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix), stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Prime Video) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 3 services (Google Play, Microsoft & YouTube).

What it's about: The first half of this film, set hundreds of years ago, shows how the old man who eventually became Santa Claus was given immortality and chosen to deliver toys to all the children of the world. The second half moves into the modern era, in which Patch, the head elf, strikes out on his own and falls in with an evil toy manufacturer who wants to corner the market and eliminate Santa Claus.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Vudu) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: A Foreign Service Officer in London tries to prevent a terrorist attack set to hit New York, but is forced to go on the run when she is framed for crimes she did not commit.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV, Vudu & IMDb TV) & stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: Four lost souls—a disgraced TV presenter, a foul-mouthed teen, an isolated single mother and a solipsistic muso—decide to end their lives on the same night, New Year's Eve. When this disillusioned quartet of strangers meet unintentionally at the same suicide hotspot, a London high-rise with the well-earned nickname Topper's Tower, they mutually agree to call off their plans for six weeks, forming an unconventional, dysfunctional family and becoming media sensations as the Topper House Four and searching together for the reasons to keep on living.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Hulu) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Christmas Eve in New York, and the lonely divorced publisher, Rose Collins, needs a miracle to improve the health of her mother, interned in a hospital with Alzheimers. She feels sorry for another patient and meets his visitor. Meanwhile, Nina Vasquez breaks her engagement with her beloved fiancé Mike due to his suffocating jealousy, but misses him. Mike is stalked by a stranger, bartender Artie Venzuela. The poor Jules arranges to spend Christmas Eve in the hospital, where he spent the best Christmas of his life when he was a teenager. The lives of some of these characters cross with others along the night.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Vada Sultenfuss has a holiday coming up, and an assignment: to do and essay on someone she admires and has never met. She decides she wants to do an assignment on her mother, but quickly realises she knows very little about her. She manages to get her father to agree to let her go to LA to stay with her Uncle Phil and do some research on her mother.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Sony Crackle & IMDb TV) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: On the gritty streets of LA, the destinies of four people desperate for connection and redemption are about to collide.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a subscription service (Urban Movie Channel) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: While on Christmas break, college student Michael journeys to Quebec City to spend time with his attractive girlfriend, Gabriella. Not long after he arrives, Gabriella breaks up with him, but her two equally gorgeous sisters waste no time showing romantic interest. In the meantime, Michael is left to deal with Gabriella's eccentric grandmother and offbeat father, an academic who spends most of his time naked.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 1 service (Vudu).

What it's about: A classic comedy of mistaken identity and romance set during the holiday season at a ski resort that is owned and operated by a Native American Nation. Shot on location at The Sundance Resort in Utah, this is the first contemporary romantic comedy to feature an almost entirely American Indian cast. The film was featured at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: On their last night of Thanksgiving break, four old friends, now all college freshmen, realize their small town has more meaning than they ever imagined.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: A young girl's aunt tells her the tale of a young ice skater and an enchanted reindeer.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Prime Video & Vudu).

What it's about: The siblings of the Fitzgerald family must decide if the dad who abandoned them 20 years ago can come home for Christmas. Can the big Irish clan get past their grievances to be a family again?

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Desmond Doyle is devastated when his wife abandons their family on the day after Christmas. His unemployment and the fact that there is no woman in the house to care for the children, Evelyn, Dermot and Maurice, make it clear to the authorities that his is an untenable situation. The Catholic Church and the Irish courts decide to put the Doyle children into Church-run orphanages.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 2 others).

What it's about: A prince from Europe meets a charming waitress when he travels to America during the Christmas holiday to escape an arranged marriage.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 2 services (Google Play & Microsoft).

What it's about: After her widowed father dies, deaf teenager Dot moves in with her godparents, Olivia and Paul Deer. The Deers' daughter, Nina, is openly hostile to Dot, but that does not prevent her from telling her secrets to her silent stepsister, including the fact that she wants to kill her lecherous father.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: Arthur, D.W., and their family and friends prepare to make the best Christmas ever in Elwood City - but obstacles get in their way.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & PBS Kids) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: An air-traffic controller quits after a plane crash but, years later, goes to help an airport that is in the path of a terrible storm.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Hulu), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: A toy factory worker, mentally scarred as a child upon learning Santa Claus is not real, suffers a nervous breakdown after being belittled at work, and embarks on a Yuletide killing spree.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix & Tubi TV) & stream on a subscription service (Shudder).

What it's about: Two French Canadian ne’er-do-wells travel to New York City with a scheme to a get rich quick selling Christmas trees.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Single mom Kathleen Russell (Roma Downey) and her daughter Zoey pretend to be Kathleen's boss's "family" so he can close a major business deal with the mysterious Mexican financier Javier Del Campo.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & IMDb TV) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 3 services (Google Play, Prime Video & YouTube).

What it's about: After her sister and brother-in-law's tragic death, an American woman who is the guardian for her young niece and nephew is invited to a royal European castle for Christmas by her late brother-in-law's father, the Duke of Castlebury. Feeling out of place as a commoner, she is determined to give her family a merry Christmas and surprises herself when she falls for a handsome prince.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Jessica, the daughter of an impoverished apple farmer, still believes in Santa Claus. So when she comes across a reindeer with an injured leg, it makes perfect sense to her to assume that it is Prancer, who had fallen from a Christmas display in town. She hides the reindeer in her barn and feeds it cookies, until she can return it to Santa. Her father finds the reindeer an decides to sell it to the butcher, not for venison chops, but as an advertising display.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Prime Video & Vudu).