The Best Holiday Movies and TV Shows on Free Services

What it's about: In the early years of the 20th century, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a British-trained lawyer, forsakes all worldly possessions to take up the cause of Indian independence. Faced with armed resistance from the British government, Gandhi adopts a policy of 'passive resistance', endeavouring to win freedom for his people without resorting to bloodshed.

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

What it's about: A man must struggle to travel home for Thanksgiving, with an obnoxious slob of a shower ring salesman his only companion.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime & Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play, Prime Video & 5 others). Coming soon to Prime Video on May 30th, 2019 (PDT).

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: 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: 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 & Ameba) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: In 1976, Tony Wilson sets up Factory Records and brings Manchester's music to the world.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 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 & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 3 services (Google Play, Prime Video & YouTube).

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), stream on a subscription service (Shout Factory TV & Shudder) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 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. While widower Patrick Wheeler braces for his fate, he meets Sandra, the wife of a businessman who is intent on committing suicide. Meanwhile, Patrick's friend Craig decides to have as much sex as he can while there is still time.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 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: High school graduation just wouldn’t be complete without an un-chaperoned, uninhibited and unforgettable final holiday. At least that’s what Will, Jay, Simon and Neil think when they book a two-week stay on an exotic Greek island. As their dreams of sun-drenched days and booze-filled nights are left hopelessly unfulfilled, the lads fight their way into the party scene with hilariously humiliating results in this smash hit UK raunchy comedy.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix, Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (HBO) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 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: 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 (PopcornFlix & Tubi TV) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Microsoft & 2 others).

What it's about: It is New Year's weekend and the friends of Peter (Fry) gather at his newly inherited country house. Ten years ago, they all acted together in a Cambridge University student comedy troupe, but it's less clear how much they have in common now.Peter's friends are Andrew (Branagh), now a writer in Hollywood; married jingle writers Roger (Laurie) and Mary (Staunton); glamorous costume designer Sarah (Emmanuel); and eccentric Maggie (Thompson), who works in publishing. Cast in sharp relief to the university chums are Carol (Rudner), the American TV star wife of Andrew; and loutish Brian (Slattery), Sarah's very recently acquired lover. Law plays Peter's disapproving housekeeper, Vera; and Lowe, her son Paul. Briers appears in a cameo role as Peter's father.

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

What it's about: When their regal matriarch falls ill, the troubled Vuillard family come together for a hesitant Christmastime reunion. Among them is rebellious ne'er-do-well Henri and the uptight Elizabeth. Together under the same roof for the first time in many years, their intricate, long denied resentments and yearnings emerge again.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 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) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 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 3 services (iTunes, Prime Video & Vudu).

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) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Four teenagers at a British private school secretly uncover and explore the depths of a sealed underground hole created decades ago as a possible bomb shelter.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV).

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: 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), 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) & 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), stream on a subscription service (Full Moon) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 2 others).

What it's about: 19-year-old Billy Lynn is brought home for a victory tour after a harrowing Iraq battle. Through flashbacks the film shows what really happened to his squad - contrasting the realities of war with America's perceptions.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Sony Crackle) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 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: 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 & Shout Factory TV) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 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 subscription service (Prime Video), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Prime Video & Vudu).

What it's about: Three kids hire a low-budget bodyguard to protect them from the playground bully, not realising he is just a homeless beggar and petty thief looking for some easy cash.

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: 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: London is a drug laden adventure that centers on a party in a New York loft where a young man is trying to win back his ex-girlfriend.

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

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: 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: 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) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 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) & stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

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 $2.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Prime Video & Vudu).

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 & Realeyz) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 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), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

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 (PopcornFlix & Tubi TV) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

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 (Vudu), stream on a subscription service (Tribeca Short List) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Five friends are stalked and murdered by a masked assailant while preparing for Valentine's Day.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Inspired by the picturesque paintings of Thomas Kinkade, The Christmas Cottage tells the semi-autobiographical tale of how a young boy is propelled to launch a career as an artist after he learns that his mother is in danger of losing the family home.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 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 1 service (Google Play).

What it's about: Crystal, a rich party girl, finds a little girl's letter to Santa asking for a new mother, and she vows to win over the father and daughter before the holidays.

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

What it's about: NOT COOL follows former prom king and college freshman Scott (Shane Dawson) who has just returned home for Thanksgiving break only to be dumped by his eccentric, long-term girlfriend. With his world turned upside down, Scott strikes an unlikely friendship with former classmate Tori (Cherami Leigh), an ugly duckling who blossomed in her first semester of college. Together, the two embark on an outrageous adventure through their hometown. But when Scott and Tori find their friendship turning into something deeper, they realize that a few months away may have changed them more than they realized.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 4 others).

What it's about: Wendy Walton is the best designer in Boston... but no one knows it yet. Hoping to kick-start her career, Wendy has left work with the local theatre to take a job as an assistant to Priscilla Hall, the most prestigious designer in the city. Ms. Hall works Wendy around the clock, which is how Wendy finds herself trapped in an elevator late one night with an incredibly handsome stranger. Wendy and the mystery man share an impulsive, romantic, life changing kiss before the doors open and Wendy runs out, leaving him behind. The next day at work, Wendy answers the door to find the handsome gentleman standing in front of her.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Vudu), stream on a subscription service (Dove Channel & Up Faith Family) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 1 service (Microsoft).

What it's about: Kara and Jessie are two teenage girls from very different worlds, but with a little Christmas magic, they find they have much more in common than they ever imagined.

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