Movies like Santa Claus (2021)
The best movies like Santa Claus (2021) are Miracle on 34th Street (1994), Prancer (1989) and 12 Days of Giving (2017). If Santa Claus hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedIt's a Wonderful Life (1946)8.3/10 from 5,162 votes
- NewestA Waltons Thanksgiving (2022)Released 2022
Miracle on 34th Street (1994)
Six-year-old Susan Walker has doubts about childhood's most enduring miracle—Santa Claus. Her mother told her the secret about Santa a long time ago, but, after meeting a special department store Santa who's convinced he's the real thing, Susan is given the most precious gift of all—something to believe in.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPrancer (1989)
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 and decides to sell it to the butcher, not for venison chops, but as an advertising display.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this12 Days of Giving (2017)
A photographer uses his cash prize to anonymously give gifts, sparking a change in the community.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Bridge Part 2 (2016)
The second-half of the movie picks up in the present day, seven years later, with Ryan returning home from being on the road touring as a professional singer and Molly working at her father's corporation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChristmas in Angel Falls (2017)
Gabby Messinger, a Guardian Angel who has trouble following the rules and is known for meddling in the love live’s of others, is tasked by the Angel Michael to help the town of Angel Falls find its Christmas spirit again.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Bishop's Wife (1947)
An Episcopal Bishop, Henry Brougham, has been working for months on the plans for an elaborate new cathedral which he hopes will be paid for primarily by a wealthy, stubborn widow. He is losing sight of his family and of why he became a churchman in the first place. Enter Dudley, an angel sent to help him. Dudley does help everyone he meets, but not necessarily in the way they would have preferred. With the exception of Henry, everyone loves him, but Henry begins to believe that Dudley is there to replace him, both at work and in his family's affections, as Christmas approaches.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Christmas Shoes (2002)
Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHow Sarah Got Her Wings (2015)
Good Samaritan Sarah Fitzpatrick has a fatal accident just before Christmas, and finds herself in the lobby before the gates of Heaven. Certain that she will be let in, she is shocked to find that her name is not on the reservation list. However, she is granted the chance to return to Earth as an "angel in training" with the requirement to help a soul in need. Sarah has the 12 days before Christmas to secure her place on the list leaving her in the race for her after-life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisA Christmas Carol (1984)
Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisChristmas Incorporated (2015)
Sometimes, life just seems to hand you exactly what you need – particularly at Christmastime. Riley is scraping bottom when she miraculously lands a job with a wealthy New York City entrepreneur. He’s a bad-boy socialite type who is poised to play Scrooge by closing one of his factories just before Christmas, which would devastate an entire town. It’s left to Riley to talk him out of it and turn him into a man of virtue rather than shame.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEvelyn (2002)
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 this is an untenable situation. The Catholic Church and the Irish courts decide to put the Doyle children into Church-run orphanages.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Christmas Carol (1938)
Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWon't Back Down (2012)
Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDoctor Who: A Christmas Carol (2010)
Amy Pond and Rory Williams are trapped on a crashing space liner, and the only way the Eleventh Doctor can rescue them is to save the soul of a lonely old miser. But is Kazran Sardick, the richest man in Sardicktown, beyond redemption? And what is lurking in the fogs of Christmas Eve?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisIt's a Wonderful Life (1946)
George Bailey has spent his entire life giving to the people of Bedford Falls. All that prevents rich skinflint Mr. Potter from taking over the entire town is George's modest building and loan company. But on Christmas Eve the business's $8,000 is lost and George's troubles begin.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisAdopt a Highway (2019)
Russ Millings has just been released from prison after serving 21 years for a 3rd strike conviction for possessing an ounce of marijuana. As he tries to adapt to a world he doesn’t recognize – including trying to learn how to use the internet – he finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster behind the fast food restaurant where he works as a dishwasher. Unsure of what to do, and caught between impulses of kindness and panic, Russ soon realizes this could be his chance at redemption.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Keys of the Kingdom (1944)
A young priest, Father Chisholm is sent to China to establish a Catholic parish among the non-Christian Chinese. While his boyhood friend, also a priest, flourishes in his calling as a priest in a more Christian area of the world, Father Chisholm struggles. He encounters hostility, isolation, disease, poverty and a variety of set backs which humble him, but make him more determined than ever to succeed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Fugitive (1947)
Anti-Catholic and anti-cleric policies in the Mexican state of Tabasco lead the revolutionary government to persecute the state's last remaining priest.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Bridge (2015)
The sweeping tale of Molly Callens and Ryan Kelly, two young students who share a profound friendship their first semester in college, a time that becomes the defining moment of their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLittle Lord Fauntleroy (1980)
Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSummer Storm (2004)
Tobi and Achim, the pride of the local crew club, have been the best of friends for years and are convinced that nothing will ever stand in the way of their friendship. They look forward to the upcoming summer camp and the crew competition. Then the gay team from Berlin arrives and Tobi is totally confused. The evening before the races begin, the storm that breaks out is more than meteorological.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSummer '04 (2006)
A character study of a family on vacation. The emotional abyss and problems are behind the seemingly nice facade of an intact family as they experience guilt, love, and jealousy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Love Actually (2003)
Eight very different couples deal with their love lives in various loosely interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSwedish Package Holiday (1989)
Three intertwined stories about Serbian truck driver who is involved into drug trafficking without knowing, Czech family who live by the road which makes them a lot of troubles since many cars crash into their house, and a bus full of Swedish grannies who go on a Trans-European package holiday.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Les Biches (1968)
A bored bisexual millionaire picks up a young destitute street artist and whisks her away to her villa in Saint Tropez. They meet a dashing local architect and both fall for him, setting in motion a ménage à trois of deception and betrayal.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPieces of April (2003)
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.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSmall Change (1976)
The lives of a motherless young man, who's just starting to find interest in women, and his physically abused, poverty stricken friend, are mixed with more or less innocent childhood experiences and challenges most their age experience.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Waltons Thanksgiving (2022)
Follows the Walton family as they prepare enthusiastically for the annual Harvest Festival Fair on Walton Mountain in 1934, but their lives are dramatically changed after a young boy arrives.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005)
Four best friends (Tibby, Lena, Carmen & Bridget) who buy a mysterious pair of pants that fits each of them, despite their differing sizes, and makes whoever wears them feel fabulous. When faced with the prospect of spending their first summer apart, the pals decide they'll swap the pants so that each girl in turn can enjoy the magic.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJack Frost (1998)
A father who can't keep his promises dies in a car accident. One year later, he returns as a snowman, who has one final chance to put things right with his son before he is gone forever.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Santa Claus?
The closest matches to Santa Claus are Miracle on 34th Street (1994), Prancer (1989) and 12 Days of Giving (2017). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Santa Claus?
Start with Miracle on 34th Street (1994), the closest match to Santa Claus.
What is the highest-rated movie like Santa Claus?
It's a Wonderful Life (1946), rated 8.3/10 by 5,162 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Santa Claus?
A Waltons Thanksgiving (2022) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Korean movies like Santa Claus?
The closest matches are in other languages.
How are movies similar to Santa Claus chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Santa Claus, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.