Christmas Movies for Grown-Ups
This list is for after the kids are in bed: Christmas films made for adults, from romances and dark comedies to action, horror and the ones that leave grown-ups reaching for tissues. Each note says plainly why it isn't a family film, which helps if older kids are still wandering through the room.
Every pick comes from our parents' guide and has a guide age of 13 or over. They split into two groups. The PG-13 films, such as National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, The Holiday and Happiest Season, are ones many parents share with a teenager. The R-rated ones, among them Die Hard, Violent Night, Love Actually and Black Christmas, are not, and the notes give the specifics, from nude scenes to dozens of f-words. Some are Christmas films only in setting: Die Hard, Batman Returns and Black Christmas just happen in December. The Holdovers, The Family Stone and Last Christmas are about the holiday itself, and they're the ones most likely to make you cry.
For a night with teenagers, use Christmas Movies for Tweens and Teens; for everyone together, Family Christmas Movies. If the mood is romance, there's more in Romantic Comedies That Actually Work and Date Night Movies; for something with a body count, try Action Movies With Real Craft.
The Holdovers
Movie · 2023Paul Giamatti's prickly classics teacher, a stranded student and Da'Vine Joy Randolph's grieving cook, in a film that won her an Oscar. Funny, then quietly devastating. Not one for the family: there are about 35 f-words by one count, bourbon is never far away, and the grief at its center, for a son killed in Vietnam, is written for adults.
Die Hard
Movie · 1988Yes, it's a Christmas movie: the office party, Christmas Eve and 'Ho-ho-ho' scrawled on a dead gunman's sweatshirt settle it. It isn't a family one. About a dozen die, several shot in the head at close range, there are 40-plus f-words by one count, a party guest snorts cocaine, and a couple is caught mid-tryst, the woman briefly topless.
Love Actually
Movie · 2003The ensemble romance many adults rewatch every December, with Hugh Grant dancing through Downing Street and Emma Thompson's quiet heartbreak. Not one for family viewing: two film-set stand-ins appear naked through several scenes of simulated sex, there are several f-words, and the jokes are often sexual. A few storylines, such as a boss and his assistant, have aged badly.
Scrooged
Movie · 1988Bill Murray's mean, very funny Christmas Carol, set at a TV network. It looks like a family comedy and isn't: a fired employee returns with a shotgun, Carol Kane's fairy ghost beats Murray with a toaster, the dead are grotesque, and a network promo flashes a shot of someone shooting heroin. Add heavy drinking, s-words and steady innuendo.
Carol
Movie · 2015A slow, beautiful love story between two women in 1950s New York, with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, which begins at a department-store toy counter at Christmas. It isn't a family film because of a frank love scene with nudity, two f-words and the adult weight of a mother risking custody of her daughter. Best watched without interruptions.
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Movie · 1989Clark Griswold's unraveling, from lights that won't light to the Jelly of the Month Club instead of a bonus, is funniest if you've hosted relatives yourself. It isn't one for young kids: crude sex jokes, an f-word among a stream of s-words, a brief bare breast, and cracks about who fills the stockings that could spoil Santa for a believer.
Black Christmas
Movie · 1974The 1974 slasher that set the pattern, with Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder as sorority sisters staying on over the holidays. It frightens through dread rather than gore. Keep it from kids: the obscene calls are vile, c-word included, a murdered student stays in the attic, plastic bag over her head, all film long, and the ending offers no comfort.
The Holiday
Movie · 2006Nancy Meyers's house-swap romance, a Los Angeles mansion for an English village cottage, with Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Jude Law and Jack Black. It's for grown-ups mainly because it's about grown-up heartbreak, but there's also a fling shown in tangled sheets, an f-word, drunken comedy, and a moment where a despairing Iris turns on the gas oven before stopping herself.
Batman Returns
Movie · 1992Tim Burton's Batman sequel plays like gothic horror, with Danny DeVito's Penguin and Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman stalking a snowbound Gotham. It was sold to children with toys and fast-food tie-ins in 1992, and parents complained with good reason: gunmen fire into a crowd, a woman is pushed from a window, and Catwoman's scenes run on leering innuendo.
The Family Stone
Movie · 2005An ensemble dramedy with Diane Keaton, Sarah Jessica Parker and Rachel McAdams that starts as a comedy of bad manners and becomes a film about a mother's illness. Grown-ups will want tissues. It isn't for younger viewers: a son smokes marijuana while chatting with his father, the sex talk is frank, and the grief is very real.
Violent Night
Movie · 2022David Harbour as a beer-swilling Santa fighting mercenaries on Christmas Eve, Home Alone traps and all. It's a comedy, but nowhere near a family film: dozens of gory kills, by ornament, ice skate and woodchipper, around 50 f-words, and a Santa who gets drunk and throws up on someone. Gleeful, if that's your sort of thing.
Happiest Season
Movie · 2020Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis as a couple visiting Harper's family, who don't know she's gay. Dan Levy and Aubrey Plaza steal their scenes. It's fine with older teens, but its question, how much of yourself to hide for a partner's family, lands hardest with adults. Kids would meet a morning-after scene in underwear, a bondage-gear gag and steady drinking.
Krampus
Movie · 2015Toni Collette and Adam Scott head a squabbling family besieged on Christmas Eve in this horror comedy. Adults get the satire of a holiday gone sour. Children would get nightmares: monsters drag kids away, two of them into a fiery pit, and gingerbread men come armed with a nail gun. Add an f-word or two and a bleak ending.
Last Christmas
Movie · 2019Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding in a romance co-written by Emma Thompson, who also plays Kate's mother, with Michelle Yeoh running the Christmas shop. Sweet and sad, with a twist people either love or hate. Not a family film: Kate's drinking and one-night stands are central to the story, the swearing is frequent, and the ending deals in grief.
Four Christmases
Movie · 2008Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon try to visit four divorced parents in one day, played by Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight and Mary Steenburgen. Brash, broad and under 90 minutes. Too crude for family night: the couple slip into a restroom stall for sex, a grandmother jokes about her own, and the family fights are loud and mean.
Still can't decide? Let us pick →
More lists like this
Family Christmas Movies
Christmas movies and specials the whole family can share, youngest guide age first, with who each one suits.
15 picksChristmas Movies and Specials for Little Kids
Gentle Christmas specials and films for ages three to six, each with the one moment that might upset a small child.
15 picksChristmas Movies for Tweens and Teens
Christmas comedies, romances and scares for ages 10 to 15, with exactly what's in each one.
Picks are editorial recommendations. Streaming availability changes by region and over time — the “where to stream” links check current availability on JustWatch.