Séamas O'Reilly: My ultimate guide to the best and worst Christmas movies to watch in 2024

I’m on hand to give you the lowdown on the sparkliest baubles on the cinematic Christmas tree

The sight of Danny DeVito in Paramount+’s A Sudden Case Of Christmas was a surprise.

There are, Entertainment Weekly tells us, 108 new Christmas movies available across a suite of channels and platforms this festive period. This might seem like a lot, and it is — but it’s actually a reduction from previous years. Last year’s round-up cited 116 films, and 2022 notched a truly sanity-warping 172.

The drop-off is likely a side-effect of the tumbling churn of the streaming boom-turned-bust, and the writers’ and actors’ strikes of 18 months ago. I certainly hope so, because the alternative is too terrifying to contemplate; the sad, sorry thought that we may suddenly be losing the true meaning of Christmas: the deadening manufacture of films in which hardworking women decamp from their big city office jobs to find love with a plain-speaking beau in their small hometown.