Best movies like The Christmas Wish
Last updated March 2024
Looking for movies like The Christmas Wish? Share your expertise to steer others to tv series and movies you've watched previously that might similarly absorb them. Aid in expanding the network of people mentioning videos to each other. We encourage your involvement!
Plot Summary:
Returning to his home town after the death of the grandfather who raised him, slick and cynical Wall Street trader Will Martin (Neil Patrick Harris) feels decidedly out of place, and not at all in tune with the Christmas preparations being made by the local citizenry. But Will isn't really taking a sentimental journey at all: He's merely in town to modernize and streamline his family's real-estate company. While going through his grandfather's effects, Will and his grandmother (Debbie Reynolds) come across the old man's diary--which reveals a lengthy relationship with a woman named Lillian. Determined to locate this mystery mistress (if indeed that's who Lillian is), Will learns a few vital lessons about love, forgiveness, and recapturing the Yuletide spirit that has so long eluded him.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 771
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags:
Best tv shows and movies like The Christmas Wish (1998):
Similar in 89%
The Christmas Heart (2012)
Plot Summary:
The tight-knit neighbors on Arthur Avenue have proudly lit Christmas luminaries for 40 years, but that long-standing tradition is cancelled this year when Matt Norman (Ty Wood), a teenage boy in the neighborhood, is hospitalized in desperate need of a heart transplant. As his parents Ann (Teri Polo) and Mike (Paul Essiembre) anxiously pray by his bedside, a donor is found, while in Detroit, a mother (Tess Harper) is in anguish at her own son’s bedside. When Matt's neighbors decide to honor him in the best way they know how, they just might help save his life.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 699
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, touching, sweet, captivating, suspense, entertaining
Similar in 78%
The Gift of Love: A Christmas Story (1983)
Plot Summary:
After experiencing several stressful situations within a short time --including the failure of the family business and the loss of her mother-- Janet Broderick becomes ill. Falling into a deep sleep, she dreams of returning to her hometown, taking her children with her to meet her deceased loved ones. Perhaps, during a Christmas reunion with her beloved family, she will find the answer to coping with her troubles.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 360
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
An Old Fashioned Christmas (2010)
Plot Summary:
The story of An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving continues. Isabella and Tilly pay a visit to Ireland, hoping Isabella's long-ago suitor, the Earl of Shannon, can assist Tilly in getting her writing published.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 468
Genere: Drama
Country: Ireland, USA, Canada
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, sincere, suspenseful, disturbing, period drama
Similar in 82%
The National Tree (2009)
Plot Summary:
A teenager has his Sitka Spruce tree chosen to be planted outside the White House as the new national Christmas Tree.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 623
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
A Christmas Winter Song (2019)
Plot Summary:
Clio befriends Fred, a homeless former jazz singer down on his luck. They form a special bond over music, and Clio, having just lost her own father, helps Fred reconnect with his own daughter, just in time for Christmas.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 481
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
A Holiday in Harlem (2021)
Plot Summary:
Business executive Jazmin Carter is known for two things: turning fledgling businesses into profit producers and avoiding Christmas in Harlem, the neighborhood where she grew up.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 588
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus (1991)
Plot Summary:
While newspaper writer Church struggles with the death of his wife, he receives a "special" assignment. He must answer a little girl's question about whether Santa Claus really exists.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 946
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
The Christmas Choir (2008)
Plot Summary:
Based on a true story, The Christmas Choir is the inspiring account of how one man can make a remarkable difference simply by giving of himself. Workaholic accountant Peter Andrews (Jason Gedrick) has overlooked Christmas, friends and even his fiance for far too long. As a result, his life begins to fall apart. But a chance encounter with a homeless man named Bob (Tyrone Benskin) changes everything and inspires Peter to start a choir that eventually goes on to enormous success. With the help of the unconventional Sister Agatha (Rhea Perlman) and his new found friends at the shelter, Peter learns that Christmas is not a season but a state of mind and that everyone deserves a second chance at life and love.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 668
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 80%
Dear Santa (2011)
Plot Summary:
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.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: feel good, realistic, touching, serious, entertaining, romantic drama
Similar in 78%
By God's Grace (2014)
Plot Summary:
In the tradition of a classic "A Christmas Carol", this film offers many lessons on the importance of giving and the cause and effect our choices have on others.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 241
Genere: Drama, Family
Country: USA
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Paper Angels (2014)
Plot Summary:
An abused wife leaves her alcoholic husband and moves with her children to another town. There their lives become entwined with another family in trouble.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 719
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, captivating, disturbing, inspirational
Similar in 84%
Christmas 9 to 5 (2019)
Plot Summary:
Jennifer is a tough crime beat reporter who gets the assignment of her life: to find the true meaning of Christmas. When she goes undercover in a department store as a 9 to 5 sales clerk from Black Friday to Christmas Eve, she finds her true calling and meets the man of her dreams. It's a Christmas she will never forget.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 673
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 85%
A Different Kind of Christmas (1995)
Plot Summary:
When you're the city attorney you don't need the kinds of problems that her father was giving her. After her mother died, her father began doing his "Santa Schick," as she called it, much more intensely... which meant that he turned his home into a kind of year-round Santa Claus castle where children of all ages could come to see the wonderful presents and no child ever left without a gift.
IMDB Rating: 5.4
IMDB Votes: 443
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: christmas comedy
Similar in 89%
November Christmas (2010)
Plot Summary:
A young father asks for pumpkins at the local farm stand. "In August? No." the farmer replies. The farmer ruminates on the odd request and gets involved with strangers for the first time since his son's death long ago.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: emotional, sincere, serious, disturbing, sad, realistic
Similar in 86%
A Hobo's Christmas (1987)
Plot Summary:
A hobo played by Barnard Hughes decides it's time to go home. Drifting from place to place, Hughes finds himself in his hometown of Salt Lake City at Christmas time. Here he hopes to close old wounds and be reunited with his unforgiving son played by Gerald McRaney, and get to know the grandchildren he has never met. McRaney, still resenting the fact that Hughes ran out on his family 25 years earlier, gives his father only one day with his grandkids; after that, he's expected to leave and never come back. All the while Hughes' friends warn him that his son and the past are memories that are best left alone, and should leave, but he has to find out for himself.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 431
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, feel good, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 75%
The Christmas Wife (1988)
Plot Summary:
The Christmas Wife is a made-for-cable television drama based on a story by Helen Norris. An aging and recent widower, not wanting to spend his first Christmas alone, responds to an ad in the newspaper which reads: "You are not alone. We make social arrangements of all kinds." When he visits the Social Arranger, he makes it very clear his only interest is in "social company" and is subsequently introduced to a woman who agrees to spend the holiday with him. The woman bids him to not ask any questions about her personal life, which harbors a secret that threatens their developing friendship, and could ultimately change both their lives.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 410
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 73 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Christmas in Canaan (2009)
Plot Summary:
Set in the 1960s, Christmas in Canaan is a drama about a black family and a white family that learn to love each other out of their Christian beliefs.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 629
Genere: Drama, Family
Country: USA
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: light, atmospheric, sentimental, captivating
Similar in 89%
A Song for Christmas (2017)
Plot Summary:
Pop superstar Adelaide Kay is so fed up with her controlling manager that she sneaks off the tour bus after their latest squabble. Though exhilarated to be free, she finds herself stranded in the freezing cold of a Pennsylvania winter, with no money and no plan. A local family, the Lapps, take her in. They know the true meaning of the season, even if they’re close to losing their dairy farm. No one in the family recognizes Adelaide except Dillon, the oldest son. He figures she’s the ticket to fast cash and plots to snap photos of Adelaide around the farm and sell them to the tabs. What he doesn’t plan, however, is their mutual attraction.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: funny, light, romantic, feel good, humorous, entertaining
Similar in 80%
Merry Liddle Christmas Wedding (2020)
Plot Summary:
Follows Jacquie Liddle as she and Tyler try to plan their perfect destination Christmas wedding. Naturally, Jacquie’s plans go awry when her boisterous family intervenes in her planning and her snooty wedding planner quits in protest. While nothing goes as initially planned, Jacquie and Tyler get a Christmas wedding more memorable than they could have ever dreamed.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 447
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: light, romantic, feel good, sweet, entertaining
Similar in 77%
Secret Santa (2003)
Plot Summary:
Newspaper reporter Rebecca Chandler, who feels she got no fair chance to prove her worth in her thee years career, looks forward to a Hawaian holiday with her fiancé Ryan, but instead of a ring he brings her- walking orders, he found better. So she accepts again to be the bachelor on duty in the Christmas season, and write the annual romantic non-news feel good-story, once more about the elusive Secret Santa in small-town Hamden, where the Christmas spirit it said to last all year. Bad luck follows her from Indianapolis: her car breaks down, she can only get lodgings in a home for the elderly without Internet, and nobody wants to help her unmask the secret Santa. Soon she guesses it must be the only rich philanthropist, but the popular Mr. John Martin Carter doesn't grant her an interview and isn't tricked either, in fact meets her at the worst repeatedly without her knowing him.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 652
Genere: Drama, Family
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sincere, captivating, entertaining, disturbing
Similar in 79%
The Christmas Tree (1996)
Plot Summary:
A story about a forming friendship between an elderly nun, Sister Anthony, and New York's Rockefeller Center's head gardener Richard Reilly, who wants to fell a tree she's been growing for decades and move it to New York for Christmas display.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 438
Genere: Drama, Family
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: christmas special
Similar in 89%
Home by Christmas (2006)
Plot Summary:
Julia Bedford is a homemaker who's left with next to nothing after a divorce. When Julia finds herself homeless, she begins her comeback and discovers what is really valuable in life.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 917
Genere: Drama, Family
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 81%
The Christmas Shoes (2002)
Plot Summary:
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.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Family
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sentimental, serious, sincere, hilarious, realistic
Similar in 82%
A Dog Named Christmas (2009)
Plot Summary:
A developmentally challenged young man with a penchant for caring for animals in need sets out to convince his family - and their whole rural community - to participate in a local shelter's inaugural "Adopt a Dog for Christmas Program.".
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Family
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: touching, feel good, sentimental, sincere, captivating, christmas special, humorous, semi serious, realistic, entertaining
Similar in 88%
The Christmas Box (1995)
Plot Summary:
A ski-shop owner reluctantly moves himself, his wife, and his daughter in to an estate as live-in help for an elderly widow. While struggling to balance his career and family life, he has recurring dreams about an angel.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, feel good, semi serious
Similar in 88%
The Christmas Blessing (2005)
Plot Summary:
Nathan Andrews is all grown up. As a young doctor, Nathan finds himself questioning his career choice, so he goes to his hometown to soul search and reconnect with his father. Once home, a blossoming romance with teacher Megan Sullivan and a fast friendship with student Charlie Bennett teach Nathan to live life in the moment and embrace the time he has with friends and family.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Family, Romance
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: sincere, captivating, entertaining
Similar in 79%
A Christmas Visitor (2002)
Plot Summary:
A father struggles with the past. A daughter fights for the future. A mother searches for answers. The Boyajians have not celebrated Christmas in 11 years. They lost their faith when they lost their son to the Persian Gulf War. Now a stranger has joined them - around the same age the boy would have been.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 88%
Noel (2004)
Plot Summary:
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.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: touching, humorous, emotional, sentimental, sincere, realistic, semi serious, independent film, gloomy, iconic
Similar in 79%
Timepiece (1996)
Plot Summary:
Set in the 1940's, James Earl Jones as an an old clockmaker faces racism and is tried for murder when the racist is killed. However, Kevin Kilner comes forward and claims to have commmitted the crime in self defense. All the while, Kilner's family life is in disarray with various crises including his daughter catching meningitis.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 514
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic
Similar in 77%
The Fitzgerald Family Christmas (2012)
Plot Summary:
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?.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, independent film