A fake girlfriend, an inconvenient ex or a woman who has come to claim the tree in your backyard: lesbian Christmas movies have excellent ways of introducing a romantic problem.
These nine sapphic holiday films put women’s love stories at the centre. Our starting pick is Friends & Family Christmas for its familiar fake-dating setup; Season of Love offers several couples, while Last ExMas brings the unfinished business.
TL;DR / THE SHORT VERSION
Choose your lesbian Christmas movie
Fake dating: Friends & Family Christmas or Looking for Her. Second chances: Last ExMas. Several couples: Season of Love. Small-town romance: Under the Christmas Tree or Christmas at the Ranch. Grief and new love: The Christmas Writer. Family tension: Happiest Season. Period drama: Carol.
Is it for you?
For a Christmas movie night where the sapphic romance is the main story, with the emotional stakes made clear before you choose.
Viewing destinations checked November 10, 2026. Tello films require a subscription; Hallmark+ is US-only. Apple TV and Prime Video buttons open film listings, with access and payment options depending on country.
Friends & Family Christmas (2023)
Image credits
- Official provider/distributor publicity; photographer/designer not supplied · Source
For fake dating and enthusiastic parental interference
Daniella wants to spend Christmas in New York with her artist friends. Amelia is an entertainment lawyer recovering from a broken engagement. Their parents have decided they would make a lovely couple, so the women agree to pretend they are dating. A sensible plan, provided nobody develops any feelings.
Humberly González and Ali Liebert lead Anne Wheeler’s romance. Of the two fake-dating films here, this is the one where both women agree to fend off parental matchmaking. The appeal is seeing a familiar holiday setup make room for a lesbian couple without making a coming-out crisis the central obstacle. If that is the evening you want, start here rather than Happiest Season.
84 minutes · Fake dating · Hallmark+ subscription, US
Looking for Her (2022)
Image credits
- Official film provider/distributor key art; designer not supplied · Source
For hired girlfriends and a holiday performance that gets personal
Taylor’s family is finally ready to meet her girlfriend. Unfortunately, the relationship has ended. Instead of telling them, she auditions a replacement to play the part over Christmas. There are easier ways to handle an awkward family conversation, but considerably fewer films in them.
Alexandra Swarens writes and directs a different kind of fake-dating problem from Friends & Family Christmas: Taylor needs someone to stand in for an actual ex. That gives the arrangement a built-in secret to maintain around the family. Choose this if the hired-girlfriend premise is the attraction; choose Friends & Family Christmas if you prefer two women joining forces against parental interference.
104 minutes · Hired girlfriend · Tello subscription
Season of Love (2019)
Image credits
- Tello Films original film key art · Source
For an ensemble of women falling in love
Three couples share the romantic spotlight in Christin Baker’s holiday ensemble, following six women through the stretch between Christmas and New Year. Iris, Mardou, Lou, Kenna, Janey and Sue bring different histories and complications to the festivities.
The ensemble is the reason to choose this over a single-couple romance. A brewery owner and a welder share the film with a musician and her partner returning from being stationed away. That means room for both new attraction and the work of an existing relationship. If you want one courtship to follow from first meeting onwards, Looking for Her or Under the Christmas Tree is a closer fit.
104 minutes · Three couples · Tello subscription
Christmas at the Ranch (2021)
Image credits
- Official film provider/distributor key art; designer not supplied · Source
For a city-to-country romance, with horses
Haley Hollis returns to her family’s Nashville ranch to help save it from closure. Ranch hand Kate is there, and the rescue mission acquires a romantic complication. Laur Allen plays Haley, with Lindsay Wagner as her grandmother, Meemaw.
The ranch gives this romance a practical problem as well as a romantic one: Haley is trying to save a family home she has spent years away from. Christin Baker’s film is the choice for the city-to-country Christmas tradition, with Kate part of the life Haley has to reconsider. Under the Christmas Tree also brings the women together over a seasonal task; pick this one when you would rather have horses than a governor’s holiday ceremony.
91 minutes · Homecoming romance · Tello subscription
Last ExMas (2024)
Image credits
- Official film distributor/provider supplied key artwork; photographer unlisted · Source
For ex-girlfriends, old chemistry and hometown gossip
Maggie and Julianne took different paths after a bitter breakup. A holiday return to their hometown brings them together again, with lingering attraction and plenty of other people interested in what happens next.
This is the second-chance choice: Maggie and Julianne have already loved each other, hurt each other and tried moving on. The question is whether their history leaves room for another attempt. That makes the reunion more appealing if you like unfinished business, and less suitable if you want the clean slate of a first meeting. The town’s interest in their love life supplies an additional problem. Apparently Christmas shopping was not keeping everyone busy enough.
85 minutes · Second-chance romance · Tello subscription
The Christmas Writer (2025)
Image credits
- Tello Films / Good Deed Entertainment · Source
For a bookshop romance with grief beneath the tinsel
Noel writes bestselling lesbian Christmas novels. This year, after losing her mother and going through a breakup, the festive inspiration has dried up. Returning to Pinewood brings her into the orbit of Callie, a single mother who owns the local bookstore.
An author falling for a bookseller is a persuasive invitation, but Noel’s grief matters as much as the festive setting. This is the choice for readers who want a romance about making space for new love after loss. It also makes a useful contrast with Christmas at the Ranch, another Christin Baker film about returning home: here, the obstacle is finding a way forward when the season itself has become painful.
95 minutes · Author/bookseller romance · Tello subscription
Under the Christmas Tree (2021)
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- Promotional imagery via Rotten Tomatoes / Fandango; rights · Source
For festive flirting over one very important tree
Charlie Freemont finds the ideal tree for the Maine governor’s holiday celebration. It happens to be in Alma Beltran’s backyard. Tattiawna Jones plays Charlie opposite Elise Bauman as Alma; their initial disagreement develops into attraction, with Ricki Lake playing the town’s pastry chef.
The tree is more than seasonal decoration: it is the reason these women meet and disagree. Lisa Rose Snow’s romance makes a good starting point if you want the traditional Christmas-TV ingredients—small-town life, a festive assignment and meddling encouragement—with two women in the romantic leads. Compared with Last ExMas, the attraction begins with a new encounter rather than a breakup they must revisit.
Under the Christmas Tree: official trailer
Lifetime
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87 minutes · Small-town romance · TV-PG · Prime Video rent/buy listing
Happiest Season (2020)
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For a big-cast Christmas comedy with real family tension
Abby plans to propose to Harper during a visit to Harper’s family. Then she discovers the family does not know Harper is gay—or that Abby is her girlfriend. Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis lead Clea DuVall’s film, alongside a cast including Aubrey Plaza, Dan Levy and Mary Steenburgen.
The essential distinction is that Abby is being asked to hide a real relationship. In Friends & Family Christmas, the pretence creates space for a romance; here, it puts an existing one under strain. Kristen Stewart, Mackenzie Davis and the ensemble are a draw, but the family comedy comes with hurt attached. Save it for another evening if concealing yourself around relatives is the part of Christmas you are trying to escape.
About 102 minutes · Family and coming-out tension · US and Canadian listings below
Carol (2015)
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- Exact-film official platform titled key art; rights pending · Source
For Christmas atmosphere and serious romantic longing
A department-store encounter brings Therese Belivet and Carol Aird together in 1950s New York. Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett lead Todd Haynes’s period romance, as their attraction develops under the pressures of Carol’s marriage and the society around them.
Christmas brings Carol and Therese together, but the film is interested in what their attraction could cost them. Choose it for a period romance shaped by marriage, class and social expectations, rather than the familiar holiday-comedy formula. At almost two hours, it also asks for more of the evening than the television romances here. The seasonal setting earns its place on this list; it does not make it a comfort-watch promise.
118 minutes · Period romantic drama · US and Canadian listings below
A few questions before you press play
Two lesbian Christmas double bills worth making time for
For fake-dating night, pair Friends & Family Christmas with Looking for Her. Both turn a family visit into a performance, but one begins with parental matchmaking and the other with a breakup Taylor would rather not announce. Together they run a little over three hours—enough time to become deeply invested in somebody else’s terrible cover story.
For two versions of coming home, pair Christmas at the Ranch with The Christmas Writer. Both are directed by Christin Baker, but the stakes differ: saving a family ranch in one, grieving a mother and finding a new direction in the other. They share a small-town setting without offering the same emotional evening.
Which lesbian Christmas movie should I start with?
For a straightforward holiday-romance premise, try Friends & Family Christmas or Looking for Her. Choose Season of Love if you want several couples, or Last ExMas if second chances are your favourite trope. Happiest Season and Carol suit a night when you have room for more emotional tension.
Are these all Christmas romances between women?
Yes. The central stories involve women falling in love, rather than a brief queer side character in somebody else’s romance. Carol is the exception in genre, not representation: it is a period romantic drama set around Christmas, rather than a festive comedy.
Are the movies free to watch?
This guide links to subscription services and paid film listings. A free trailer is not the full movie. Tello offers several of these films within its subscription, while Hallmark+ access is limited to the United States. Apple TV and Prime Video can show different rental, purchase or subscription options depending on your country.
Still choosing? Browse the film directory for more sapphic stories, or make a longer evening of it with a finished Thai GL series.