Free Christmas movies and classic TV Christmas episodes

Pick any title below to play it now, or turn on Laugh Track (CH 3) and Saturday Morning (CH 7) and let the holidays come to you. The Christmas-themed titles come first; the last section is clearly marked as family favourites that are not Christmas stories but suit a winter evening.

Counting down to the 25th? Our 25 Days of Christmas picks one title for every day from December 1 to Christmas Day.

Christmas episodes of classic TV

• The Beverly Hillbillies: Home for Christmas 25 min · Laugh Track
  The Clampetts head back to the hills for Christmas and take their first plane ride, convinced it is a very large bus. First aired December 19, 1962.
• The Beverly Hillbillies: Christmas at the Clampetts 25 min · Laugh Track
  Mr. Drysdale fills the mansion with a tree and presents, and Granny decides the new television is a fancy washing machine. First aired on Christmas Day, 1963.
• Petticoat Junction: Cannonball Christmas 25 min · Laugh Track
  On Christmas Eve Hooterville decorates the Cannonball for its caroling run, until Homer Bedloe turns up to enforce the rules. First aired December 24, 1963.
• Dragnet: The Big .22 Rifle for Christmas 29 min · Silver Screen
  Friday and Smith search for a missing boy and the .22 rifle he was given for Christmas: one of the most famous, and most sobering, Christmas episodes in TV history (1952).

The first Christmas films

• Santa Claus 1 min · Family Room
  George Albert Smith's 1898 trick film: Santa slips down the chimney to fill two sleeping children's stockings. One of the oldest surviving Santa Claus films.
• The Christmas Dream 4 min · Family Room
  Georges Méliès's 1900 féerie: two children dream of dancing toys, snowy rooftops, midnight Mass and a giant Christmas tree.
• The Night Before Christmas 9 min · Family Room
  Edwin S. Porter's 1905 Edison film, the first screen version of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, with real reindeer and a flying sleigh.
• A Christmas Carol 13 min · Family Room
  Edison's 1910 Scrooge, with Marc McDermott and Charles Ogle, and the ghosts done in double exposure.
• A Christmas Accident 15 min · Silent Pictures
  A 1912 Edison drama: a grumpy neighbour stumbles into a poor family's Christmas Eve, and a little girl's gift changes his heart.
• The Little Match Girl 32 min · Silent Pictures
  Jean Renoir's 1928 silent of Andersen's tale: a match seller on a freezing New Year's Eve dreams herself into a toyland (French intertitles).

Christmas and New Year movies

• Meet John Doe 123 min · Laugh Track
  Frank Capra's 1941 drama with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck: a newspaper stunt about a man who vows to jump on Christmas Eve becomes a national movement, and the story comes to a head on Christmas Eve.
• The Gold Rush 87 min · Silent Pictures
  Chaplin's snowbound Klondike comedy (1925), with the boiled-shoe dinner, the dance of the rolls and a lonely New Year's Eve.
• Holiday 91 min · Silver Screen
  Ann Harding and Mary Astor in the first film of Philip Barry's play about a free spirit engaged into a very rich family, with a New Year's Eve party at its heart.

Christmas and winter cartoons

• The Insects' Christmas 7 min · Silent Pictures
  Wladyslaw Starewicz's 1913 puppet film: a Father Christmas ornament climbs down from the tree to bring a tree and presents to the insects of the winter forest.
• Santa's Surprise 8 min · Saturday Morning
  A 1947 Famous Studios Noveltoon: children from around the world tidy up Santa's messy workshop while he sleeps, in Little Audrey's first screen appearance.
• Hector's Hectic Life 7 min · Saturday Morning
  Bill Tytla's 1948 Noveltoon: at Christmastime Hector the dog has to keep three mischievous puppies out of trouble or be thrown out into the cold.
• Christmas Comes But Once a Year 9 min · Saturday Morning
  A 1936 Fleischer Color Classic: when the orphans' new toys fall apart on Christmas morning, Grampy builds them better ones from kitchen gadgets.
• Somewhere in Dreamland 9 min · Saturday Morning
  A 1936 Fleischer Color Classic: two poor children dream of a land made of toys and sweets.
• Midnight in a Toy Shop 8 min · Saturday Morning
  A 1930 Silly Symphony: a snowstorm blows a spider into a toy shop, where the toys come to life.
• The Snowman 8 min · Saturday Morning
  An early color winter cartoon from independent animator Ted Eshbaugh (1933).
• ComiColor Cartoons: Jack Frost 9 min · Saturday Morning
  Ub Iwerks' 1934 color cartoon drawn from the folklore of Jack Frost and Old Man Winter.
• Snow Use 7 min · Saturday Morning
  A wintry Oswald the Lucky Rabbit short from Walter Lantz's first year on the series (1929).
• Skating Hounds 7 min · Saturday Morning
  An Aesop's Sound Fable full of ice-skating gags (1929).
• Parrotville Old Folks 8 min · Saturday Morning
  Elderly parrots brave a snowstorm to play music at the old folks' home (Rainbow Parade, 1935).

Snowbound classics

• The Frozen North (Buster Keaton) 17 min · Silent Pictures
  Buster Keaton in the snowbound Yukon, spoofing the melodramatic westerns of William S. Hart (1922).
• Nanook of the North 78 min · Silent Pictures
  Robert Flaherty's landmark 1922 documentary about an Inuit family in the Canadian Arctic.

Bob Ross paints winter

• The Joy of Painting: Winter Night 27 min · Family Room
  A snowy winter night, one happy little stroke at a time.
• The Joy of Painting: In the Midst of Winter 25 min · Family Room
  A deep-winter landscape from the show's final season.
• The Joy of Painting: Arctic Beauty 27 min · Family Room
  Ice, snow and cold northern light.
• The Joy of Painting: Northern Lights 27 min · Family Room
  The aurora over a winter scene.

Cozy family classics for the holidays

Not Christmas stories: gentle family favourites from our Family Room and cartoon channels that suit a winter evening.

• Peter Pan 100 min · Silent Pictures
  Betty Bronson in the first film of J. M. Barrie's play.
• A Kiss for Cinderella 103 min · Silent Pictures
  Betty Bronson again, in Barrie's fairy tale about a London maid who dreams of a ball.
• Snow White 63 min · Silent Pictures
  Marguerite Clark's Snow White, the film that inspired a young Walt Disney.
• Cinderella (Aschenputtel) 13 min · Silent Pictures
  Lotte Reiniger's hand-cut paper silhouette Cinderella (1922).
• Poor Cinderella 10 min · Saturday Morning
  Betty Boop as Cinderella in the first Fleischer Color Classic (1934).
• Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp 21 min · Saturday Morning
  Popeye's two-reel Technicolor special (1939).
• Alice in Wonderland 52 min · Silent Pictures
  A silent Alice from 1915, with Viola Savoy.
• The Kid 53 min · Silent Pictures
  Chaplin's 1921 feature about the Tramp and the abandoned child he raises.

See also: Free Thanksgiving movies · Free classic family movies · Classic TV shows free · All free collections