Picture this: you're curling up on the couch after a long day at work, about to crack open a bottle of Trader Joe's finest $7 white wine. While a sleeve of Ritz crackers pairs nicely with such a luxurious personal happy hour, you're also going to need some entertainment. It's cold outside! (At least in some parts of the country!) What's cozier than a movie about a woman falling in love with a prince against all odds and plot conventions? Enter: A Christmas Prince [1].
Wait, hold on. Is it A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding [2]? Or A Prince For Christmas? No, wait, it's A Princess For Christmas, right? Or is My Christmas Prince [3] the one you're looking for?
Until very recently, I was blissfully unaware of a very specific subset of seasonal movies: the royal holiday romance. All of these movies share a core set of values and/or character stereotypes — the small-town girl who wasn't expecting to fall in love, a dashing prince bucking against his parents' rules, precocious kid(s), and dialogue so cheesy anyone with lactose intolerance should stop reading this immediately — and, in a rather impressive feat, have managed to rearrange the words "prince," "princess," and "Christmas" into dozens of title variations.
While most of these movies have lived happily ever after on Lifetime and the Hallmark channel, Netflix stepped into the game in 2017 with A Christmas Prince [4], its unintentionally hilarious foray into the world of ridiculous (and ridiculously charming) holiday romance that spawned a sequel and another royal romance [5], only starring Vanessa Hudgens [6]. Since there are tons of Christmas movies [7] competing for your attention this season, I took the liberty of watching a few royal holiday movies with confusingly similar titles to figure out which one truly reigns supreme. Each film is rated on a very scientific scale of zero to five snowflakes, so read on to see which one you should spend the night with.
My Christmas Prince
- Story: Schoolteacher Samantha (Pitch Perfect's Alexis Knapp [10]) returns to her hometown of Maple Falls for Christmas, where her diplomat boyfriend, Alex, surprises her and her family. She soon learns Alex (Callum Alexander) is actually a prince, which forces her to decide whether she loves him enough to quit her teaching job to leave the US and become a princess. Also her ex-boyfriend, a Maple Falls cop, doesn't seem to happy about the prince's arrival. — ❄️❄️ (It's nice to see Samantha's job taking precedence over the prince, but the setting of Maple Falls is pretty boring. Not to mention she freaks out when she discovers he's a prince, which could have been solved immediately after they met with a cursory Google search. C'mon, Samantha!)
- Fantasy Country Name: Maldevia. — ❄️❄️❄️❄️ (It's no Genovia, but it's still majestic AF.)
- Prince's Title: Prince Alexander aka Alex Hendricks. — ❄️❄️ (What about Augustus? Or Earnest? Alex is fine, but it's also the name of every dude I went to high school with. Let's mix it up a little, shall we?)
- Heroine's Occupation: A teacher in New York City, about to be promoted to be the Summer school director for all of the Bronx. — ❄️❄️❄️❄️ (Yes! Climb that career ladder, girl!)
- Cheesiest Line: "I know our worlds are different, but all that means is that our worlds together will be that much bigger." — ❄️❄️ (It's romantic, sure, but it also kind of just means they have a huge mess on their hands?)
- Highlight: A shirtless [11] scene featuring Prince Alex in the first half of the movie. — ❄️❄️❄️ (What? I'm a writer, not a saint!)
- Overall Rating: ❄️❄️❄️ (This was Callum Alexander's first role, but likely won't be his last since his charm alone is enough to smooth over the movie's rougher dialogue. There's also a nice subversion of the "rich duchess trying to sabotage the prince's relationship with a commoner" plot.)
My Christmas Prince is streaming on Lifetime [12].
The Princess Switch
- Story: Vanessa Hudgens [13] stars as Chicago baker Stacy, who enters a baking competition in a faraway European town and ends up meeting soon-to-be princess Lady Margaret, who looks exactly like her (also played by Hudgens, of course). Naturally, the two decide to trade places (because duh), which results in a whole ton of cringe-worthy, nonsensical mischief. Margaret falls for Stacy's business partner, for starters, and Stacy finds herself romanced by a frigid prince. Ah, young love! — ❄️ (I love a High School Musical [14] alum as much as the next girl, but no one would ever believe a Food Network-grade baking competition would actually be judged by real-life royalty. Or at least, they certainly shouldn't.)
- Fantasy Country Name: Belgravia. — ❄️❄️ (I'm docking a few snowflakes simply for the fact that I'm incredibly weary of -via country names, at this point [15]!)
- Prince's Title: Prince Edward. — ❄️❄️❄️ (Still no Augustus or Earnest, but FINE, I'll let this slide.)
- Heroine's Occupation: The owner of a successful bakery in Chicago. — ❄️❄️❄️❄️ (Dumb baking-competition-plot-device aside, Stacy has a pretty sweet gig.)
- Cheesiest Line: "I have a lazy eye. Not all the time, just when I get fatigued." — ❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️ (I wouldn't even classify this as "cheesy," but rather "so bizarre I obviously must give it all the snowflakes.")
- Highlight: Stacy-as-Margaret's deep red gown for the charity ball is actually really pretty! Netflix has clearly upped their costume budget since A Christmas Prince.
- Overall Rating: ❄️❄️❄️ (This movie makes approximately zero sense thanks to its 10 billion plot holes, but the Parent Trap-esque plot and chemistry between all the leads is enough to keep me from turning it off.)
The Princess Switch is streaming on Netflix [16].
A Princess For Christmas
- Story: Jules (Katie McGrath) is made the legal guardian of her rebellious niece and nephew after the tragic death of her sister and brother-in-law, the latter of whom was a prince. The following Christmas, she receives an invitation to stay at the European castle of the children's estranged grandfather, a duke, where she finds herself falling for a dashing prince (Outlander [17]'s Sam Heughan). — ❄️❄️❄️ (Finally we get a movie that takes place in a "castle." It's more of a mansion, to be honest, but at least it's grander than Maple Falls.)
- Fantasy Country Name: Castlebury. — ❄️ (A bit on the nose with this one, don't you think?)
- Prince's Title: Ashton, Prince of Castlebury. — ❄️❄️❄️❄️ (Ashton Kutcher [18] is SHOOK.)
- Heroine's Occupation: An antiques dealer who "loves working." No seriously, she LOVES it. — ❄️❄️❄️❄️ (This might be the most random job of all time, but seeing Jules fix antique clocks and expertly identify pieces throughout the castle makes for some fun moments. Also, she's not looking for a sugar daddy, which she makes abundantly clear by repeating over and over again that she adores being self-sufficient.)
- Cheesiest Line: Jules criticizes the crabby duke by calling him a "dingle-dork." — ❄️❄️❄️ (Dingle dork, people! Dingle-dork.)
- Highlight: It's a tie between when Jules's nephew wears a t-shirt with the phrase "DEATH YUPPIE SCUM" in all caps and when Ashton has a questionably long "hip-hop" dance break that involves pulling his sweater up over his head and flashing gang signs. — ❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️ (Truly, what is this movie.)
- Overall Rating: ❄️❄️❄️❄️
(This movie would not work without Heughan, who's so handsome it's distracting. It also has a pretty cute story and clearly the biggest snow budget out of any movie on this list.)
A Princess For Christmas is streaming on Hulu [19].
A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding
- Story: In the delightfully absurd sequel to Netflix's original romantic trashfire, Amber (Rose McIver) and Prince Richard (Ben Lamb) are set to tie the knot in Aldovia on Christmas Day. But of course Amber starts second-guessing if she truly has what it takes to be queen, while Richard deals with a political crisis that could destroy the kingdom he fought so hard for. But, hey, at least no one gets attacked by wolves! — ❄️❄️❄️ (I repeat: no wolves!)
- Fantasy Country Name: Aldovia. — ❄️❄️❄️❄️ (Great name, but I'm docking a snowflake because the "castle" looks like a ski chalet in the Poconos you'd find on Groupon.)
- Prince's Title: Prince Richard. — ❄️ (No.)
- Heroine's Occupation: She's gone from being a lowly undercover journalist with questionable ethics to being a viral blogger with questionable ethics. — ❄️❄️❄️ (As a fellow blogger with questionable ethics — JK — I appreciate the hustle.)
- Cheesiest Line: "This isn't a diner, it's a kingdom." — ❄️❄️❄️ (I'm going to leave this context-free for you.)
- Highlight: The Alovian signs protesting Richard that look like they were designed in a Word document, with extremely catchy slogans like, "WHY?" and "THIS IS ALDOVIA." — ❄️❄️
- Overall Rating: ❄️❄️❄️❄️ (This is just as hilarious as its predecessor, and ends with Amber and Richard making out in the courtyard as their friends and family do a conga line around them through the deep snow in heels and dress shoes.)
A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding is streaming on Netflix [20].
A Christmas Prince
- Story: Amber (McIver), a tabloid journalist looking to prove herself, travels abroad to get the scoop on an infamous playboy prince [21] (Lamb) about to inherit his small country's throne. She ends up going undercover as his younger sister's tutor, and she gradually discovers that the world's perception of the prince is a lie; he's charming and kind, and she's totally in love with him. Will the giant lie she created spiral out of control and ruin their romance? — ❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️ (The greatest part of this movie, like all the others on this list, is that nothing makes sense. Why are all the shots in New York clearly in Chicago? Why does no one at the palace vet Amber's credentials as a tutor? Why isn't there any security at the castle? What is even happening?)
- Fantasy Country Name: Aldovia. — ❄️❄️❄️❄️ (Yep, still.)
- Prince's Title: Prince Richard. — ❄️ (Yep, still no.)
- Heroine's Occupation: A "junior editor" at a tabloid called Beat Now. — ❄️ (Also, no.)
- Cheesiest Line: I legitimately can't pick just one. Every single line is so cheesy and nothing that anyone in real life would ever actually say. — ❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️
- Highlight: Amber gets attacked by wolves (yes, freakin' wolves) and Richard has to go save her. — ❄️❄️❄️ (It's like a bad, melodramatic version of that Beauty on the Beast scene, and yes, I'm obsessed.)
- Overall Rating: ❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️
(It's awful and I will always love it.)
A Christmas Prince is streaming on Netflix [22].