The Most Wonderful Time of the Year: Holiday Streaming Viewership 2025

​​The 2025 holiday season saw American households cozying up with their favorite festive films. Between November 1 and December 10, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation sleighed the competition with 7.3 million U.S. households, followed by Elf at 6.8 million and Home Alone at 5.3 million.

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Mixed Performance Among the Classics

While Christmas Vacation and Elf maintained their spots at the top of the nice list, both saw viewership declines of 23% and 21% respectively compared to last year. However, other classics gained ground: Home Alone rose 27%, How the Grinch Stole Christmas surged 57%, and The Santa Clause increased 12%. Audiences continued to embrace classic holiday films, though their preferences within that category are shifting.

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New Streaming Originals Face Challenges

Netflix's Champagne Problems led new streaming original holiday movies with 2.2 million household views between November 1 and December 10. However, this represented a 34% decline from last year's top new original, Netflix’s Our Little Secret, which drew 3.3 million households during the same period. With hundreds of new holiday movies flooding streaming platforms each year, breaking through the noise proved increasingly difficult this season.

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Stranger Things Delivered a Christmas Win

In non-holiday content for 2025, Netflix found success with Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2, which launched on Christmas Day. The show captured 3.3 million U.S. households in its first four days,13% more than Volume 1's debut. The Hawkins crew proves that tentpole releases can thrive during the holiday season.

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