No need to scour Netflix to find your ideal festive flick – we watched every single Christmas film to work out what Premier League fans should have on
Football usually fills up every single moment of the festive calendar, giving fans no time to scroll through the umpteen streaming sites looking for Miracle on 34th Street.
This year, though, matches are being postponed left, right and centre – leaving supporters with the prospect of entire days without a game to watch.
So, for reasons beyond even the wisest of men, we’ve plucked a festive film to match the mood of fans of every Premier League club. Enjoy.
Written and compiled with FFT's in-house dreadful Christmas movie experts Ed McCambridge and Mark White.
Arsenal fans: Nativity!
A sensible adult – who comes across a touch grumpy and quick to lose his temper – is put in charge of a group of youngsters to try and put on an ambitious production of a lifetime. You just know that chaos is going to ensue... and not all of it particularly enjoyable.
Nativity! is a film about false promises and what happens when you envy your neighbours down the road, eventually trying to outdo them with ever-more outlandish ideas (whether that's Hollywood budgets in school productions or extending David Luiz's contract). FFT fell asleep during Nativity 2: Danger In The Manger but we still recommend that Gooners use the sequel for clues as to whether to trust the process with Mikel Arteta or not.
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Aston Villa fans: Just Friends
A union between a man and a football club that will surely stay purely platonic. After all, Steven Gerarrd’s heart belongs to another. He might be spending Christmas at Villa Park, but it’s Liverpool he travels to in his dreams. Still, like the Ryan Reynolds romcom, there’s potential for more than friendship should the holiday season weave its unique brand of magic. Maybe Gerrard will realise he’s right where he needs to be now.
Built on recent and well-deserved success, Home Alone 2 sees Kevin McCallister outside his comfort zone in the big city of New York, causing problems for Joe Pesci’s Arsenal and Daniel Stern’s Liverpool.
It’s fun to watch, and it’s got a big ol’ heart.
Where to watch it: Disney+ (subscription) | Amazon (rent/buy)
Brighton fans: The Polar Express
This should work, shouldn’t it? Everyone loves Tom Hanks, the talented, likeable man at the centre. It looks good, it’s clever, it’s a bit different.
And yet every time it’s on TV, we… don’t watch it.
Every single year we have an argument about whether this will be the year Burnley go down, and we will be having that argument every single year forever. The debate over whether Die Hard a Christmas film is similarly interminable.
Also, we’re sure that if Sean Dyche could have swapped out his white shirt for a tank top while he strolled out in the Turf Moor snow recently, he would’ve done, while throwing out a “Yippee ki yay, motherf*cker” to the groundsman. Dyche Hard, more like.
Where to watch it: Disney+ (subscription) | Amazon (rent/buy)
Chelsea fans: The Nightmare Before Christmas
A ragtag bunch is led to unlikely victory by their slender and calculated leader. Thomas Tuchel is the Premier League's very own Jack Skellington, while Roman Abramovich plays the gurning mayor of Halloween Town, who is hell-bent on dominating lands beyond his own backyard.
Chelsea might not be universally loved, but they know how to execute a plan and aren't fans of those who dress in red and white.
It looked destined to be a disaster from the moment the patriarch (Roy Hodgson) jetted off for a well deserved break.
Enemies plotted a simple heist, but upon entering a fortress were confronted by a blonde kid (Conor Gallagher) who knew every trick in the book. Bruised and battered, many leave this Palace via the backdoor, empty-handed and tails between their legs.
Read the synopsis and you'd think that 12 Dates of Christmas was a big-money blockbuster. It's basically Groundhog Day, after all. But rather like Everton, 12 Dates doesn't look like much money was spent on it at all – and viewers are treated with the same scenario over and over and over again.
Few of the characters in this film are particularly likeable, while others seem crowbarred in, overcrowding the story. While Everton fans hope that their story ends happily, recent years at Goodison do feel like the same monotonous day of getting knocked out in a department store and looking on the bright side of life... with no explanation as to why this is happening.
No way would this film have worked without Will Ferrell at the centre of it, driving it on to success.
In Elf, everyone but Buddy thinks his joyful, exhausting, exuberant approach is fun, but naive in a cynical world. All it needs is Pep Guardiola to tell them they’re all wrong.
Leicester fans: Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas
Once a passionate devotee of Christmas, the Grinch had his heart broken in his younger days and fled to the cold north to recoup.
Former Liverpool gaffer Brendan Rodgers was eventually tempted back down the mountain (Celtic in this analogy), and has since been accused of enjoying the limelight a little too much at Leicester. There's no denying he can pull off a miracle, though, and Foxes fans are bigger believers than most.
An absolute classic. It's A Wonderful Life is about a guardian angel (Clarence Odbody... or Jurgen Klopp) who arrives at just the right time to show a man how wonderful his life is – and it's gone down as one of the greatest films of all time.
Like Liverpool, James Stewart has had his fair share of disappointment in recent years, having fallen on tough times. But with a happy ending of an angel getting its wings – or Jordan Henderson getting his hands on a Premier League title – this is one that will surely warm the heart of even the coldest cynic. Unless you're a United fan/hate black and white movies.
Watch it here: Amazon (subscription) | YouTube (buy/rent) | Now (subscription)
Manchester City fans: Love Actually
It's modern, it's huge in cast and it's orchestrated by one of the most revered people in their field (Pep Guardiola/Richard Curtis). Manchester City is so obviously Love Actually.
In fact, you wonder how much everyone was paid in this production and wonder how both Rowan Atkinson and Riyad Mahrez settle for quirky cameos. Both are aesthetically brilliant, even they do leave you a little hollow. Is it romantic to hold up cards trying to woo your best mate's wife? Is it a bit weird for Colin Firth to fall in love with someone he can't communicate with? And is it really fun to watch City slaughtering the rest of the league 5-0 every week?
As the nights draw shorter and the weather gets colder, a mysterious being appears to show the protagonist just how magical life can be. The Snowman, or Ralf Rangnick. Delete as applicable.
Rather like that cold, bucket hat-wearing nutter the Snowman, Rangnick won't be here for long (the Snowman melted, rather than taking a consultancy role). This is a film about a magical adventure with bittersweet moments throughout – if that's not United, then what is?
Out with the miserly old owner, famous for the poor working conditions of his staff. After Christmas, we’ll see a new free-spending approach, with an absolute certainty of big amounts spent on massive turkeys.
But Newcastle fans, don’t forget to heed A Christmas Carol’s warning of mistaking wealth for the more important things in life.
Oh, and the Muppets? Newcastle’s defence, obviously.
Where to watch it: Disney+ (subscription) | Amazon (buy)
Norwich fans: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Calamitous, chaotic, and really capturing the utter misery of what is supposed to be a regular time of enjoyment.
But enough about Norwich’s biannual stints in the Premier League, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is great to watch too.
As with the arrival of any new Spurs manager, Netflix’s first LGBT romantic Christmas movie represented progress – a chance to do things differently and maybe even win a few prizes along the way. Yet Single All the Way proved the same old predictable dross: LA-based social media guru hatches a plan to get his overbearing family off his case by bringing home a fake partner for Christmas, only for sparks to fly for real!
It’s the McGuffin equivalent of ‘Trying to get the best out of Dele’ or ‘How to cope without an in-form Kane’. We wanted camp and groundbreaking… we got Skipp on for Winks.
So, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ralph Hassenhuttl are both Austrian, right? And, er, Schwarzenegger wants to get Turbo Man toy for his kid, which is like, a metaphor for the fans’ desire for… European football?
Look, thinking up 20 films is a lot. Not all of them are going to be winners. You’re going to get the occasional 9-0 defeat in here. That’s normal.
Different backgrounds, different accents, different clothes – if they ever make a movie about Watford's managerial conveyor belt, Vanessa Hudgens is a shoo-in for every role. The former High School Musical starlet is frankly Oscar-worthy in The Princess Switch 3 – a film that has prepared her well for 2028 Netflix smash hit The Hornets' Nest (FFT wants a cut if they call it that).
A Christmas film all about break-ups: Reese Witherspoon (David Moyes) and Vince Vaughn (West Ham) are forced to split their Christmas four ways with their respective parents, with the stress driving them apart... only for them to [SPOILER] get back together at the end, with things better than ever!
Watch it here: Amazon (buy/rent) | YouTube (buy/rent)
Wolves fans: Just Another Christmas
Just Another Christmas is a film that perhaps no one reading this has heard of – and how many neutrals have really watched Wolves that much under Bruno Lage?
It's a film about a man who wakes up on Christmas Eve with no memories of the last year... a little how every time we watch Wolves, we forget all form and wait for the Ruben Neves screamer. It's quite a dreary watch in places – first halves under Nuno correlate – but well-received by critics. Oh, and the clincher: the entire thing is in Portuguese. Feliz Natal!
Conor Pope is the former Online Editor of FourFourTwo, overseeing all digital content. He plays football regularly, and has a large, discerning and ever-growing collection of football shirts from around the world.
He supports Blackburn Rovers and holds a season ticket with south London non-league side Dulwich Hamlet. His main football passions include Tugay, the San Siro and only using a winter ball when it snows.
