Ah, the holidays. They're the most wonderful time of the year, when everything is decorated with twinkling lights, people are caroling in the streets… and you're ignoring it all — locked away in your dark living room with a blanket and a cup of hot cocoa, watching all the wonderful offerings on Netflix before the streaming service removes them in the New Year. If there's anything that could possibly make your Netflix and chill any better, it's the sight of a blizzard outside your windows while you press play on that fourth episode of Black Mirror or that dozenth episode of Gilmore Girls.
But how can you know what movies and shows to give priority to this holiday season? Thankfully, I've compiled a list of everything leaving Netflix in January 2017, so you know exactly what to stream while your family is carving the Christmas ham and wondering where you are. The list includes everything from old classics to reboots of old classics, from beloved TV series to the latest in horror, action, comedy, and costume dramas. In short, there's something on this list for everyone. Just be sure to fit them all in before the clock counts down to midnight on New Year's Eve.
1. The Amityville Horror
Celebrate the recent Golden Globe nomination for Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds by streaming this 2005 remake of the the 1979 classic horror film, featuring a scruffy Reynolds and Melissa George as a couple terrorized by the world's spookiest farmhouse.
2. Bewitched
Another 2005 remake of a classic entertainment staple, this Will Ferrell comedy took a meta approach to rebooting the magical '60s sitcom. Ferrell played an actor starring in a remake of Bewitched alongside Nicole Kidman's Isabel… who actually turns out to be a witch. (Yes, really.)
3. Blade II
Only Guillermo del Toro's second English-language credit (after 1997's Mimic), this 2002 superhero sequel is an early and underrated entry in our culture's current superhero craze. No, this isn't the one with Ryan Reynolds as a vampire hunter named Hannibal King (that's Blade: Trinity), but it's still deserves a watch.
4. Bring It On
Brr, it's cold in here. That must be the chills I'm getting over the prospect of this 2000 cult classic cheerleading comedy leaving Netflix forever. Where else will I get to watch Kirsten Dunst, Gabrielle Union, and Eliza Dushku shake their pompoms while delivering catty one-liners?
5. Bring It On: All Or Nothing
Netflix is doubling down on this cheertastrophy, also taking away the 2006 direct-to-DVD three-quel. All Or Nothing may not have achieved the same cult status as the original, but it does feature Hayden Panettiere on the cusp of her Heroes fame, as well as Beyoncé's younger sister Solange Knowles.
6. Breakfast At Tiffany's
Few movies are iconic as this fashionable 1961 Audrey Hepburn vehicle. It might have its problems (Mickey Rooney in yellowface, for one), but if you haven't seen it, it's worth checking out as an idiosyncratic product of its time.
7. Coming To America
This classic 1988 comedy features Eddie Murphy as the crown prince of a fictional African kingdom (Zamunda) who, you guessed it, comes to America while searching for a suitable bride.
8. Crash
Still scratching your head over the Academy's befuddling choice to award this saccharine ensemble film Best Picture over Ang Lee's heart-wrenching masterpiece Brokeback Mountain? Give it a re-watch and see if it helps you understand the voters' decision any better.
9. Dazed And Confused
One of the earliest features from Boyhood filmmaker Richard Linklater, and still one of his most beloved. His college comedy Everybody Wants Some!!, released earlier this year, may have been called a "spiritual sequel" to Dazed And Confused , but there's nothing quite like the original, featuring a very young (and very stoned) Matthew McConaughey.
10. The Fast And The Furious
When the first film in the franchise came out in 2001, nobody could have expected this little movie about street racing would gradually morph over the subsequent 15 years into one of Hollywood's most successful, high-octane, increasingly insane action franchises. Relive the movie where it all began before it's too late.
11. The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift
A little experiment: Re-watch the trailer for The Fate Of The Furious (the upcoming eighth film in this undying series). Then re-watch this trailer for Tokyo Drift (the third installment that somehow chronologically takes place between entries six and seven). Try to reconcile the fact that these are two movies that somehow exist in the same franchise.
12. Final Destination 3
If you're not already scared of roller coasters, then the opening scene of this 2006 movie should do the trick. Oh, and it'll also make you terrified of (spoiler alert!) tanning beds, truck engines, weight machines, nail guns, subways trains, and… county fairs?
13. Ghost Town
Ricky Gervais may not be hosting the Golden Globes again this year (that would be Jimmy Fallon), but you can get your fill of the British comedian with this 2008 comedy about a grumpy dentist who can suddenly communicate with ghosts after a near-death experience during a colonoscopy.
14. The Girl Who Played With Fire
Sony may be moving ahead with their plans to ignore both sequels to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo in favor of the non-Stieg-Larsson-penned The Girl In The Spider's Web , but fortunately the Swedish film adaptation of the crime saga completed Larsson's trilogy, first with this middle chapter…
15. The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest
…and then wrapping things up with this final film, which brings Lisbeth Salander's story to a satisfying conclusion American filmgoing audiences will apparently never get.
16. A Good Marriage
Stephen King was inspired by real-life serial killer Dennis Rader — aka the BTK killer — when he wrote this novella. Joan Allen stars in the film adaptation about a woman who is horrified to learn she's married to a murderer.
17. Hairspray
NBC had another hit on their hands with their latest live musical broadcast, Hairspray Live! , the adaptation of the 2002 Broadway musical that was itself an adaptation of this 1988 film by John Waters (Pink Flamingos, Cry-Baby) starring Ricki Lake, Jerry Stiller, and famous drag queen Divine.
18. The Italian Job
Before Charlize Theron terrorizes our favorite street racers as the villainous Cipher in The Fate Of The Furious, catch her in this other car-themed action movie, as she and a gang of thieves led by Mark Wahlberg have to steal a stash of gold and then make their getaway in stylish Mini Coopers.
19. Little Black Book
Coming out just five years before Brittany Murphy's tragic death, this 2004 rom-com stars the Clueless actor as a woman who snoops into her boyfriend's romantic past, which he apparently keeps a record of on his Tungsten C Palm Pilot. (Betcha the name of that long-forgotten piece of technology made you feel old, didn't it?)
20. Little Man
If the food coma you fall into after your holiday meal makes you crave some light and brainless entertainment, you can stream this 2006 Wayan brothers comedy about a diminutive jewel thief who has to go undercover as a baby in order to recover his lost diamond. (Yes, this is an actual movie that was actually made.)
21. Maid In Manhattan
You don't really think of rom-coms when you think of Ralph Fiennes' career, and yet he did star in one — this one, in fact, playing a stuffy politician alongside Jennifer Lopez's warmhearted hotel maid.
22. Miracle On 34th Street
This 1994 remake of the classic 1946 holiday film starred Jurassic Park's Richard Attenborough as Kris Kringle, Weeds' Elizabeth Perkins as a single mother, American Horror Story's Dylan McDermott as her dreamy neighbor, and Matilda's Mara Wilson as the disillusioned young girl who connects them all.
23. Murder, She Wrote Seasons 1-12
Angela Lansbury was nominated for 12 Emmys in a row for her 12 seasons of starring as amateur detective Jessica Fletcher on this beloved CBS series. (Somehow she never won a single one.) If you hurry, you can binge all 264 addictive episodes before they disappear from Netflix forever on Jan. 1.
24. Nanny McPhee
A nearly unrecognizable Emma Thompson starred as the titular babysitter in this enchanting 2006 family fantasy movie based on a series of British children's books. The terrific supporting cast also boasts Colin Firth, Imelda Staunton, Game Of Thrones' Thomas Brodie Sangster, and the aforementioned Lansbury as crotchety Great Aunt Adelaide.
25. The Painted Veil
Costume dramas don't get much more picturesque than this 2006 adaptation the 1925 novel starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts as a British doctor and his adulterous wife on a mission through cholera-stricken China.
26. Saved By The Bell Seasons 1-6
Before The College Years, before The New Class, before The Unauthorized True Story , there was Saved By The Bell original flavor, which ran on NBC through the early '90s. Make your holiday a nostalgia-filled trip down memory lane by revisiting each classic episode before they vanish.
27. Saving Private Ryan
After you get saved by the bell, you can take a turn doing the saving by hunting down Matt Damon's missing Private Ryan in Steven Spielberg's acclaimed 1998 WWII movie. It may have lost Best Picture to Shakespeare In Love (which I'll always argue is an underrated winner), but it has definitely withstood the test of time.
28. Sixteen Candles
George Orwell thought 1984 would be the dystopian height of Big Brother's reign. Instead, the year that's now more than three decades past brought us this movie starring Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall, perhaps one of the most classic high school movies ever made.
29. South Park: Bigger, Longer, And Uncut
This 1999 animated film may be one of the raunchiest, foul-mouthed movies ever nominated for an Oscar. It earned that honor in the Best Original Song category for its hilarious anthem "Blame Canada" — although it would eventually lose to the Phil Collins ballad "You'll Be In My Heart" from Tarzan.
30. Stardust
Before he was rampaging around Netflix as the blind superhero Daredevil, Charlie Cox starred in this 2007 fantasy film by Matthew Vaughn (X-Men: First Class, Kingsman: The Secret Service), as a young man embroiled in a swashbuckling adventure after he seeks a literal falling star. The impressive cast also features Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro, Peter O'Toole, Rupert Everett, Ricky Gervais, Ian McKellen, and future Superman, Henry Cavill.
31. Superstar
Speaking of stars… This feature-length SNL spinoff featured Molly Shannon in her iconic role as awkward teen Mary Katherine Gallagher, who pined for the dreamy high school jock played by Will Ferrell (the first and only time you'll probably ever read that phrase).
32. The Uninvited
This 2009 American remake of a Korean horror movie starred Emily Browning (Sucker Punch) as a girl literally haunted by memories of her dead mother. Bonus points for featuring the hilarious Elizabeth Banks in the role of the possibly evil stepmother.
33. Vanity Fair
No, this isn't the revealing true story about the behind-the-scenes drama at the popular magazine. The year before Reese Witherspoon would become an Oscar winner thanks to Walk The Line, she starred in this adaptation of the classic Victorian novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, with The Tudors' Jonathan Rhys Meyers as her dashing foil.
34. The Wicker Man
Not the bees! How could Netflix be taking away the infamous bees?! This is your last chance to watch this hilariously bad 2006 American remake of the effectively creepy 1973 British horror movie, which is arguably one of the worst movies of all time. Merry Christmas!
If this list is any indication, this holiday season is shaping up to be a pretty busy one. See you in 2017.
Image: Paramount Pictures
