Best movies like Merry & Bright

A talented photographer stuck in a dead-end job inherits an antique Advent calendar that may be predicting the future -- and pointing her toward love.

Chloe (Jana Kramer) has always supported various military organizations, including the town’s Army toy drive for Christmas. This year, she is paired up with Michael (Brandon Quinn), a vet who recently returned home, and together they recruit other veterans and active military personnel to help in the cause. As the community gears up for the Officer’s Christmas Ball, where all the kids will meet Santa Claus and receive their gifts, Michael and Chloe begin to realize the greatest gift this season has been each other’s company.

As her new romance blossoms, a single mother, Olivia, is dismayed when her boyfriend, Scott, a military sergeant, is deployed right before Christmas. Determined to not let it ruin the holidays for her and her children they decide to give back to the struggling military families on his base and, as their efforts go viral, they are rewarded in ways they never imagined.

Photographer Holly Logan returns to her hometown of Gulfport, Mississippi for Christmas. The town is resurrecting their traditional holiday light show for the first time since a terrible hurricane struck five years earlier. Holly volunteers to pitch in, but soon has second thoughts when she discovers the festival is run by her high school sweetheart, Mike.

Dumped two weeks before Christmas, actress Olivia O’Hara secretly returns to her tiny hometown to hide out, eat cookies and avoid the press. What she doesn’t expect is to be faced with the family she left behind, meeting a charming new guy Casey Rawlins, and a noisy reporter following her every move.

Single mom Maggie is facing Christmas alone until Lucas crashes into her life and becomes an unexpected house guest. Together they overcome Christmas while finding comfort in their growing bond.

The dairy farm Emily has been running since her father passed away has fallen on hard times. When Emily’s sister, Dorothy, and her handsome business partner, Charlie, show up with a proposition to sell the farm, Emily comes up with an ingenious plan to buy out her sister's shares. She holds an online holiday ice cream flavor contest that goes viral with the help of a key ingredient, Charlie's amazing apple pie. Still, as the Christmas Eve deadline for the buyout approaches, Emily needs a Christmas miracle to save the family farm and her father's legacy.

Meredith Rossman has made Rossman's Department store her entire life, not leaving any time for Christmas or romance. But when she is roped into donning the store's antique Mrs. Claus outfit to play Mrs. Claus at Rossman's famous Santaville, her life takes some unexpected turns. Through the help of the suit and the charming store Santa, Nick, Meredith rekindles her love of Christmas, the store, their employees and possibly even begins a new love with Nick.

A young woman faces her future as a lawyer in a small New England town where the annual Christmas ice sculpting competition in which she and her father have always competed has been cancelled. Working to save the festival, she meets a reluctant sculptor who reignites her passion, in more ways than one.

Candace, daughter of lifestyle mogul Liz Livingstone, has never lived up to her mother’s standards. When a young girl posts a video begging Liz to help arrange a special Christmas party, Candace is sent in her place. As she struggles to prove herself worthy of running the company, Candace meets—and begins falling for—the girl’s uncle, a reporter writing an expose on her.

As a little girl, Melanie Hogan wished to find her own prince charming just like her parents found true love. Now an adult, Melanie is running her own bakery and dating a handsome CEO, Justin. Although things seem perfect when Justin asks Melanie to spend the holidays together at his beautiful lake house upstate—and meet his mother. Melanie finds herself spending more time with Justin’s best friend and loyal assistant, Dean, who just might be harboring a secret crush on her. When complications arise that throw Melanie and Dean together over the holiday, will the two realize they're meant to be?

Aubrey Lang, a travel and lifestyle blogger, goes to the little town of Solvang for her next holiday vlog piece after it’s voted Most Christmassy Town in the USA. She soon meets Sawyer Larsen, a local community coordinator and chocolate shop owner assigned to show her around the small town. At first, the unlikely pairing is at odds but soon start to fall for each other amidst the twinkling lights of the romantic little Danish village.

When successful New York marketing executive Katherine discovers her workaholic ways are taking a toll on her eight-year-old son, Zac, she decides to spend Christmas with him and her mother, Lilly in her home town on the bayou. When Caleb tries to rekindle a childhood romance and convince her to move back home, Katherine is torn between the bright lights of the big city and the quiet, gentler rhythms of her Southern roots. Only a Christmas miracle orchestrated by Papa Noel can steer her heart to her true home.

A recent widow travels with her son to her Virginia hometown for Christmas. On the way they meet a man who is also heading to the same destination. As they continue to spend time together, the pair grows closer.

Brooke, a young marketing executive, goes back to her hometown excited to relive her Christmas memories, while helping a struggling family-owned winery. Her marketing assignment involves an unlikely partnership with Tyler, the charismatic, yet stubborn owner of the winery. Brooke quickly learns that the town’s Christmas spirit has disappeared due to a wine conglomerate buying out all of the local wineries. Determined to bring Christmas back to the town, Brooke and Tyler work together and discover they share more than a love for wine.

When her husband abruptly ends their marriage, empty nester Kate embarks on a solo second honeymoon in Africa, finding purpose and potential romance.

Eve is a Christmas movie fanatic and dreams of having a movie-perfect Christmas with a movie-perfect boyfriend. On Christmas Eve, when Eve and her cynical sister Lacy make wishes to Santa, they wake up in Christmas Town and find themselves trapped inside a Christmas movie where they are the stars. But when things start to go wrong, and Eve's knowledge of all things Christmas movie fails to fix things, Eve and Lacy try to find a way out of the picture-perfect Christmas and back to reality.

Claire (Alexandra Breckenridge), a savvy venture capitalist from New York City, escapes to a quaint town in Vermont for the holidays and becomes a guest of the Fortenbury Bookstore. Upon arrival, Claire finds Christmas celebrations have been canceled by the town after a flood and the bookstore is in a dire state of disrepair. She immediately takes on the challenge to revitalize the store, but clashes with the owner, Andrew (Jamie Spilchuk), who initially rejects all her proposed improvements. Eventually, sparks fly as the two begin a budding romance, and Claire’s infectious optimism inspires Andrew to join her in reviving the yuletide spirit. But everything comes to a screeching halt when Claire discovers that Andrew is planning to sell the bookstore in the New Year. Will the spirit of Christmas be enough to change Andrew’s mind and encourage him to follow his heart?

A hopeless romantic who can’t ever seem to give a guy a real chance begins receiving each of the "12 Days of Christmas” as gifts anonymously at her door. As she tries to figure out who is sending the gifts, she begins to believe that the mystery suitor could finally live up to her expectations.

When Lucy wakes up with a wedding dress in hand, she believes that she is late to her wedding with her ex-boyfriend Zac. However, she has no recollection of the past 2 years, including the fact that she is engaged to another man.

After moving back to her hometown, Lisa (Lenz) plots with her siblings and grandparents to help her father's bed and breakfast get a five-star review from an incognito travel critic (Webster), but ends up falling for him, not knowing he is the real critic.

Bakery owner Molly meets Josh, a widower who recently moved to town with his young son, but she is also charmed by a mysterious client whom she’s never met in person and she doesn’t realize that they’re the same man.

Since childhood, Candy Cane Lane has been Phoebe's favorite Christmas tradition. This Christmas, however, the neighborhood decides to skip the decoration, crushing Phoebe's spirits. As Phoebe's searching for a new tradition to lift her holiday spirits, she realizes that it's not the traditions we cherish, but the people we spend them with. As Phoebe is preparing for her new tradition, she stumbles upon the final thing her Christmas was missing: love!

An aspiring astronomy professor finds unexpected Christmas romance when she meets a charming cowboy during her holiday travel. As she decides between this new cowboy and her practical boyfriend, she must decide whether it's better to play it safe in love, or let an adventurous cowboy steal her heart.

When Anna Parisi, an unemployed fine arts painter, is unable to make ends meet, she is hired to become a personal Christmas shopper for Marc, an uptight corporate exec. As they begin working together, Marc learns that Christmas giving has less to do with the amount of money spent and more to do with the importance of the gift, while Anna discovers she might find success as an artist in a way she never expected. The best gift of all of course is the love they discover with one another.

When Lacey takes a rare break from work for her friend Ava's Christmas Eve wedding, she reconnects with her former flame, Ean. The two decorate the cottage where the newlyweds will spend their honeymoon – a cottage said to bring true love to anyone who stays there – and feel their chemistry return.

Jules has just inherited a quaint magical Christmas-themed village and Christmas tree farm bequeathed her by her grandmother. She plans to sell it and use the profits to buy her dream home in New York City. But the longer Jules stays on the farm and the more she learns how important Christmas Land has been to so many families, the more Jules starts to question her motives to sell.

Corey Calvin lives in a ski village where she works at her late father's local antique shop, having sidelined her her big city dreams of becoming a theater director. When Los Angeles hunk Ryder Donnelly comes into her shop, sparks fly and she starts to wonder what could be.

Author Nell Phillips’ first book has become a surprise best-seller of the Christmas season. Nell’s last stop on a nationwide book tour takes her to the town of Springdale, the hometown of Emmett Turner, a young man she met over five years ago while both were junior copy editors at a New York publishing company. Nell was hurt when Emmett stood her up for a dinner date and then disappeared from New York without any explanation. As Nell is quick to admit, Emmett’s colorful, nostalgic anecdotes about Springdale inspired her to write this book that is shaping her life and especially this holiday season.

Family friends Sam and Kat spend every Christmas Eve at the Children's Table. They grow up together, sharing the highs and lows of young adulthood. And at thirty, Sam realizes that Kat is the one... but he's afraid that the past will get in the way.

Annie, a lawyer, must help her loved ones this holiday season. Her family’s restaurant, The Starlight Café, is slated for demolition. The heir to the development firm responsible, William, makes her an unlikely proposition: he’ll spare the café if Annie spends the week “appearing” as the legal counsel his father is demanding he hire in the wake of some costly mistakes.

When food stylist Holly returns home for Christmas, she learns that the elderly owner of her favorite childhood bakery is retiring and has started a contest to give the bakery away to whoever can recreate her famous 12 Days of Christmas recipes. When a local baker also enters the contest, the two adversaries end up cooking up something special together for the holidays.

Opera singer Jessica's flight to her concert in Vienna gets delayed and she is stuck in a remote area of England. The only place to stay is a bed-and-breakfast in an enchanting village run by a handsome widower named Andrew.

'Tis the Season for Evelyn Wright...literally, she is a party planner in NYC. At the last minute Eve finds out that one of her agency's top clients is throwing a HUGE Christmas event, in LA, on Christmas Eve! Eve must decide whether to take on the event or risk her career to go on a romantic vacation with her boyfriend Darren. Unbeknownst to Eve, her future all depends on whether or not she makes a plane. We see it both ways, in parallel.

With the holidays approaching, a young party planner arranges a special Christmas party for a New York toy store. When a powerful corporation threatens to shut her down, she decides to follow her heart, moving forward with the party plans and finding true love in time for Christmas.

Natural-born leader, Julia, returns to her hometown of North Falls for Christmas to drown her sorrows in eggnog, cookies, and Yuletide after her recent political campaign for city council ended in a landslide loss. It's the perfect place for Julia's holiday escape — until she realizes coming home means running into her old high school rival, Parker, the arrogant know-it-all who beat her in a race for senior class president.

The holiday season is turned upside down for a neophyte food critic JJ (Pope) when her uninhibited mother (Baranski) shows up unannounced. In an attempt to occupy her mom's time, JJ works out a deal with a young chef (Cannavale) that stirs up some matters of the heart.

A doctor returns home for Christmas to find that her father has decided to retire from his own practice. After reuniting with her high school sweetheart, she wonders if she should stay and take over her father's practice.

With her California hometown in the rearview mirror, Belle heads north on business to catalog the sale of a large mansion. While the job is a dream, the client, Hunter Lowell, is not. But, as the two spend more time together, his icy demeanor begins to melt. Although their relationship is budding, Belle’s long-time suitor, Tony, arrives, sending mixed signals to Hunter while adding chaos to the holiday season.

Aunt Sally's Christmas Cookie Company is sold to a large conglomerate and executive Hannah must seal the deal and shut down the factory, which is the small town of Cookie Jar's lifeblood. What was supposed to be a simple assignment for Hannah becomes complicated when she meets Jake, the factory owner who's determined to keep the factory in town. Despite not being a fan of the holiday, the Christmas spirit in this small town is infectious and she gets swept up in the joy of the season while also falling in love with Jake.

Ellie Hartman is an aspiring crafter working in her small town’s bakery making famous Christmas Kringles. When the new, big-city CEO Nick Carlingson visits the bakery, he arrives filled with modernization ideas destined to lay off many employees.

Although she loves Christmas, Santa’s elf Christine (Summer Glau) wonders if there could be more to life than making toys in the North Pole. When Santa receives an emergency wish from a little boy in Los Angeles, he puts Christine on a special assignment, sending her to L.A. to give the VanCamp family—mom Sara (Eva La Rue), dad Scott (Dan Gauthier), and their two kids Ally (Izabela Vidovic) and Will (Mason Cook)—a holiday wake-up call. Will Christine fail her assignment and be sent back to the North Pole for good, or will the VanCamps come to their senses about the meaning of Christmas?

Pop superstar Adelaide Kay is so fed up with her controlling manager that she sneaks off the tour bus after their latest squabble. Though exhilarated to be free, she finds herself stranded in the freezing cold of a Pennsylvania winter, with no money and no plan. A local family, the Lapps, take her in. They know the true meaning of the season, even if they’re close to losing their dairy farm. No one in the family recognizes Adelaide except Dillon, the oldest son. He figures she’s the ticket to fast cash and plots to snap photos of Adelaide around the farm and sell them to the tabs. What he doesn’t plan, however, is their mutual attraction.

Aria Eubank convinces a famous travel writer to do a feature story on her beloved hometown, however, when the travel guru and his ghostwriter both show up, Aria finds her heart torn between Sterling Masters and Alex Barlett, the man who has genuinely fallen for her.

A real estate developer is given the opportunity of his career to transform an old shopping complex into a prime location. Unfortunately, there is one tenant who is holding out—the Christmas shop owner he met by happenstance just days ago.

When Lila is hired by the Royal Family of Marcadia to repair a carousel, she must work with the Prince to complete it by Christmas.

When Anne helps her father close the family's toy store, what she finds will help inspire an entire town that is need of some Christmas cheer.

When Sadie's (Malone Thomas) boyfriend cancels their holiday plans, she decides to spend Christmas with her parents back in her hometown, only to find out they've sold the family's beloved chocolate store to a stranger who knows nothing about chocolate. Begrudgingly, her father convinces her that she'd be the obvious choice to help teach the new owner everything she knows about chocolate. In the middle of planning the perfect retirement party for her parents, she discovers that not everything has to be perfect. And sometimes, when you least expect it, you find love.

Lizzie is a young piano teacher working at a music school while trying to save enough money for a Steinway piano. The school is gearing up for their major Christmas fundraiser and she has committed much of her time to plan the event. One afternoon, she meets Brad who takes an interest in her playing and asks if she will teach his uninterested teenage daughter. She begins to break through to the young girl, and sparks begin to fly with Brad, but she is shocked to find out that his interest is not solely in her playing, but in the property that houses the music school. She sets out to save the school and the event, but can she work things out with Brad?

Christmas enthusiast party planners Ella and her sister, Marianne, clash with their client, Edward, who is a not-so-jolly toy company CEO.