After more holiday movies on TV than ever before, five have been selected to enter the Emmys race for TV movie — so far.
Although Hallmark Channel had the most holiday movies this year with 40, they didn’t submit any for the TV movie category — despite “Three Wise Men and a Baby” became the most watched TV movie of the year on cable.
Lifetime, which debuted 26, submitted two this year, while Great American Family — who debuted 18 holiday movies this year — submitted one: Candace Cameron Bure’s first for the network.
UpTV released 17 and BET+ dropped 10 new holiday flicks in 2002 while many other networks and streaming services — both big and small — entered the holiday TV movie race, including NBC, Netflix, HBO Max, Discovery+, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Freevee and Roku, among others. A few of those did submit for the Emmys.
A few holiday movies have been in the TV movie race in the past. Last year, Roku’s “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” was submitted and landed a nomination. The year before, Netflix’s “Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square” entered the race and took home the Emmy. So it’s no surprise that Parton’s NBC special, “Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas” has been submitted this year. The last NBC movie to be nominated in the category was in 2017 — “Dolly Parton’s Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love.”
Both The CW and Freevee are entering the category this year for the first time, submitting “A Waltons Thanksgiving” and “Hotel for the Holidays,” respectively.
Scroll through the list below for more information on the five holiday films submitted, as revealed as voting opened on Thursday.
