Even if you hate rom coms or find Christmas movies too saccharine, “Happiest Season” may be for you. It is an entertaining, engrossing, glossy film even if the wrong couple ends up together.

| Dec 31, 2024

This film feels fresh, because with a sleight of hand, it moves queer romance from its usual home in serious drama to festive romcom.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 10, 2024

Happiest Season delivers everything you should expect. It is romantic, awkward, full of beautiful people, and offers several moments that are genuinely funny enough to make the audience more than chuckle.

| Feb 20, 2024

Happiest Season is exciting, although perhaps less as a festive romcom than as a sign of things to come: stories that centre queer experiences.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 27, 2022

By leaning on a rather trite “coming out” story, the otherwise hilarious movie fails to live up to its obvious potential.

| Sep 26, 2022

Despite teasing us with tastes of transgression, the film is really about the struggle to assimilate. And for that, it could just be a feel-bad Christmas movie for the ages.

| Sep 26, 2022

Happiest Season is a riotous recontextualization of Christmas comedy clichés and conventions, thanks to its affecting LGBTQ+ authenticity and enormously entertaining ensemble.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 1, 2022

The film is full of all the right messages we need to hear at this time of year, and during this year in particular.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 17, 2022

"Happiest Season" takes from every Christmas movie out there, mainly Hallmark ones, while also providing a fresh take on awkward family dynamics and a beautiful connection between Davis and Stewart. Full review in Spanish

| Original Score: 7/10 | Apr 7, 2022

Loaded with gorgeous winter pageantry and fine performances all around, Happiest Season offers a fine way to usher in the yuletide spirit, with or without gay apparel.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 20, 2022

By the time the movie brings everyone together for a family photo in front of the Christmas tree, and you're grinning like an idiot because the scene makes you unreasonably merry, you know that DuVall and her excellent cast have done something right.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 17, 2022

Balances between a heartfelt queer romance and a chintzy Christmas weepie, and somehow manages to stay upright without stumbling.

| Sep 13, 2021

It's not safe to travel home for the holidays, so let this family's stress be the understudy for your own family drama, at least for this year.

| Sep 10, 2021

It may be light on substance, but it hits the right feel-good notes to get you in the festive spirit. You'll just wish it was that little bit funnier and that Kristen Stewart smiled just a little bit more.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 31, 2021

I know it's not perfect but I adore this. Super fun performances all around, my heart felt full. More gay holiday movies please.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 4, 2021

Peel back the veneer a little and the...reliance on the ever-ready open wounds that popular culture tends to lay bare in its portrayal of queer women seep to the surface.

| Jun 24, 2021

These frustrations exist to such an extent that it's difficult to appreciate the admittedly effective [actors], who can only do so much to try to save this insipid film.

| Jun 5, 2021

...a well-meaning and progressive comedy...

| Original Score: 14/20 | Mar 25, 2021

[T]he film misses the opportunity to queer the holiday romance genre itself, by shifting the expectations of the form and asserting that a happy ending need not be the conventional romantic one.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 27, 2021

Proving a conservative format can change is well and good, but there's also something to be said for just leaving it behind.

| Feb 21, 2021