Taking a seat in front of leisurely holiday movies has become a modern Christmas tradition and this year has taken seasonal film production to record levels.

More than 200 new feature films and TV movies with Christmas in the title are listed on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) for release in 2021.

That number has doubled since 2016 and is four times more than in 2011.

Channels and streamers have found that holiday movies are big ratings winners.

Christmas movies have been popular for decades, and classics like Home Alone, Love Indeed, and It’s A Wonderful Life will be heavily watched again in the coming weeks.

But the boom in a new generation of holiday movies can be traced back to the decision of the cable channel Hallmark US to launch a special season of TV movies in 2009.

His first Countdown To Christmas featured four original productions and a record-breaking audience.

This year, the countdown began even earlier, on October 22, and includes a record 42 original holiday movies.

“They bet a lot on Christmas and everyone else seems to have noticed the ratings,” says Brandon Gray, co-host of the Deck the Hallmark podcast and one of the authors of a new book called I’ll Be Home for Christmas Movies.

Rival channel Lifetime was among those to take notice and this year scored 35 of its Christmas hits, also the highest number ever.

Streaming platforms are tapping into seasonal demand too, with Netflix offering a dozen original movies with big names like John Cleese, Kelsey Grammar, and Brooke Shields.

The IMDB numbers only include movies with “Christmas” in the title, which means the real number of holiday movies is even higher.

Big screen releases this season include Silent Night, starring Keira Knightley, and Aml Ameen’s Boxing Day, also starring Little Mix’s Leigh-Anne Pinnock.

Scroll down to learn more about some of this year’s new releases.

When it comes to movies made for TV, many are relatively low-budget and use a feel-good formula to tell stories of romance and family – and are cozy and comforting enough to nullify being mundane and mushy.

“It’s this magical season where the storyline that’s on screen doesn’t matter as long as there’s a bunch of Christmas trees in the background and it’s snowing,” says Gray.

“For viewers, it’s just a way to escape and experience this little bit of peace for at least two hours amid the craziness of the holiday season and the craziness of the world we’ve lived in for the past two years.”

Hallmark has built his holiday empire on movies that look and feel alike, says Gray.

“They have the same aesthetic because they understand what works: ‘If we keep everything basically uniform – not too funny, not too sad – people will move from one movie to another.’

“So there are the two people falling in love and there is some kind of misunderstanding about 30 minutes to go and then they’ll figure it out and kiss.

“And you do it over and over, and as long as it looks uniform and feels uniform, people will look one after another.”

This year has been the best crop of movies so far, Gray says, in part because channels like Hallmark are starting to experiment with that formula.

“Especially this year, I feel the change, where they are putting more emphasis on different types of stories,” he says. “They are working hard with inclusion and making sure the stories they are told match what you see on screen.

“So it’s no longer just them putting a black person on the screen in a white world, they’re actually telling stories that seem authentic to whoever you’re watching on screen.”

In the UK, some of those TV movies aired on Great! Canale Film Natale from 23 September, and Canale 5 during the day from early November.

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