The Absolute Worst Hallmark Movies Of All Time

Hallmark has been making movies for over 70 years, and over that best part of a century they've been churning them out like Taylor Swift releasing album variants. According to data from Andrew Nordstrom, the network has released between 40 and 52 movies a year since 2020. In that time, Hallmark has had a fair few hits, from 2021's "An Unexpected Christmas" to 2024's "Sugarplummed." Heck, here are the Hallmark Channel's top 15 new movies in 2026 (so far) ranked by reviews.

But naturally, with an output that prolific, there have been many a flop film that even the most festive of cinéastes couldn't defend. Indeed, as per Nordstrom's data, as the number of yearly releases has increased, the average IMDb rating has gone from the mid-7s in the late '90s to dropping and plateauing firmly in the 6s. And that's just the average. Here, we're looking at the films that pulled that median rating right down. 

Whether it's cliché-ridden holiday movies or woeful wedding-themed watches or even astrophysicist-based disaster movies, when it comes to their filmic output, Hallmark has done more shark-jumping than a water-skiing greaser. For some viewers, quality control (or lack thereof) doesn't matter. In fact, there are many red flags in Hallmark movies that everyone ignores. But, for those of us with an inner Roger Ebert, let's take a look at some of the W.O.A.T. Hallmark movies that are so bad they'll have you spitting out your eggnog.

"The premise feels like it was scribbled during study hall: adopt every dog your boyfriend leaves behind," said a user on amateur movie review site Letterboxd about "My Boyfriends' Dogs," a truly below par Hallmark movie starring Erika Christensen. "It's a head-scratcher of an idea, and the bland directing pairs all too well with equally uninspired performances." It nabbed a 35% rating on the Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter, and those viewers weren't the only one who felt this film was all bark and no bite.

Perhaps what's most frustrating about this 2014 flick is that it makes a good start. On a rainy evening, our sodden protagonist Bailey, wearing a wedding dress, bowls into a diner with three dogs on leads. If that's not an arresting opening image that's sure to hook you in, we don't know what is. However, from there, she tells the diner owners how she acquired the trio of pups through her last three exes (one of whom she left at the altar). And you better believe there's a triptych of trite and predictable flashback plot lines. And of course, she doesn't end up with any of the men in the flashbacks, but instead catches the eye (or should we say the ear?) the guy who owns the local pet store. Wouldn't you know it, that pet store owner happens to be eavesdropping on her story in the diner. Bizarre. As that aforementioned Letterboxd user concisely quipped, "If your watchlist is as bloated as mine, consider dropping this one back in the pound."

In many cases, convenience is a good thing. When it comes to "The Convenient Groom," however, it's another story. Look no further than the 26% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 2.9 out of 5-star Letterboxd average.

The 2016 film, directed by David Winning, follows a famous relationship expert and blogger (Vanessa Marcil)) who gets dumped by her hubby-to-be (Aaron Craven) just as she's about to announce their engagement. To save face and assuage any public embarrassment, her childhood friend (David Sutcliffe) steps in to play fiancé. Yeah, you can see where this one goes. In the least surprising turn of events possible, the elaborate fake fiancé ruse turns into something real and really romantic.

Conflict aside, the filmmakers still have to make people believe there's a genuine love story at play. Something those behind "The Convenient Groom" neglected to do. "[I've] never seen a couple with less onscreen chemistry than the leads in this," said one user in a half-star review on Letterboxd. "[I'm] convinced vanessa marcil read all her lines off a cue card." Another Letterboxd user, who gave the same score, added, "The acting bothered me and felt like even the actor didn't really want to be in it." It's a Christmas miracle these two didn't make it into fans' worst Hallmark movie couples.

Some plot holes are like a highway pothole, annoying but quickly brushed over and forgotten about – not really impacting the journey. However, others are more like meteor craters, miles wide and unmissable – their presence changing the whole landscape. The plot hole in Hallmark's "From Friend to Fiancé" movie is the latter.

As Ted (Ryan Paevey) plans his marriage to the mean girl from his high school days (Kelly Kruger), he enlists his female long-term childhood bestie, Jess (Jocelyn Hudon), who was left slack-jawed at the engagement, to help him get wedding-ready. However, as Jess helps organize the nuptials, she struggles to hide her romantic feelings for the groom-to-be. The film requires some egregious suspension of disbelief, including expecting the audience to buy into the fact that Jess had no idea Ted was ever dating this Regina George-type until they got engaged. Some so-called best friend, eh? Do they not even have a group chat? As one user on Letterboxd asked, "[H]ow are you going to make a friends to lovers movie and show them neither as friends nor as lovers?"

Not only does the film require near-impossible levels of belief suspension, but the 2019 flick also commits a movie's most cardinal sin: it's dull. "[W]atched at 1.5x speed and it was still boring," added that very same Letterboxd reviewer. The movie's 38% rating on Rotten Tomatoes certainly aligns with that assessment.

The 30% score on Rotten Tomatoes for "Stop the Wedding" suggests that before audiences get to see any weddings be stopped, they'll be shutting down their streaming platform, checking their email for a receipt, and trying to get a refund from customer service. Some viewers were even peeved straight from the opening scene, in which two women ask their neighbour to turn his music down but he continually refutes their requests. "Bestie when I tell you I was incensed and ready to drop this movie," a user on Letterboxd vented about the film's first sequence. "I would be calling the police on him, not waving my arms around and screeching."

So, for those who couldn't even make it past the opening scene, or haven't laid eyes on the movie, here's what goes down. When Anna (Rachel Boston) and Clay (Niall Matter) both want to stop the wedding of her aunt and his father, Anna and Clay end up falling for each other and on the path to the altar themselves. So, if you didn't make it a long way into this movie, you're hardly missing out on the next "Citizen Kane." Or even the next "27 Dresses." As another user on Letterboxd put it, "They should just 'stop' making hallmark movies." If there's one saving grace for this Hallmark flick, it's the presence of legendary sitcom actor Alan Thicke, who plays, funnily enough, a famous actor in the film.

Mariah Carey? Hallmark? A Christmas movie? It's a collaboration made in heaven. After all, Carey, who directed and starred in 2015's "A Christmas Melody," has a record-smashingly successful festive hit, and Hallmark is as Christmas-coded as those Three Wise Men and a Fraser fir. However, a 40% Rotten Tomatoes score and brutal audience reviews on Letterboxd suggest it's more disappointing than an overcooked ham on the 25th.

Kristen, played by Lacey Chabert, closes her New York clothing boutique and heads back to her Ohio hometown with her tail between her legs and her young daughter in tow. There, they are helped to reintegrate by an impossibly handsome music teacher and hindered by Carey's PTA mom character. "Genuinely a new low for hallmark movies," wrote one user on Letterboxd. "Mariah Carey is in it and she is mean. Every moment I watched this I felt more icked out." Another citizen reviewer on Letterboxd added, "[M]ariah carey is Not a good director i guess maybe you're just meant to have one good talent in life." 

"I've been directing like so much of my own work for such a long time," Carey, who was also behind the camera on her "Fantasy" music video, told Entertainment Tonight. We appreciate when an artist, especially a legend like Carey, tries something new, but unfortunately her Hallmark effort wasn't exactly a platinum hit.

According to a report from The New York Times in 2023, the word "Christmas" is in 73% of Hallmark movie titles. Although "Fir Crazy" doesn't have that specific word in the title, with a 2.9 rating on Letterboxd, it has all the barrel-scraping Christmas clichés that'll leave you asking how much Christmas is too much Christmas? Heck, even the title is a needless festive-themed pun. "The movie's name makes no sense to me though, it's clearly a play on "Stir Crazy" but?" wrote a user on Letterboxd. "It's not like anyone is trapped or something???? Did they just come up with that and couldn't think of anything better after they finished the movie?"

In the flick, a career-focused New Yorker (Sarah Lancaster) splits from her boyfriend and her employer splits with her, so she channels her energy into selling trees and, in doing so, falls for a cool Christmassy man (Eric Johnson). Whether it's that title, that plot, or the saccharine departing message that Christmas is about family and tradition, you've likely seen similar yuletide yawns from Hallmark before. If you wanna watch a good version of "Fir Crazy," check out one of Hallmark Channel's 10 best holiday movies of all time ranked by reviews.

No, this isn't the 2009 Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner rom-com vehicle. That's "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past." Instead, like a pair of fake Margiela Tabis brought from Temu, this is a far worse Hallmark dupe with a 43% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It's 2021's "Boyfriends of Christmas Past."

"Boyfriends of Christmas Past" is a loose remix of "A Christmas Carol," in which high-flying and love-lorn career woman Lauren (Catherine Haena Kim) is visited by three of her exes in spirit form. The issue with this movie is that, much like the aforementioned "Christmas Down Under," there's a dearth of chemistry here. But what's more egregious is that it commits perhaps the worst sin any story can, much worse than any deus ex machina or plot hole: It was all one of Lauren's dreams. Ironically enough, this is a film that'll send you to sleep and, in that slumber, you'll probably be having a better time in your own dream world than watching this Hallmark movie.

If you're looking for something along the lines of "A Christmas Carol," we'd recommend "The Muppet Christmas Carol" or even getting yourself a copy of Charles Dickens' original.

2017's "Christmas Wedding Planner" has a shockingly subpar 13% score on Rotten Tomatoes. We'd love to say that this is a movie with a bad Rotten Tomatoes score you should totally watch anyway, but that's not quite the case. This movie is next-level rough. 

Wedding planner Kelsey (Jocelyn Hudon) gets the career break she needed when she is tasked with planning her cousin's fancy Christmas wedding. However, after a private eye (Stephen Huszar) is hired to watch over her cousin's husband-to-be, it threatens to ruin her best laid plans. Kelsey decides to keep the PI (and new nemesis) close, but this is Hallmark we're dealing with, and soon that enemy turns to a lover. But between Kelsey's internal monologue, her odd one-way text chats that pop up on screen, and an ending so befuddling you'll need at least three hour-long YouTube explainers to work out, this film is a low point in Hallmark's cache of Christmas movies. 

As one viewer wrote on Rotten Tomatoes, "I would give a full 1 star to anyone that had the stomach to watch up to 30 minutes of this horror." Another declared, "You keep thinking it must be over soon and it can't possibly get worse. Then it does. And after 1.5 miserable hours, it's over. Then you try to forget." Yikes.

A Hallmark movie is an efficient, well-oiled, and well-engineered machine. It makes German and Japanese railways look disorganized and snail-paced. According to analysis from The New York Times, the Hallmark formula is that, at Christmas time, a high-powered female professional will head to a small town. There, she meets a provincial man and is tasked with saving a business or solving a mystery. At the end of the story, she will move to the town or her new man will create a new metropolitan life with her. So, it's a surprise, and often a subpar one, when Hallmark veers off-track to make something a little different.

2005's "Supernova" is a film that proves Hallmark should stick to what it knows best. In fact, the movie, which stars Luke Perry and Tia Carrere, is about as far away from a small town getting into the Christmas spirit as you can get. When Dr. Chris Richardson, played by Perry, finds out the sun is primed to burst, he attempts to save Earth from an impending solar apocalypse. What it lacks in hot buttered rum it makes up for in... hot buttered sci-fi?

Whether it's the scientific inaccuracies that would leave Neil deGrasse Tyson's head spinning or some shoddy accent work from the actors, the film will only make  you long for a small town, two star-crossed lovers, and Christmas. As one user on Letterboxd wrote, "That's 172 minutes of my life I'll never get back from an attempt at an end of the world movie from hallmark."

With a 30% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, we're not sure anyone is taking their hats off for "Hats Off to Christmas!" from 2013. "It's absolutely ridiculous," one user on Reddit wrote about the Hallmark film. "A tiny Santa hat shop with a massive Amazon-esque warehouse. It will have you laughing the whole movie!" Laughing, that is, at, not with, the film. 

There are many unwritten rules of Hallmark Christmas movies, and this particular movie features a lot of the network's hallmarks. When small-town struggling shop employee, Mia (Haylie Duff), is tasked with training the owner's ultra-corporate heir, Nick (Antonio Cupo), the unlikely pair don't get on. But, a romance slowly blooms after Nick begins showing support to Mia's disabled son (Sean Michael Kyer). In the end, Nick must choose between the big city or Mia's small town. However, this feel-good film will more likely leave you feeling bad. "This is probably the worst movie I've ever seen and I've seen some real dogs***," wrote a user on Letterboxd. "Sometimes it was funny bad but mainly it just made me lose my will to live." Indeed, by the time you manage to make yourself care for a Christmas hat shop, that seems like a risky business model to begin with, you'd probably have used up all your energy and won't be able to care about the incredibly boring romance plot.

Lest you think we're total curmudgeons, there are certainly some Hallmark originals that we do enjoy. For those wanting to spend the Christmas season the right way, here's some Hallmark movies that are totally worth your time.