10 Best Christmas TV Episodes You Can Watch On Netflix

Considering Christmas TV episodes are generally renowned for being light-hearted and joyful, it makes sense that Charlie Brooker's cynical sci-fi series went the opposite direction. The Black Mirror Christmas special doubles down on its pessimistic take on the future of humanity but is all the more glorious for doing so.

White Christmas may be one of the bleakest episodes of the anthology series but also one of the most inventive that introduced elements that would be explored in later seasons. The episode tells three stories within its extended Christmas runtime, a storytelling device which was also adopted (not as successfully) in the season four finale Black Museum. These stories are all linked by the shady Matt played by Jon Hamm which was the first major use of an international guest star. This kind of stunt casting was something that was heavily used from here on with the latest season alone featuring Anthony Mackie, Andrew Scott and Miley Cyrus.

Aside from acting as a template for the later direction of the show, White Christmas is a very well told story with a mystery at the heart of it as we attempt to unravel the story of Rafe Spall's Joe. As expected the truth is as sinister as the eventual fate of Hamm's Matt who is arguably dealt a punishment worse than death for his sins. The writing is brilliant and the choice to utilise Hamm's charming persona to make his otherwise selfish and arrogant character somewhat redeemable is inspired. The only complaint is that it is by far the least feel good Christmassy episode on this list.