‘Tis the season for streaming ourselves into holiday movie oblivion, and we’ve already seen a bunch of festive films shoot to the top of streaming charts everywhere. Among the usual suspects such as “Elf” and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” we’ve seen a Bruce Willis action classic predictably climb the Prime Video charts, while over on Netflix, Keira Knightley’s Christmas-themed spy thriller “Black Doves” comfortably triumphed in the Top 10.
We’ve also seen a Christmas movie which Jack Black completely forgot about (even though he’s in it) dominate the Prime Video charts, and now it looks like Black has been usurped by an opponent no less formidable than Queen Latifah. Yes, the queen herself has now taken over the Prime Video rankings with a forgotten holiday movie that’s currently enjoying a nice little streaming resurgence.
“Lady Holiday” stars Latifah as department store assistant Georgia who is diagnosed with a terminal brain condition and decides to spend her last weeks going on a lavish vacation to Europe in order to make up for a life spent being overly cautious. Of course there’s plenty of rom to match the com here, with LL Cool J playing Georgia’s longtime crush Sean Matthews. Director Wayne Wang’s Christmas movie about terminal brain illness perhaps understandably only made $43 million on a $45 million budget when it debuted in 2006, making for a less than impressive opening. But in the spirit of the festive season, every dud deserves a second chance, which is exactly what “Last Holiday” is enjoying on streaming.
Queen Latifah is having one last holiday on Prime Video
Over on Prime Video, “Last Holiday” is flirting with streaming greatness, though it’s yet to fully dominated the most-watched charts. According to FlixPatrol, a site that tracks streaming viewership numbers, the film crept into the platform’s top 10 for films on December 7, 2024, when it hit number eight in the United States. It then fell to number 10 the following day before being pushed out of the rankings altogether the day after.
However, Queen Latifah mad a comeback on December 11, when “Last Holiday” returned to the top 10 in the U.S., hitting number eight and staying there for a second day before dropping to number 10. It remains there at the time of writing, teetering on the verge of disappearing from the charts again. But either way, there’s no denying the film has seen a significant streaming resurgence this holiday season, and if its track record thus far is anything to go by, “Last Holiday” could very well make a comeback as the festive season goes on. A 56% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes isn’t exactly the most promising sign, but this is the site that says there are only nine absolutely perfect horror films in cinematic history so take that for what it’s worth.
Is this the end for Last Holiday’s streaming renaissance?
While “Last Holiday” enjoys its streaming resurgence, Dwayne Johnson’s sort-of box office flop “Red One” has finally arrived on Prime Video and is predictably dominating the charts, debuting at number one immediately after it hit the service on December 12, 2024. While the movie might not have been the biggest theatrical hit, it was always going to fare well on streaming, mostly because, let’s be honest, it was always a streaming movie masquerading as a box office blockbuster. Either way, it’s a brand new movie among the “recently added” category, which is often enough by itself to propel a film into the charts — just look at when the massive Michael Fassbender flop “The Snowman” hit Netflix in 2023 and was immediately seized upon by viewers around the world.
The same can probably be said of “Lady Holiday,” which in one sense is simply just a little pocket of new graphic design on the streaming interface to draw our attention. That said, this is clearly a resurgence sparked by the holiday season itself, and if anything it’s nice to see something other than “Home Alone” or “Elf” dominating audiences’ viewing schedules. Will Queen Latifah be able to dethrone The Rock? It seems unlikely, but we’ll have to wait to see if a Christmas miracle occurs.