10 Best Male Actors In Hallmark Christmas Movies, Ranked

Thanks to the sheer number of holiday films Hallmark releases every year, the network has built up quite a stable of artists. Some of these actors appear in just a few Christmas movies between other projects, while others have essentially built a career around their work with Hallmark. And while it’s easy to look at the ads for Hallmark holiday movies and see a variety of plug-and-play, generic brunettes (for some reason, Hallmark has chosen brown hair as a relatable color for their Everyman), each of the channel’s leading men has their own niche and strengths that they bring to their performances. 

Some are best known for playing the reluctant prince of an unknown European principality who ends up romancing a small-town American girl, while others are better suited to play ruggedly handsome Christmas tree farmers or small business owners who woo career-oriented gals from the big city with their rural charms. Just like snowflakes, no two male Hallmark stars are quite alike — and here are some of the best that the network has to offer.

Corey Sevier is an actor whose career has had more than a few distinct acts. First, he was a child actor, starring in the ’90s remake of “Lassie” as Timmy (of “Timmy fell down the well” fame), a few different episodes of the “Goosebumps” television series, the television adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Men,” and the Disney film “Summer of the Monkeys.” As an adult, he continued acting, with roles on “Smallville,” “Psych,” and “Supernatural,” amongst others. 

But in 2018, he starred in Hallmark’s “Northern Lights of Christmas,” and it was like a lightbulb went off — this was where he was meant to be. Since then, he’s appeared in many different holiday productions from the network, including “Noel Next Door,” “Everything Christmas,” and “The Christmas Charade,” (in addition to — gasp — films from their rival network, Lifetime). But what’s more, Sevier has developed a strong working relationship with Hallmark, even stepping behind the camera to direct some of the holiday-themed films that he also stars in. To date, he’s helmed “Heart of the Holidays” in 2020 and “Take Me Back for Christmas” in 2023.

If you’re looking for an unabashedly Type A romantic lead to spice up your Hallmark holidays with steamy spreadsheets, Wes Brown is your guy. Born in Texas, Brown got his start in Hollywood, perhaps fittingly, with a string of appearances in high school and college sports movies, including “Glory Road” and “We Are Marshall.” But his turn towards the world of Hallmark was sudden and definite. 

In 2014, he made his first holiday film with the network (“June in January,” where his character’s sudden job offer forces his fiancée to adapt her dream summer wedding plans to the winter in just three weeks), and never looked back. Other credits came hard and fast: “Love Under the Stars,” “Christmas Cookies,” “Christmas at Graceland,” “Check Inn to Christmas,” “Haul Out the Holly,” the list goes on and on. He’s done an astonishing 14 films with Hallmark in just nine years — all while finding time to appear as Gaston on “Once Upon a Time,” alongside roles in “90210” and David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks.”

Andrew Walker has been involved in the entertainment industry since the ’90s, making early appearances on the classic Nickelodeon show “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” as various hunky jocks, as well as landing a recurring role on “Sabrina the Teenage Witch.” But although the Canadian actor’s television career has been thriving for the better part of three decades, it’s his foray into holiday films that has made the biggest impression. For over 10 years now, Walker has been a stalwart figure on the Hallmark Channel, especially around Christmastime. In 2012, he starred in “A Bride for Christmas” as Aiden MacTiernan, a perpetual bachelor who makes a bet with his friends that he can find a woman to agree to marry him by Christmas, then just a few weeks away. (You know, as friends do.)

Since then, his face has been all over Hallmark. In addition to a number of non-Christmas titles released by the network, many in conjunction with Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, he’s appeared in “A Dream of Christmas,” “Love on Ice,” “Snowed-Inn Christmas,” “Merry and Bright,” “Christmas Tree Lane,” and literally dozens — we’re not exaggerating here — of others. Most recently, he starred in “Three Wise Men and a Baby,” which earned a sequel earlier this year, “Three Wiser Men and a Baby.”

A professionally trained dancer who attended the Royal Ballet School, Will Kemp had a whole career on stage before transitioning to film and television, even performing the key role of the Swan in “Swan Lake” in both London and New York, as well as playing Nugget in Daniel Radcliffe’s West End debut performance of “Equus.” In the early 2000s, he made the move to television, appearing in over a dozen episodes of “Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce” and playing the role of Lord Darnley, Mary Queen of Scots’ famously ill-fated second husband, in the CW’s frothy teen historical drama “Reign.”

Since then, his career has been dominated by appearances in Hallmark productions. He starred in “The Christmas Waltz” with Lacey Chabert, a role that allowed him to put his dancing skills to good use. Many of his roles have been sophisticated, urbane, and distinctly European — he was featured in “Royal Matchmaker,” “Jolly Good Christmas,” “A Not So Royal Christmas,” “Paging Mr. Darcy,” and “My Sweet Austrian Holiday.”

Colin Donnell may not be the first actor who comes to mind when you think of Hallmark, but he’s by far one of its most talented. He made his on-screen debut on the short-lived but very charming “Pan Am,” a show that also featured the then largely unknown Margot Robbie. For many audiences, Donnell is best known for his non-Christmasey fare — he played Tommy Merlyn in 31 episodes of the CW’s “Arrow,” and was a series regular on “Chicago Med” from 2015 to 2019 (along with appearances on its various “One Chicago” sister shows). He’s also made a name for himself in the theater, starring in the Broadway productions of “Jersey Boys,” “Anything Goes,” “The Shark Is Broken,” and most recently, the acclaimed New York City Center Encores production of “Ragtime.”

But our Colin is no one-trick pony; he’s also made time for a few Hallmark movies as well. In 2021, he appeared in “To Catch a Spy” on Hallmark, but more relevant to our purposes is his performance from the previous year in “Love on Iceland.” In it, he plays Charlie, a roguish scamp who crashes his ex’s group trip to Iceland. Will they rekindle their romance amidst the icy peaks and steamy geothermic spas? Well, obviously.

A child star out of Canada, Tyler Hynes had a long list of credits by the time he graduated from high school. He played Atreyu in “Tales From the Neverending Story” and was featured in “Peter Benchley’s Amazon,” both released in 1999 and 2000, when he was barely a teenager. Hynes did his time with both Disney and Nickelodeon, appearing in episodes of “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” and “The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo,” as well as the Disney Channel Original Movie “The Other Me.”

As an adult, especially within the past five years or so, his career has been primarily dominated by his work with Hallmark. Between “Winter in Vail,” “The Mistletoe Secret,” “An Unexpected Christmas,” “Time for Him to Come Home for Christmas,” and “Three Wise Men and a Baby,” he’s been featured in some of Hallmark’s most popular Christmas movies, making him one of their most trusted and recognizable names. In 2024, he even starred in the Kansas City Chiefs-themed Christmas film, “Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story,” which features a cameo from Travis Kelce’s mom. (Anytime Hallmark is ready to do a Buffalo Bills-themed sequel, we would watch it — just saying.)

Out of all the repeat Hallmark stars, Jesse Metcalfe is probably one of the most recognizable. He shot to stardom playing the first of three Miguel Lopez-Fitzgeralds on “Passions,” before taking a career-defining role in “Desperate Housewives.” On the big screen, Metcalfe played John Tucker in the popular teen revenge comedy “John Tucker Must Die” and a bunch of other (unfortunately) largely forgettable productions. In 2020, he even joined the cast of “Dancing with the Stars,” ultimately being eliminated fourth. 

But on the Hallmark Channel, his career has continued to thrive. In 2017, he starred in “Christmas Next Door” alongside Fiona Gubelmann, the classic story of a bachelor writer who finds love and learns how to appreciate Christmas all at the same time. Two years later, he followed it up with “Christmas Under the Stars,” where he plays a failed investment banker who ends up taking a job at a Christmas tree lot, where he — surprise! — finds love and learns how to appreciate Christmas. Metcalfe has also taken on the recurring role of Jeff Jackson in the “Martha’s Vineyard Mystery” franchise — not holiday-themed, but also featured on the Hallmark Channel.

If you’re a fan of “Mad Men,” you’ll probably recognize — and instinctively loathe — Samuel Page, who played Joan’s (Christina Hendricks) villainous doctor husband Greg Harris on the hit period drama. But he’s had plenty of other projects under his belt both before and after his recurring role on the AMC drama. He got his start on television in the early 2000s, appearing on “Popular,” “7th Heaven,” “American Dreams,” “Point Pleasant,” and “All My Children.” In more recent years, he’s become a familiar face on many different popular shows, including “House of Cards,” “Scandal,” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” 

His fame has even spread, it would seem, to the world of Hallmark, considering how many of their holiday films he’s been featured in since 2017. Page has appeared in “The Perfect Christmas Present,” “A Royal New Years’ Eve,” “Christmas in Rome,” and “Rescuing Christmas,” amongst others. And that’s just counting the explicitly holiday-themed films — he’s done a handful of other romances from the network’s regular, non-Christmas season slate of films.

The soap opera to Hallmark Christmas movie pipeline is underutilized but very real, as Ryan Paevey’s career attests. An actor who is used to the rigorous pace of a soap is a perfect fit for a network that churns out dozens of new Christmas movies like they’re going out of style. And indeed, after appearing for an impressive 280 episodes of “General Hospital” as Nathan West, a good guy detective who was an immediate hit with audiences, Paevey made the transition over to Hallmark with the same dedication. 

In 2016, he stepped into the role of Donovan Darcy in “Unleashing Mr. Darcy,” a modern-day Christmas take on “Pride & Prejudice,” a film that had such a positive reception it was followed up two years later with “Marrying Mr. Darcy.” Since 2019, Paevey has made 11 Hallmark Christmas movies, releasing eight in 2019 and 2021 alone. You have to respect the hustle. Arguably the best among these was “A Timeless Christmas,” where Paevey plays a turn-of-the-century millionaire who is magically transported to the present day, where he falls in love with a docent who works at his mansion (now a historical museum).

To see Luke Macfarlane in a rom-com is to adore him — he just has an incredibly likeable screen presence. After training at Juilliard, he made his big-screen debut in 2004 with “Kinsey,” playing the role of Alfred Kinsey’s (Liam Neeson) son Bruce. But he’s been most prolific on television, starring in “Brothers & Sisters” as Scotty Wandell and appearing on “Satisfaction,” “Supergirl,” “Mercy Street,” and “Hacks.” He even voiced the role of Rick Sheridan on Prime Video’s “Invincible.” And he earned his biggest credit to date costarring opposite Billy Eichner in “Bros,” a rom-com that received positive attention for putting together a cast comprised solely of LGBTQ+ actors. There, his warmth is enough to melt even the cynical, defensive heart of Eichner.

On Hallmark, Macfarlane has gone from hit to hit. From “The Mistletoe Promise” and “Sense, Sensibility and Snowmen” to “Chateau Christmas” and “Catch Me If You Claus,” he’s carved out a niche for himself as one of the network’s most endearing and charismatic leading men.