How to watch Hallmark Channel Movies in Australia

Whether you think it’s so bad it’s good, or truly thrilling television, the Hallmark Channel’s enormous collection of romance, mystery and Christmas flicks are absurdly popular.

The Hallmark Channel is most popular in the U.S., but a lot of that love has migrated to our shores here in Australia.

The problem is, ever since Foxtel canned the Hallmark channel and replaced it with the Universal Channel, tracking down Hallmark movies in Australia has become a mystery worthy of its own steamy romp.

Fed up with the overwhelming absence of Hallmark movies in Australia, one proactive Australian kicked off a petition calling for Foxtel to bring the Hallmark Channel back. And you can’t blame them for their desperate plea. Firstly, Hallmark’s streaming service, Hallmark Movies Now, isn’t available here and there don’t appear to be any plans for a local launch.

Secondly, the local distribution for Hallmark Channel movies is all over the place. There’s a smattering of older Hallmark movies spread out across Australia’s various streaming services, but more recent releases are almost non-existent.

There is, however, one Australian streaming service that appeared again and again in our quest for that Hallmark gold: Amazon Prime Video.

Here’s everything we could find about watching Hallmark movies in Australia.

Note: There are simply too many Hallmark movies to choose from. We’ve selected a handful of recent releases, and some of the most popular Hallmark movies to give you an idea of where to stream them.

Option 1: Prime Video

The best streaming service for Hallmark movies.

Out of the 35 movies we searched, 23 of them were available to stream on Amazon Prime Video in Australia. Prime Video is home to a few of Hallmark’s murder-mystery collections (Mystery 101, Picture Perfect Mysteries and Ruby Herring Mysteries to name a few), but also a few festive Hallmark Christmas movies, such as Christmas Encore and Christmas In Evergreen.

Amazon Prime Video only costs $6.99 per month, making it one of the cheapest streaming services available, and has a 30-day free trial.

Not only is it your best option for watching Hallmark movies in Australia, we think it’s the best streaming service available full-stop. It’s home to some of the best movies from the last few years and is no slouch in the original TV series department.

Here’s the list of Hallmark Channel movies we found streaming on Amazon Prime Video:

Option 2: Binge and Foxtel

Foxtel Now might be the best streaming service for Hallmark Christmas movies.

The next two services on our list are Binge and Foxtel. Our search only pulled up two results for Binge, Crossword Mysteries: Proposing Murder and Crossword Mysteries: A Puzzle to Die For. As thrilling as those puzzling adventures sound, you don’t need to consult the Merriam-Webster to know it’s not much, though there could be more in the back-catalogue.

Flip the page to Foxtel Now and you’ll find a richer trove of Hallmark Movies. In our limited search, there were a total of 10 movies available on Foxtel Now.

The issue is, Binge is a much better streaming service overall. In our opinion, you get more bang for your buck with Binge, regardless of its Hallmark collection. With that said, if it’s specifically Hallmark Christmas movies you want to stream, the concentration of festive flicks was much higher on Foxtel Now than it was on Prime Video.

Foxtel Now will cost you anywhere from $25 per month to $105 per month, whereas Binge is priced more like Netflix and Stan, with three plan tiers at $10, $14 and $18 that offer one, two and four simultaneous streams, respectively.

Lastly, Stan also appeared in our search, but only two of the 35 movies we checked were available: Welcome to Christmas (2018) and Sister of the Bride (2019).

Option 3: Use a VPN to access Hallmark Movies Now

If you’re completely desperate for a more robust collection of Hallmark movies, there’s also the option of using a VPN to access Hallmark’s streaming service, Hallmark Movies Now, from Australia.

Do so at your own risk, accessing Hallmark Movies Now via a VPN goes against the Terms of Service, which means you could have your subscription cancelled at a moment’s notice with no grounds for a refund.

Admittedly, we’ve not tested streaming Hallmark Movies Now via a VPN ourselves, but we do have guides on accessing other U.S. services, like Hulu and HBO Max, and the steps are essentially the same. You will be charged US$5.99 per month if you do successfully sign up to Hallmark Movies Now, but there’s also a seven-day free trial if you want to take it for a whirl.

At such a low monthly cost, and with a free seven-day trial, accessing Hallmark Movies Now is pretty low risk, all things considered.