How & Where to Watch Polar Express in 2024: Easy Steps (2024)

It’s that time of year again, when The Polar Express is due to make a stop at your home. The Polar Express movie was released in 2004 and is an animated film based on Chris Van Allsburg’s 1985 New York Times bestseller of the same name. If you’re wondering where you can find the Warner Bros hit this holiday season, read on, as this guide shows you how and where to watch Polar Express.

A skeptical young boy (Hero Boy) discovers a magical North Pole-bound train that appears outside of his home on Christmas Eve. Hero Boy encounters a stern, punctuality-obsessed conductor (voiced by Tom Hanks) before joining the other children on the extraordinary train ride.

He has doubts about Christmas, but his belief returns after receiving the first gift of Christmas from Santa Claus himself.

The Polar Express is a heart-warming look at a boy who’s growing up and losing his Christmas spirit. The subtle lesson here is that even if you don’t believe in Christmas — or any other holiday or celebration — it doesn’t give you the right to downplay other people’s beliefs.

If you’ve yet to see the Tom Hanks animation or join in with the iconic songs, we’ll show you where you can find Polar Express streaming online. That said, some streaming services are geoblocked, so you might need to use a VPN to access the platform. This guide will show you how, using the Best VPN for streaming: ExpressVPN.

Where to Watch The Polar Express

So, where can you watch Polar Express? You can find this popular movie streaming on a few different platforms, but, as we mentioned earlier, some are geoblocked in certain regions. For instance, you can’t access the U.S. Netflix library in the U.K. It all boils down to licensing agreements, but a Virtual private network (VPN) can help you bypass them.

All you need to do is connect to a VPN server in the country where the platform is available, and you’ll be able to gain access. However, not all VPNs are clever enough to get around the blocks, so you need to choose a reliable provider — we’ve listed the top two choices further down.

Where to Stream Polar Express?

Polar Express is available on Netflix France, North Macedonia and Australia. If you already have a Netflix account but you’re not in those countries, you can hop on a VPN server located in one of those countries, log into your Netflix account and watch as usual. However, it’s only available there until end-of-day Dec. 31, 2022.

We also found Polar Express on fuboTV, which is available in the U.S., Canada and Spain, and costs $70 per month. There’s also a seven-day free trial. We were able to use a personal credit card from outside those countries to sign up for fuboTV and could even make use of the free trial.

You can also find The Polar Express on Max, which is available in the U.S., U.S. territories, a few countries within Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America. If you’re outside one of those countries, you can access Max with a VPN. If you don’t have an account yet, check out our guide on how to sign up for Max.

It’s also available on Philo, another U.S. service. It costs $25 per month, which is pretty cheap considering it includes live TV channels, and if you’re a new customer, there’s a free seven-day trial you can take advantage of.

Alternatively, you can rent or buy The Polar Express on the following platforms:

• Amazon Prime Video
• YouTube
• Google Play Movies
• Vudu
• AppleTV

Where to Watch Polar Express for Free

Although The Polar Express isn’t available on free legal streaming services such as PlutoTV or Tubi, you can find it for free on the Internet Archive website. Watching films on Internet Archive is completely legal, as the movies on there are in the public domain.

Other than that, your best bet is to use one of the free trials with the streaming services mentioned in the previous section.

How to Watch Polar Express With a VPN

By using a VPN, you can access streaming services or content that’s not available where you’re currently located. In this section, we’ll show you how to access The Polar Express on Netflix France using ExpressVPN, but you can use the steps for other VPNs and streaming services too.

The Best VPNs for Watching Polar Express

We’ve already shown you a glimpse of our favorite VPN, ExpressVPN, but in this section, we’ll go into more detail about the service. We’ll also provide a second option that is better suited to smaller budgets.

1. ExpressVPN – Best for Polar Express Movie Streaming

ExpressVPN is our top VPN recommendation for pretty much anything. Although a little pricey, it offers an unrivaled combination of security, privacy, fast speeds and streaming ability. It also has a huge server spread — though it doesn’t quite stretch to the North Pole — and is easy to use, even if you’re completely new to the VPN scene.

As we said, though, ExpressVPN isn’t cheap. Its monthly plan is on par with most competitors; but while other services offer huge savings with longer plans, ExpressVPN’s longest is just one year and only saves you around half of the cost. You can read our ExpressVPN review to learn more about the service, and there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee you can use to test drive it.

2. NordVPN – Fast VPN for Watching Polar Express Online

NordVPN is very close to ExpressVPN in terms of quality and features. However, we have a few knocks that put it in second place, such as its mobile UI. While the desktop version’s interactive map is smooth, the mobile UI is not. It’s fiddly and can be a pain to use.

That said, NordVPN provides all the security measures you would expect in a VPN service, and then some. It also has the fastest speeds available and can access streaming services with ease. If you’re on a budget, NordVPN offers an affordable two-year plan and includes a 30-day money-back guarantee. You can read our NordVPN review for more information.

Final Thoughts: The Polar Express Streaming

Whether it’s your first time joining Hero Boy on The Polar Express train journey to the North Pole or you’re a seasoned veteran, we hope this guide has given you all you need to stream one of the best Academy Award nominated Christmas movies ever.

Once you’re done with the incredible train journey to the North Pole, head over to our entertainment archive for other movie options. If you love science fiction thrillers, read our recent guide on where to watch Inception or get a Discovery+ subscription to watch Deadliest Catch if you love documentaries.

What service will you watch The Polar Express on? Will you watch it on Christmas Eve? Do you need to use a VPN? If so, which one will you choose? Let us know in the comments section and, as always, thank you for reading.

FAQ

• The Polar Express is available on Netflix France, North Macedonia and Australia, but only until the end of December 2022. Unfortunately, it’s not available on Disney Plus.

• Yes, you can watch Polar Express on Max, Philo and fuboTV.

• No, Polar Express is not available on Disney+.

• No. The Amazon Prime regions we checked do have The Polar Express, but only available to rent or purchase.