Two broken hearts, two houses and the snowiest cottage in film history. Only one problem: you can’t book it. Every December, a certain kind of movie comes back into our living rooms. Fireplaces, snow, a little heartbreak and a happy ending. Among them, one has quietly become a seasonal ritual for millions of women: the film where two strangers swap lives for Christmas.
In 2006, Nancy Meyers’ The Holiday sent Cameron Diaz’s Amanda from her Los Angeles mansion to a snowy English cottage, while Kate Winslet’s Iris landed in sunny California. Jude Law played Graham, Iris’s charming brother, and Jack Black played Miles, a film composer. Now the film is returning to U.S. theaters on Dec. 11 for its 20th anniversary, Sony Pictures announced, with Fathom Entertainment handling the release.
The Cottage Everyone Wanted to Rent
For two decades, fans have searched for Rosehill Cottage, Iris’s chocolate-box home in the English countryside. People have looked for it on maps, in travel guides and on rental sites, hoping to recreate Amanda’s arrival in the snow.
The bad news came from Jude Law himself, in a BBC radio interview in 2024. “That cottage doesn’t exist,” he said. Meyers, whom he called “a bit of a perfectionist,” had toured the area and “didn’t quite find the chocolate box cottage she’s looking for.” So, he explained, “she just hired a field and drew it and had someone build it.”
Built in a Field, Filmed in L.A.
Even the inside of the cottage was an illusion. The exterior scenes were shot in the English winter, but “we shot the interiors in L.A. about three months later,” Law said. The cozy fireplace, the creaky stairs and the window seat were all a set on the other side of the world.
It is a very Nancy Meyers twist. Her films are famous for their interiors, the kitchens and living rooms that inspire entire Pinterest boards. In The Holiday, the most beloved of them was imagined from scratch, which somehow makes it even more of a fantasy.
Why We Keep Coming Back
Twenty years on, The Holiday works because it is about more than romance. It is about leaving your own life for a while and finding out who you are somewhere else. And, of course, it is about two houses so perfect they feel like characters. That pull is the same one that makes real celebrity hideaways so fascinating, like Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell’s Colorado log home.
How to Bring the Cottage Home
You cannot rent Rosehill Cottage, but you can borrow its mood. Layer soft throws and mismatched cushions on one chair by the window. Use warm, low lighting instead of a ceiling light. Stack a few books and a teapot where you can see them. Add one simple seasonal touch, a bowl of pine cones or a small centerpiece, the low-effort way Catherine Zeta-Jones does hers. Then book tickets for Dec. 11 and bring the friend you would swap houses with. The lesson worth borrowing is that cozy is a feeling, not an address.
The Bottom Line
In 2006, they swapped homes in The Holiday. Twenty years later, the film returns to theaters on Dec. 11, and that cottage never existed, except in a field, for one winter, and in our hearts every December since.
