It's a classic holiday tradition: gathering kith and kin to tread to the cinemas or gather around the television screen to watch a seasonal favorite. As comforting as the old standbys from Rankin/Bass, Disney and other studios can be, perhaps Christmas 2022 is the year to try some festive cinematic alternatives? (And let us please not re-litigate the tired "Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?" debate, which has become an annual tradition in and of itself.)
Here are some other options to shake up your yuletide viewing schedule. The possibilities are numerous — Wikipedia's entry on Christmas films has 123 titles, and its list of films set around Christmastime is even longer. Among this merry multitude are a handful of unconventional holiday films that could become new perennial viewing for you and your family, depending on your tastes.
To start with a more mainstream option, consider giving the Tim Burton-produced The Nightmare Before Christmas the year off, and opt instead for the Tim Burton-directed Batman Returns. Though it was controversial among family groups for its gothic darkness upon its release in 1992, the film has had something of a critical reclamation in recent years. Set during the holiday season, the movie is moody, baroque and a little (a lot?) kinky, but undeniably festive all the same. Like many a good holiday film, it's imbued with an inherent sadness that hangs over the proceedings like snow clouds.
Other alternative Christmas-set big Hollywood fare you could consider for your seasonal viewing menu: Stanley Kubrick's erotic dream odyssey Eyes Wide Shut (best watched with a brandy eggnog after the kids are in bed), Spielberg's delightful conman caper Catch Me if You Can, DC cinematic universe superhero flick Shazam!, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), and practically anything from action auteur Shane Black (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Lethal Weapon, and plenty more — even Iron Man 3).
On the artsier side of holiday cinema is Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai's sumptuous sci-fi 2046, a spiritual sequel to the director's period romances Days of Being Wild and In the Mood for Love. The Christmas holiday serves as a recurring narrative fulcrum point in this romantic drama, whose non-linear plot folds in on itself like origami. As with his earlier work, many of Kar-wai's trademarks are present: an all-star cast including Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Gong Li, Maggie Cheung, and Zhang Ziyi, themes of lust and longing, characters languorously smoking a seemingly endless supply of cigarettes, impeccable neon-soaked cinematography, and lots and lots of sex.
While it might not technically be arthouse, 1961's lean, nasty Blast of Silence does boast a spine in the esteemed Criterion Collection (though it is currently unstreamable and hard to find). The film noir follows a hitman over the Christmas holiday as he seeks to accomplish an archetypal "one last job." The movie's cynical tone is hammered home by its borderline-over-the-top hard-boiled narration, with dialogue like "Remembering out of the black silence, you were born in pain," and "Lose yourself in the Christmas spirit with the rest of the suckers." At only 77 minutes, the film is a jet-black morsel. As feel-bad Christmas movies go, you couldn't find a better one.
Perhaps unexpectedly, there's a sizable volume of Christmas-set horror films, from the recent Krampus to the classic black comedy Gremlins to a whole glut of risible schlock like Santa's Slay and Silent Night, Deadly Night. One that may have eluded your Grinch-y tastes is Black Christmas (the 1974 original, not either of the 21st century remakes). Believe it or not, Black Christmas comes from the mind of Bob Clark, best known for perennial cable-TV marathon staple A Christmas Story. The thriller follows a group of sorority sisters who are menaced over the phone and gradually picked off one by one by a killer they call "The Moaner." It's widely considered one of, if not the first North American slasher film, establishing many of the tropes and techniques that would appear in John Carpenter's Halloween four years later. Film buffs will recognize a handful of familiar faces among the cast of Black Christmas: Margot Kidder (Superman), Keir Dullea (2001: A Space Odyssey), and exploitation icon John Saxon.
There's clearly something inherently cinematic about the holiday season, with its bright lights, decorations, annual rites and ability to inspire feelings of either warmth and nostalgia or isolation and existential anxiety. These films exemplify just how varied a late-December-set movie can be, and they're only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to worthy substitutes for the usual go-tos. So go ahead, pop one of these on and lose yourself in the Christmas spirit with the rest of the suckers. ♦
