The Best Christmas Movies That Are Only Tangentially About Christmas

Okay, this one comes closest to actually being a Christmas movie. Denis Leary plays a burglar who ends up in the home of a wealthy, hateful married couple played by Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis. What follows is a night from hell with the nastiest WASPs in Connecticut, and it’s funny as hell. It also featured Glynis Johns (from Mary Poppins!) and Christina Baranski (from the subway!).

The March sisters go through many seasons as they grow up in Little Women, but one particular Christmas stands out, when their father unexpectedly returns home from the war, and Beth rallies from her scarlet fever in time to celebrate the holiday around the ol’ piano. The whole movie is actually pretty congruent with the holiday themes, like family and childhood and tradition.

With all the sex parties and pot smoking and underwear arguments going on in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, it’s easy to forget that the whole thing gets set in motion when Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman attend a Christmas party together in obviously London New York City. Next time someone suggests a Netflix-and-chill with a holiday movie, be sure to suggest this one.

An old-fashioned family Christmas, if by “old-fashioned” you mean “the 12th century,” and by “family” you mean “Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine and their three throne-usurping sons.” The Lion in Winter is a marvel of acting (Katharine Heupburn won an Oscar for playing Eleanor), dialogue, and dynastic scheming and squabbling. It’s the best-written soap opera set in a French chateau where a king constantly threatens to have his sons and estranged wife executed maybe ever.

A shiny new entry to the “actually, it’s a Christmas movie” canon, Tangerine sees two transgender women running all over Los Angeles on Christmas Eve, tracking down tricks, transacting business in a car wash, and ultimately converging upon a donut shop that will end up hosting the year’s liveliest holiday party.

Christmas lurks in the background all throughout Batman Returns, from the tree-lighting ceremony that goes so horribly wrong to Catwoman and Batman’s seductive conversation about mistletoe. Tim Burton, always so very attuned to the isolating loneliness that can accompany the holidays, really brings that through without drawing attention to it. Think the Christmas decorations in Selina Kyle’s sad little one-bedroom.

It’s a Christmas holiday in New York for Nick and Nora Charles that sets the scene for the murder mystery in The Thin Man. As fine a way to spend the holidays as the movies have ever produced.

I hardly EVER think of While You Were Sleeping as a Christmas movie. Yet Lucy (Sandra Bullock) rescues Peter (Peter Gallagher) from the elevated train on Christmas Day, because Lucy was working on the holiday because she had no family to celebrate with. This is also the second film on this list that co-stars Glynis Johns.

Before we get into Die Hard, I should mention that Shane Black’s entire action-comedy oeuvre is fond of the unexpected Christmas movie. Lethal Weapon ends on Christmas Day. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang also takes place around the holidays. “I’ve always liked [Christmas], especially in thrillers, for some reason,” Black once said in an interview. “It’s a touch of magic.” Which must make Die Hard the most magical film of all, since it’s positively bursting with Christmas, from the Nakatomi Christmas party to the tried-and-true holiday theme of a family fighting through obstacles to spend the holiday together. The question of whether Die Hard is actually a Christmas movie used to be hotly debated, but by now the debate is over: it is.

Gremlins is a GREAT Christmas movie. The whole premise of the story begins with a Christmas gift. The small-town-during-the-holidays vibe permeates the early scenes. Yes, it’s a darkly comic tale. That’s why Phoebe Cates’ character’s story about how she found out there’s no Santa Claus sounds like a joke, but it’s just so dark. You may not be able to slip this one into the rotation with Scrooge and It’s a Wonderful Life without ruffling a few family feathers, but just know that they’re wrong, you’re right, and Gremlins is a great Christmas movie.