Every December television channels regularly air the holiday classics “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “The Bells of St. Mary’s” and “Miracle on 34th Street” alongside contemporary favorites like “Christmas Vacation,” “Love Actually” and “Elf.”
Christmas is an easy gateway for family films and romantic comedies of the Bing Crosby and Tim Allen variety, but movie fans might be in the mood for something a little less predictable this holiday season. Fortunately, there are plenty of fantastic movies with holiday ties to choose from.
Bruce Willis’ breakthrough as an action star, “Die Hard,” is a perfect blend of action on Christmas night and still lives up in quality 26 years later. Another action classic, “Lethal Weapon,” also stars Mel Gibson as Danny Glover’s unlikely partner during the holiday season.
The three-story indie film, “Go” from 1999, follows Sarah Polley, Katie Holmes and Timothy Olyphant around the LA rave scene on Dec. 24–26. Steven Spielberg’s fun, retro biopic “Catch Me If You Can” features a handful of important scenes between Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks on Christmas Eve. And Andrew McCarthy, Jami Gertz and Robert Downey Jr. get caught in a downward spiral of cocaine and partying while on winter break in Marek Kanievska’s adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ “Less Than Zero.”
In film icon Stanley Kubrick’s final film, “Eyes Wide Shut,” Tom Cruise becomes involved with a surreal and sensual cult in the middle of Christmas season. The audience is introduced to the title characters of Ingmar Bergman’s “Fanny and Alexander” during a gorgeous Christmas party in Sweden. Jacques Demy’s French musical “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” features Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo reuniting on Christmas Eve. Sandra Bullock is torn between on-screen brothers Bill Pullman and Peter Gallagher in December of “While You Were Sleeping.”
Woody Allen’s seasonal musical “Everyone Says I Love You” with himself, Goldie Hawn, Julia Roberts, Natasha Lyonne and Alan Alda, concludes in Europe on Christmas week. Frank Capra’s 1941 classic “Meet John Doe” has Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper exposing a fake suicide plot set for Christmas Eve. The first in a long series of pairings between William Powell and Myrna Loy, W.S. van Dyke’s “The Thin Man,” has the duo as detective and wife in the middle of solving a murder before Christmas night. Curtis Hanson’s 1997 crime masterpiece “L.A. Confidential” follows the LAPD around the 1951 holiday season solving a series of murders.
Between the shopping, decorating and partying, the holiday season can be a wonderful time of year for movie watching. Merry Christmas to movie fanatics.
mbianco@durangoherald.com. Megan Bianco is a movie reviewer and also contributes other entertainment related features and articles.