From Gremlins to Lethal Weapon: Top 15 non-festive Christmas films to enjoy this year
There’s no shortage of Christmas-themed films out there, every year brings a fresh flurry of snow-capped stories of merriment and kindness of the soul.
But not everybody necessarily wants to have their spirits warmed and their goodwill to all men replenished when they choose a flick to watch at winter time.
Fortunately, there are many films out there that tick everybody’s boxes – both those who want something with a smattering of seasonal spirit and those who fancy a flick that embraces themes beyond tinsel and turkey.
Here’s our selection of some of the best non-Christmas, Christmas films...
Trading Places
Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd at their absolute best, as a down-and-out beggar and a wealthy stockbroker respectively, whose lives are swapped when two millionaires make a bet on how they would turn out.
Exploring themes such as whether nature or nurture is the dominant influence on somebody’s life, greed, and corruption, it is a fantastic film that’s played out against the backdrop of the New York Stock Exchange at Christmas time in the 1980s.
The centrepiece of the film is surely the glitzy Christmas party at which Aykroyd, cast out onto the street and abandoned by those he loves, hits rock bottom, all while dressed as Father Christmas and with a whole side of salmon stuffed into his fake beard.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Another 80s masterpiece which is not about Christmas, but is ideal viewing for the time of year, Planes, Trains and Automobiles stars John Candy and Steve Martin as two men who are forced together in their attempts to cross America after bad weather leaves them stranded in Wichita three days before Thanksgiving.
Candy’s loud-mouthed curtain ring salesman drives advertising executive Neal, played by Martin, to the edge of distraction, as they attempt to get back to Chicago.
The real journey, of course, is a spiritual one, but watching two comedy masters bickering their way across a snow-clogged USA is wonderful to watch.
Lethal Weapon
The age-old discussion of whether Die Hard truly counts as a Christmas film purely because it is set on Christmas Eve will surely never be settled, but let’s throw another action movie into the mix.
Lethal Weapon pitches mismatched cops Mel Gibson and Danny Glover together on the tail of a drug gang, in a fast-paced script handled with ease by Shane Black.
The fact that this all takes place at Christmas time is almost irrelevant, but it doesn’t half inject a festive feel into the panoply of explosions, gun-fights and sharp-tongued dialogue.
About A Boy
Hugh Grant began his adaptation from foppish ladies’ man to foppish-but-slightly-devious ladies’ man with this Nick Hornby adaptation in 2002.
Also starring a young Nicholas Hoult – who has since grown to become a star in his own right with roles in Mad Max and X-Men – it tells the story of a feckless womaniser who accidentally becomes tangled up in the lives of an unfortunate youth and his depressed mother, played by Toni Collette.
