Non-Obvious Christmas Movies?

Every year I try to come up with some appropriate film reviews for the Christmas season. But I have to admit that it isn’t always the easiest thing in the world to come up with films to review. Halloween is easy; any old horror film or monster movie will do. Christmas is considerably tougher, since — as I discussed previously — there are only a few things that really count as Christmas films, or even films with a Christmas setting. Now, granted, there are a lot of Christmas movies out there, but most of them are made-for-TV dreck (The 12 Dates of Christmas? No thanks.)

Most years, I exhaust my planned selections (the ones I’m able to line up in advance) before I even hit double digits — that’s how hard it is to find films that are Christmas appropriate, and not obvious trash, and available without cutting into my Christmas present funds. So I’m putting out the call for suggestions.

Now, if something has the word “Christmas”, “Holiday”, “Claus”, or “Scrooge” in it, it’s pretty easy to find. If it’s on Hulu, DishAnywhere, Yahoo, the Internet Archive, or the TV, I can just enter one of those words into the appropriate search engine and it’ll turn up. That much is easy. But not every Christmas film has a Christmas word in the title — consider the classics It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street. Or consider Gremlins — nobody would look at that title and think “Hey, that’s set at Christmas.” Whereas something like Jingle All the Way is reasonably obvious.

I can look for these films as easily as the others, but only if I know they exist and are either Christmas films or films with a Christmas setting. That’s where you come in. I’m betting at least a few of you know of some good, possibly obscure Christmas-appropriate films that don’t have an obvious Christmas title. I’m aware that some of these will be on the order of Die Hard, where Christmas is merely the time of year the film is set in — but as long as the film begins and ends in that season, that’s OK. (Stretching from Christmas to New Year’s Eve is fine, too.) And obviously with only a little over a week left ’til Christmas I won’t necessarily get to all of the suggestions — particularly if they turn out to not be available for free streaming or TV viewing — but chances are I’ll manage one or two. And if nothing else, it’s fodder for next year so hopefully the search won’t be as difficult that time around.

And just to cut down on duplicates, and to help out anybody else making a similar search, here are some that I know of already. Films already reviewed here are linked to.

Films with only a weak connection to Christmas — i.e., the Die Hard type — are marked with an asterisk (*). Films where I’m unsure how Christmassy they are (due to not having seen them) are marked with a question mark (?). If you’ve seen any of those films and can say whether they’re actually about Christmas or are merely set at Christmas, or if you otherwise have a correction or addition, please let me know.

• 3 Godfathers (?)
• The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (only the Wind in the Willows segment) *
• All Mine to Give (?)
• An Affair to Remember *
• Auntie Mame
• Babes in Toyland (1934) *
• Babes in Toyland (1954) (TV)
• Babes in Toyland (1961)
• Babes in Toyland (1986)
• Babes in Toyland (1997)
• Bachelor Mother (1939) *
• Batman Returns *
• Bell, Book and Candle (?)
• The Bells of St. Mary’s *
• Beyond Tomorrow
• The Bishop’s Wife
• Bundle of Joy (?)
• Die Hard *
• Die Hard 2: Die Harder *
• Eight Crazy Nights (Hannukah and Christmas together)
• The Family Man
• The Family Stone
• Fitzwilly
• Frozen River *
• The Great Rupert
• Gremlins *
• Home Alone
• Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
• Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House (TV)
• The Ice Harvest (?)
• I’ll Be Seeing You (?)
• In Bruges *
• In the Good Old Summertime *
• Invasion U.S.A. *
• Iron Man 3 *
• It Happened on Fifth Avenue
• It’s a Wonderful Life
• Just Friends
• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang *
• The Lemon Drop Kid
• Less than Zero *
• Lethal Weapon *
• The Lion in Winter *
• The Long Kiss Goodnight *
• Love Actually
• Love Affair (1939) *
• Mame
• The Man Who Came to Dinner
• Meet John Doe
• Meet Me in St. Louis
• Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
• Miracle on 34th Street (1959) (TV)
• Miracle on 34th Street (1973) (TV)
• Miracle on 34th Street (1994)
• Mixed Nuts
• Mon Oncle Antoine (?)
• On Her Majesty’s Secret Service *
• One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) *
• Only You (1992) *
• Period of Adjustment
• The Polar Express
• Prancer
• The Preacher’s Wife
• The Ref
• Reindeer Games *
• Remember the Night
• Rise of the Guardians *
• Rocky IV *
• The Shop Around the Corner (?)
• Susan Slept Here (?)
• Tenth Avenue Angel (?)
• The Thin Man *
• Toy Story That Time Forgot (TV special) *
• Trancers *
• Trapped in Paradise
• Unaccompanied Minors
• We’re No Angels (1955)

That’s what I know of off the top of my head. The list will be updated as I receive suggestions. I’m sure some of you know of some good Christmassy films that have non-obvious titles. Let me know in the comments, and thank you.