7 Off-the-Beaten-Path Christmas Films for Movie Lovers of All Kinds

Around this time of year, all the major media outlets (at least those dedicated to movies) come up with their own lists of favorite Christmas movies, and inevitably, the same few dozen appear over and over again: Love Actually, Elf, A Christmas Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, and, yes, even Die Hard. All charming films that perfectly capture the holiday spirit, but after years and even decades of seeing the same movie every year, some audiences seek out variety and possibly even new holiday traditions.

We at FilmFrog know all kinds of corners of film history, and we figured that, for those of you looking for something a little bit different this holiday season, our gift to you could be a selection of some off-the-beaten-path Christmas movies - films that you won’t find on every list but nonetheless still embody a very specific holiday mood. These films won’t be for everybody, though, so to make things a little easier, we decided to split it up according to whatever personality you have, starting with…

For the Classic Hollywood fan…The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)

The Christmas season has no shortage of classics that came out of the old Hollywood era, from It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street to any iteration of A Christmas Carol, but for those looking for something with a little more bite, check out the 1942 film The Man Who Came to Dinner. The adaptation of the Moss Hart and George S.  Kaufman play features a number of notable stars from the era such as Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, and Jimmy Durante, but the film really belongs to Monty Wooley. Wooley plays a noteworthy radio personality with an acerbic wit who breaks his leg after slipping on the ice outside the home of a prominent family in small-town Ohio. Instead of leaving the town, he takes advantage of the family’s kindness by demanding to recover in their home and turning their Christmas holiday into a waking nightmare with his incessant demands and constant influx of eccentric guests. Wooley dominates the film much like his character, but as terrible as he can be at times, he’s such a magnetic presence that the film stays wildly entertaining.

For the film noir fan…Blast of Silence (1961)

At a period when studios stopped turning out the dark crime films of the late-40s and early-50s, writer/director/star Allen Baron pieced together enough funds ($20,000, or around $200K today) to make his own rough, hard-boiled film on the streets of New York City using equipment smuggled into the U.S. from Cuba. The film follows Frankie Bono, a low-rent hitman working with the Mafia tasked with taking out a middle-management mobster in NYC. There’s a surfeit of style and delightfully hard-boiled philosophical narration written by blacklisted screenwriter Waldo Salt and performed by gravel-voiced Lionel Stander that all adds up to make it a strong, suspenseful noir picture at the end of the original cycle of noir films. But what really makes the film stands out is the fact that Frankie arrives in NYC the week before Christmas, and as he wanders the streets (all done in tracking shots captured without permits), you get a great snapshot of mid-century NYC during the holiday season, adding a great contrast to the overall bleak atmosphere of the film.

For the Francophile…The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

Jacques Demy’s expressionistic musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg has been famous since its release for the beauty of its art direction, the simplicity of its lovers-torn-apart story, and the cleverness of all the dialogue being sung-through. But much like great Christmas films like The Shop Around the Corner and Meet Me in St. Louis, the film has an emotional final scene taking place in the snow at Christmas time that never fails to bring tears to audience members worldwide. We won’t spoil the ending here for anybody who has yet to see the film, but the atmosphere of this final scene and the emotions it conjures make it a beautifully melancholic way to ring in the Christmas season.

For the Bad Movie fan…Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny (1972)

Maybe you like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, or maybe you’re a fan of the Mexican movie Santa Claus where Santa fights the devil, but do you think you’re enough of a bad movie fan to witness the horror that is Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny? This inexplicable fever dream of a film was produced by Pirates World, a pre-Disney World Orlando theme park, and spends well over an hour with a very tired, delirious Santa sitting in his sleigh in the sand in Florida. He telepathically calls upon a local group of children to try to help get his sleigh unstuck, and one by one, they bring up a number of barnyard animals (including one guy in a gorilla suit), but the sleigh is just too deep into the sand to get it out. That is, until the unexplained Ice Cream Bunny(?), who’s described as Santa’s old friend(??), drives his antique fire truck (???) down on the beach to rescue Santa. That’s a fairly basic plot summary, but much like the films of Abbas Kiarostami, Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny is a mood piece first and foremost, and that mood is one of sun-baked delirium, infecting the brain of the viewer just like it’s clearly driving the poor actor playing Santa insane as well. It’s a baffling experience, and one that’s sure to entertain anybody who loves films deemed “so bad they’re good.”

For the “Die Hard is a Christmas movie” guy…Deadly Games a.k.a. Dial Code Santa Claus (1989)

Ever since its release in 1988, a certain question emerges every holiday season: “Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?” In the last decade or so, it seems like the general consensus answered that question with a firm yes, and it continues to pop up on lists of the greatest Christmas films with little controversy. But what about people looking for the excitement of a Die Hard or Lethal Weapon without returning to those films yet again? For them, we recommend a bizarre French thriller from 1989 called Deadly Games, about a rich boy who loves action movies who fights to protect his house from a home invader he believes is Santa Claus. The film has the aesthetics of a Tony Scott action film, but the chase scenes between the intruder and the young boy (as well as his nearly-blind grandfather) are genuinely terrifying and impressive that the filmmakers don’t shy away from the danger of the situation. And as exciting as the action can be, director Rene Manzor also doesn’t shy away from the traumatizing effects such an encounter would have on a child. And for a film that never saw a North American release until the mid-2010s, it’s impressive that they got Bonnie Tyler for the movie’s theme song!

For the Urban Haute Bourgeoise…Metropolitan (1990)

Whit Stillman’s debut feature proved he emerged from the gate a fully formed filmmaker, with all his stylistic tics and narrative preoccupations on display in 1990’s Metropolitan, a comedy of manners about a group of upper-class debutantes (who give themselves the self-coined name of the Urban Haute Bourgeoise, or UHB) and a young man from a middle-class background desperate to join them. While the film is about class and the contrast between those who have money and those who don’t, Stillman’s compassionate eye and talent for arch dialogue keep the characters from ever becoming too unlikable. Even more impressive, the film is about extremely wealthy people but was all shot on an extremely low budget, meaning that much of the movie takes place in only a small handful of NYC apartments. The opening title card “Manhattan, Christmas vacation, not so long ago,” tells us everything we need to know about these characters: They’re rich, they’re celebrating a holiday, and they’re also already stuck in the past, a class of people on their way out of the cultural landscape rather than continuing to gain social stature. It’s equal parts funny, angry, and sad, and the holiday atmosphere infects every scene of parties and after-parties.

For those truly looking for something weird…We Wish You a Turtle Christmas (1994)

I don’t know where this video comes from. I don’t know who the people who made it are and why they put this together, but in 1994, Family Home Entertainment released a live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Christmas special, for seemingly no reason other than somebody owed somebody else something involving both the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Christmas. The Turtles are portrayed by men in costumes, as in the live-action film series, but instead of suits created by the Jim Henson Company, these costumes have piercing eyes and permanently broken jaws that cause their mouths to flap open and shut regardless of if the character is talking. The plot, such as it is, involves the Turtles needing to get a gift for their master, Splinter, but plot truly does not matter here. Instead, the video is a clothesline for about 10 songs in the span of 22 minutes, most of which are Christmas standards with “Ninja Turtles”-style lyrics plugged in. “Deck the halls with pepperoni” sung in an unexplained Jamaican patois. “Twelve Days of Christmas” but with pizza and skateboards instead of birds. The titular “We Wish You a Turtle Christmas.” You might find little clips from this short video online, but watching the full thing in its entirety is bound to make anyone go mad. We can’t recommend it, but we can absolutely make you aware of its existence, and guarantee that you’ll never forget it.