A Holiday Tour de Force: Exploring Overlooked Christmas Movies

A factor that bothers me about a lot of modern seasonal features is their overly self-awareness – the over-the-top ornaments, the formulaic score selections, and the canned conversations about the essence of the season. It could be because the genre was not yet hardened into routine, films from the 1940s often approach Yuletide from far more imaginative and not as obsessive perspectives.

It Happened on Fifth Avenue

A cherished find from exploring 1940s seasonal films is It Happened on Fifth Avenue, a 1947 romantic tale with a clever hook: a jovial hobo winters in a unoccupied luxurious estate each year. During one cold spell, he welcomes fellow down-on-their-luck individuals to live with him, including a former GI and a young woman who happens to be the heiress of the home's wealthy owner. Helmer Roy Del Ruth gives the film with a surrogate family warmth that numerous modern Christmas films strive to earn. This story expertly balances a socially aware story on affordable living and a delightful metropolitan fantasy.

Godfathers in Tokyo

Satoshi Kon's 2003 animated film Tokyo Godfathers is a engaging, heartbreaking, and profound take on the holiday story. Inspired by a western film, it follows a triumvirate of displaced souls – an alcoholic, a transgender woman, and a teenage runaway – who come across an abandoned baby on a snowy December night. Their journey to reunite the baby's family triggers a sequence of unexpected events involving yakuza, immigrants, and seemingly serendipitous connections. The animation doubles down on the wonder of chance typically found in seasonal stories, presenting it with a cinematic animation that avoids saccharine sentiment.

Meet John Doe

While Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life rightly gets a lot of praise, his earlier work Meet John Doe is a notable holiday story in its own right. With Gary Cooper as a charismatic drifter and Barbara Stanwyck as a resourceful writer, the film begins with a fake missive from a man threatening to jump from a ledge on the holiday in protest. The people's embrace compels the reporter to hire a man to play the invented "John Doe," who subsequently becomes a country-wide symbol for kindness. The narrative serves as both an uplifting tale and a sharp skewering of wealthy businessmen seeking to exploit public sentiment for personal gain.

The Silent Partner

Whereas Christmas slasher films are now plentiful, the holiday crime caper remains a relatively underpopulated subgenre. This makes the 1978 feature The Silent Partner a fresh surprise. With a superbly sinister Christopher Plummer as a bank-robbing Santa Claus and Elliott Gould as a unassuming bank clerk, the story pits two kinds of morally ambiguous oddballs against each other in a stylish and unpredictable tale. Mainly unseen upon its original release, it deserves rediscovery for those who like their Christmas stories with a cold atmosphere.

Christmas Almost

For those who enjoy their Christmas gatherings dysfunctional, Almost Christmas is a blast. Featuring a stellar ensemble that includes Danny Glover, Mo'Nique, and JB Smoove, the movie examines the tensions of a family compelled to spend five days under one roof during the holidays. Private issues bubble to the surface, culminating in scenes of extreme humor, such as a dinner where a shotgun is produced. Ultimately, the narrative finds a heartwarming resolution, offering all the entertainment of a seasonal catastrophe without any of the personal aftermath.

Go

Doug Liman's 1999 feature Go is a Yuletide-adjacent story that functions as a youthful take on interconnected stories. Although some of its edginess may feel product of the 90s upon a modern viewing, the film nonetheless offers several things to enjoy. These include a composed performance from Sarah Polley to a captivating performance by Timothy Olyphant as a dangerous pusher who fittingly sports a Santa hat. It embodies a very style of late-90s movie attitude set against a holiday setting.

Morgan's Creek Miracle

Preston Sturges's wartime film The Miracle of Morgan's Creek forgoes typical seasonal sentimentality in favor for cheeky humor. The story centers on Betty Hutton's Trudy Kockenlocker, who finds herself expecting after a drunken night but cannot identify the man involved. Much of the comedy comes from her condition and the attempts of Eddie Bracken's lovestruck Norval Jones to help her. While not obviously a Christmas movie at the start, the story winds up on the Christmas, revealing that Sturges has created a satirical take of the Christmas story, loaded with his signature satirical humor.

The Film Better Off Dead

This 1985 adolescent movie starring John Cusack, Better Off Dead, is a prime example of its era. Cusack's